On June 15, 2002, Major League Wrestling held an eight-man single-eliminationtournament to crown the first MLW Champion at its inaugural Genesis event. Jerry Lynn, Shane Douglas, Vampiro and Taiyo Kea advanced to the semifinals. Douglas defeated Lynn to advance to the finals, and caused the match between Vampiro and Kea to be declared a no contest. As a result, both wrestlers advanced to the finals for a three-way dance. Douglas defeated both Kea and Vampiro to become the first champion. Afterwards, Douglas threw the title down, like he did with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Referee John Finnegan threatened that Douglas would be banned from wrestling in Philadelphia, if he didn't defend the title. MLW went on hiatus for three months. Upon the company's return, Satoshi Kojima defeated Jerry Lynn in New York City, New York at MLW Reload on September 26 for the vacant MLW World Heavyweight Championship. Court Bauer would later confirm that this title lineage and belt design was a separate championship from the MLW Championship won by Shane Douglas in June 2002. As such, Kojima was recognised as the first MLW World Heavyweight Champion. Kojima defended the title in his home promotion All Japan Pro Wrestling, with the defenses airing on both MLW Underground TV and AJPW broadcasts in Japan. Kojima lost the title at Hybrid Hell on June 20, 2003 to Mike Awesome. Afterwards, Awesome lost the title to Steve Corino, as Corino exercised Awesome's promise for a title shot. It was later reported that Kojima's employers, AJPW would not allow him to drop the title to an employee of a rival company Pro Wrestling Zero1, which was Steve Corino. Corino remained champion until the promotion closed on February 10, 2004. MLW resumed wrestling operations in July 2017. In January 2018, MLW announced its Road tothe World Championship, an eight-man single-elimination tournament to crown a new champion. During the tournament, ACH replaced Tom Lawlor in the semi-finals, after he suffered an injury. On April 12, Shane Strickland defeated Matt Riddle in The World Championship Finals. Low Ki made the first international title defense since 2003 in Claremont, Australia, as he defeated Jonah Rock on November 30 in a New Horizon Pro Wrestling event. Starting in July 2019, MLW would begin playing a Championship Lineage video highlighting all previous MLW World Heavyweight Champions before sanctioned Championship matches. This lineage package would once again confirm Shane Douglas as not recognised as part of the MLW World Heavyweight Championship History.
Road to the Championship tournament (2018)
Reigns
As of ,, there have been 7 reigns and 1 vacancies. Satoshi Kojima was the inaugural champion, defeating Jerry Lynn at MLW Reload in September 2002. The current champion is Jacob Fatu who is the longest reigning champion at + days.
