FTW Championship

The third design of the FTW Championship.

**HISTORY OF TAZ's F*CK THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP:**

Date Established: May 14th, 1998

Date Retired: September 25th, 2024

Other name(s): FTW Heavyweight Championship (1998-1999);

FTW Championship (2020-2024)

First Champion(s): Taz

Final Champion(s): HOOK

Most Reigns: HOOK (3 reigns)

Longest Reign: Ricky Starks (378 days)

Shortest Reign: Taz (2nd reign, <1 day)

Oldest Champion: Chris Jericho (53 years, 164 days)

Youngest Champion: HOOK (23 years, 84 days)

Heaviest Champion: Brian Cage (268 lb (122 kg))

Lightest Champion: Jack Perry (167 lb (76 kg))

HISTORY:

The FTW ("Fuck The World") Championship was a professional wrestling championship. It was presented as an "outlaw" or "renegade" title that was unsanctioned by officials in-storyline, and often served as a hardcore championship, as many matches for the title were held under "FTW Rules". It was used in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) from 1998-1999 and in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) from 2020-2024. The title was originally established in the now defunct ECW promotion in 1998 by its inaugural champion, Taz, which upon its introduction in AEW as a commentator in 2020 made it the oldest championship in AEW until the title's retirement in 2024.

It was originally unified into the ECW World Heavyweight Championship when then ECW World Heavyweight Champion Taz won the title from Sabu at ECW Living Dangerously 1999. It remained inactive for 21 years but the title was never actually property of ECW but of Taz himself. As such, the title was not included in the intellectual property sold to WWE during the sale of ECW in 2003, allowing Taz to reintroduce the title in AEW in 2020, this time awarding the title to his client, Brian Cage. It was introduced in a similar manner to how it was introduced in ECW; the AEW World Champion, Jon Moxley, was inactive at the time and unable to defend the title, thus the FTW Championship was awarded to the would-be challenger for the AEW World Title. On September 25th, 2024, at AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam 2024, Taz's son and record-setting 3-time champion HOOK retired the title following his title defense against Roderick Strong. He would return the title to Taz who originally introduced it and announced that the title would be retired again.

Extreme Championship Wrestling (1998-1999)

On May 14th, 1998 at ECW's "It Ain't Seinfeld" at the Mad House of Extreme (The Elks Lodge #878) in Queens, New York City, the original "outlaw championship" was unveiled as Taz debuted the F*CK THE WORLD Championship! The belt was a result of Taz's then-frustrations with his lack of a ECW World Heavyweight Championship title shot. At the time, "Franchise" Shane Douglas was in the middle of a historic title run that lasted 406 days and had been on the shelf, just appearing as a commentator. Embedded below is a video of Taz and Douglas from an ECW Hardcore TV in April '98, at the time Douglas was set to defend the title against Al Snow at WrestlePalooza 1998.

Douglas would go on to successfully defend the title at WrestlePalooza, defeating Al Snow and after the pay-per-view, Douglas would not wrestle again until the fall of '98. 11 days after WrestlePalooza was when Taz would debut the original version of the FTW Championship, which was the old ECW World Television Championship that was covered where it said "television" and where the flags were on the side plates with some stickers. A second version of the belt was created shortly thereafter which actually had "FTW" in the ECW logo style on the main plate and was very slightly different. During those months out of the ring, Douglas and his Triple Threat (Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Candido) would feud with Taz, leading to Rob Van Dam and Sabu getting involved trying to join forces with Taz, who was hesitant at first and didn't like Sabu. However, Bill Alfonso and Sabu would gift Taz the third version of the FTW Championship, the one seen above, which Taz actually had designed himself.

This led to a memorable November to Remember 1998 where The Triple Threat faced the team of Taz, Rob Van Dam and Sabu - dubbed The New Triple Threat. Taz/Sabu/RVD ended up walking out of N2R as the winners. Taz would end up loosing the FTW Title to Sabu on December 19th, 1998, after Taz pulled Sabu on top of him and seemingly let him get the title. Taz was confident in his ability to defeat Douglas and said he no longer needed the title. At Guilty As Charged 1999 on January 10th, 1999, Taz finally faced Douglas for the World Heavyweight Title would walk out finally as ECW World Champion. During that match in the closing moments we would see Sabu make a run-in, attacking both Taz and Douglas, making it known that no matter who won the match he was coming for them and the ECW World Title.

This set-up a title unification match at Living Dangerously 1999 where Sabu would defend the FTW and Taz would defend the ECW World Heavyweight Title. Winner take all. Taz would defeat Sabu on that night and leave Asbury Park, New Jersey as the unified champion.

That was the last time the title belt was seen for 20 years. In those 20 years, we saw Taz move on to the WWE, ECW closed it's doors, Taz retired and became a commentator (first for WWE, then TNA/Impact Wrestling), we saw a failed "rebirth of ECW". Taz would go on to be one of the "AEW Originals" when in 2019 a new billionaire-backed promotion was founded that shook up the industry after the industry had been stagnant for many years.

All Elite Wrestling (2020-2024):

On May 23rd, 2020, Taz would become the manager for "The Machine" Brian Cage in All Elite Wrestling. The night of his debut, Cage would be the "joker" mystery entrant and would win the Casino Ladder Match which guaranteed him a shot at the AEW World Championship, which was held by Jon Moxley. Later that night, it was announced that Cage would face Moxley for the title at the Fyter Fest edition of AEW Dynamite.

When Fyter Fest came around on July 2nd, 2020, Moxley was unable to defend his title due to secondary exposure to COVID-19 after his wife, Renee Young, tested positive for the virus. Moxley vs. Cage was rescheduled for Fight for the Fallen on July 15th. Taz decided to bring back the FTW Championship and award it to Cage at Fyter Fest as the circumstances behind the titles inception mirrored the circumstances Cage was going through with his title shot against Moxley being postponed.

See: Taz Awards FTW Title To Brian Cage @ AEW Fyter Fest 2020:

Cage would go on to be a member of Taz's stable of wrestlers called Team Taz and he would go on to hold the FTW Championship for 377 days, making a few defenses of the belt even though All Elite Wrestling kept with the tradition of acting like the title was unsanctioned. One year after winning the title, Cage would go on to loose it to his own fellow Team Taz member Ricky Starks, who too also held the title for a year, with his reign actually lasting one day longer than Cage's reign did at a record-setting 378 days. Starks would loose the belt to, of all people, Taz's own actual son who debuted as a wrestler in AEW in 2020 (though he wouldn't compete in the ring in AEW until the December 8th, 2021 episode of AEW Rampage). Now, Taz's son HOOK has held the title for over 300 days.

See: Ricky Starks and Brian Cage Do Battle At Fyter Fest 2021 For FTW Title:

See: The Cold Hearted Handsome Devil HOOK Win The FTW Title @ Fight for the Fallen 2022:

Taz recently thanked Tony Khan and the fans for keeping the spirit of the championship alive, as the title just recently celebrated 25 years since it's inception.

Title History:

No.	Champion	Championship change			Reign statistics		Notes
No.	Champion	Date	Event	Location	Reign	Days	Notes
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW)
1	Taz	May 14, 1998	It Ain't Seinfeld	Queens, New York	1	219	Taz introduced the championship during a storyline
2	Sabu	December 19, 1998	Hardcore TV	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	1	92	This was a triple threat match, also involving Justin Credible. Title change aired on December 23, 1998, on tape delay
3	Taz	March 21, 1999	Living Dangerously	Asbury Park, New Jersey	2	<1	This was an Extreme Death match which was also for Taz's ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
—	Unified	March 21, 1999	Living Dangerously	Asbury Park, New Jersey	—	—	Taz unified the title with the ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
All Elite Wrestling (AEW)
4	Brian Cage	July 2, 2020	Fyter Fest Night 2	Jacksonville, Florida	1	377	Taz reintroduced the title, and awarded it to Cage, of whom he was the manager. Aired on tape delay on July 8, 2020
5	Ricky Starks	July 14, 2021	Fyter Fest Night 1	Cedar Park, Texas	1	378
6	HOOK	July 27, 2022	Fight for the Fallen	Worcester, Massachusetts	1	357	HOOK is the real-life son of the original creator of the title and the first holder of the belt, Taz.

7	Jack Perry	July 19, 2023	Dynamite: Blood & Guts	Boston, MA	1	39
8	HOOK	August 27, 2023	All In: Zero Hour	London, England	2	226+	This was an FTW Rules match.

9. Chris Jericho - Date Won: April 21st, 2024 @ AEW Dynasty 2024 in St. Louis, Missouri - Reign: 1, Days Held: 127 (This was an FTW Rules match. During this reign, Jericho would refer to the championship as the 'For The World' Championship)

10. HOOK - Date Won: August 25th, 2024 @ AEW ALL IN: LONDON 2024 in London, England, United Kingdom - Reign: 3, Days Held: 31 (This was an FTW Rules 'Last Chance' match, meaning had HOOK not defeated Jericho for the title, he would become ineligible to compete for the title again, at least as long as Jericho remained the champion. With this title reign, HOOK now holds the record for the most reigns with the championship at 3, having previously been tied with his father, Taz, at 2 reigns each)

- RETIRED on September 25th, 2024 @ AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam 2024 in Queens, New York (After succesfully defending the title against Roderick Strong, HOOK announced that the title would be retired. Following his announcement, he handed the title back to his father, Taz.)

The second version of the title belt used in 1998. The first version was the same design as this, though it was slightly different, having the ECW logo on it with a "FTW" sticker covering where the belt said "Television" on the second version of the ECW World Television Championship.