J-CROWN

The 'J-Crown' (also known as 'J-Crown Championship') was formed originally by New Japan Pro Wrestling as a way of unifying eight non-heavyweight titles from several different organizations. The J-Crown tournament was held over four nights, from August 2nd to August 5th 1996.

Contents

Championships

The J-Crown Tournament

Title history

End of the J-Crown

Trivia

Championships

Championship	Promotion	Held by
British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Championship	Michinoku Pro Wrestling	Jushin Liger
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship	New Japan Pro Wrestling	The Great Sasuke
NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship	New Japan Pro Wrestling	Masayoshi Motegi
NWA World Welterweight Championship	Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre	Negro Casas
UWA World Light Heavyweight Championship	Universal Wrestling Association	Shinjiro Ohtani
WAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship	Wrestle Association R	Ultimo Dragon
WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship	World Wrestling Association	Gran Hamada
WWF Light Heavyweight Championship	World Wrestling Federation	El Samurai

The J-Crown Tournament

Title history

'Wrestler:'	'Defeated:'	'Date:'	'Place:'
The Great Sasuke	Ultimo Dragon	August 5 1996	Tokyo (Tournament final)
Ultimo Dragon	The Great Sasuke	October 11 1996	Osaka
Jushin Liger	Ultimo Dragon	January 4 1997	Tokyo
El Samurai	Jushin Liger	July 6 1997	Sapporo
Shinjiro Otani	El Samurai	August 10 1997	Nagoya

End of the J-Crown

The J-Crown was defended for just over a year. When Jushin Liger was champion, he ended up losing the International Junior Heavyweight Championship to Yuuji Yasuraoka. However, Liger continued to defend the J-Crown with seven titles instead of eight.
Five months later, as the WWF was getting ready to introduce a new Light Heavyweight title, they became aware that the original Light Heavyweight Championship belt was no longer in their possession. (The physical belt had long since been used in New Japan Pro Wrestling for one of their titles.) WWF demanded that Shinjiro Otani, the current J-Crown Holder, return the belt to them immediately. He did so on October 5, 1997. On the same day, he also vacated all of the remaining titles, except for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, effectively ending the J-Crown.

Trivia

★ The longest J-Crown reign was Jushin Liger, at 6 months, 2 days.

★ Every J-Crown title holder was part of the original 8 tournament participants.

★ Despite being called the NWA Welterweight title, it was actually governed by Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre. Along the same line, the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title was, at the time, being governed by Wrestle Dream Factory.

★ The British Commonwealth title, WWF World Light Heavyweight and UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight titles were all being used by New Japan Pro Wrestling.