IWGP Heavyweight Championship

The IWGP Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling heavyweight championship owned by the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the International Wrestling Grand Prix. The title was introduced on June 12, 1987 in the finals of a IWGP tournament. Being a professional wrestling championship, the title is won as a result of a predetermined outcome.

Throughout the history of the championship, several wrestlers have been forced to relinquish the title due to an inability to participate in title defenses. When a wrestler has been injured or unable to compete for other reasons, tournaments have been held to determine the new champion.

In 2006, Brock Lesnar was stripped of the title for being unable to defend it; however, Lesnar claims he was owed money by NJPW and kept the physical belt. He signed with Antonio Inoki's Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) in 2007, and lost the championship to Kurt Angle on the inaugural broadcast. Angle later lost the belt in a unification match to the NJPW-recognized champion Shinsuke Nakamura in 2008.

Kazuchika Okada

Kazuchika Okada (岡田 和睦, Okada Kazuchika, ring name: オカダ・カズチカ) (born November 8, 1987) is a Japanese professional wrestler currently signed to New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), where he is in his third reign as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion.

Initially trained by Último Dragón and making his debut in August 2004, Okada spent his first years in professional wrestling working in Mexico, before returning to Japan and making NJPW his home promotion in mid-2007. Originally working as a junior heavyweight, Okada graduated to the heavyweight division in April 2008, with limited success. In February 2010, NJPW sent Okada on a developmental tour to American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he ended up spending the next twenty months, mainly performing on the promotion's secondary television program, Xplosion. From January to March 2011, Okada, now performing under the ring name Okato, was featured on TNA's primary television program, Impact!, as Samoa Joe's sidekick in his rivalry with D'Angelo Dinero.

IWGP

IWGP may refer to the following:

A.J. Styles

Allen Neal Jones (born June 2, 1977), better known by the ring name A.J. Styles (or AJ Styles), is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He is best known for his 12-year tenure in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2002–2014, along with his work in Ring of Honor (ROH) from 2002–2006 and 2013–2016, and in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) from 2014–2016 as a member and the third leader of Bullet Club.

Styles made his professional wrestling debut in 1998, and briefly appeared in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 2001. He wrestled internationally before joining the NWA: Total Nonstop Action promotion – later renamed Total Nonstop Action – upon its foundation.

While in TNA, Styles held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times and the TNA World Heavyweight Championship twice. He was also the inaugural TNA X Division Champion, a title he has held six times. Styles held the TNA King of the Mountain Championship twice: once when it was called the TNA Legends Championship, and once when known as the TNA Global Championship. Styles is also a decorated tag team wrestler, having been a six-time world tag team champion in his career, winning the NWA World Tag Team Championship four times and the TNA World Tag Team Championship twice.