HPW World Heavyweight Championship

From Bywpedia

Current revision as of 01:11, 4 December 2012

The Higher Passion Wrestling (HPW) World Heavyweight Championship is a backyard wrestling World Heavyweight Championship as recognized by Higher Passion Wrestling. It was first awarded on March 12, 2011 to Lustkill, before it was revealed to be James "Grimm" Blackwell in disguise.

Background

The HPW World Title's history goes back to an indie federation called Ultimate Desire Wrestling. Not much is known about the title's history while in UDW. When Sean and Paul Steel founded HTR Underground in early 2008, they took the UDW Title belt. That belt was then used as the HTR World Heavyweight Title. HTR continued to put on shows until April 2009, when the Steel brothers gave the federation to James Blackwell. Blackwell closed HTR and founded Underground Wrestling Entertainment in May. Blackwell was the HTR World Champion at the time and christened himself the UWE World Heavyweight Champion upon UWE's founding. UWE was successfully running it's product until November, when a personal problem involving Blackwell's family caused a suspension of operations. Operations eventually continued in May 2010, when UWE allowed the Steels to book matches for the UWE World Title on their reunion show, "One Last Ride". At "One Last Ride", a special 24/7 Rule was placed on the UWE World Title, and the belt switched hands many times, leaving Sean Steel both the HTR and UWE World Champion at the end of the event. One month later, UWE held it's closing show "Doomsday". At "Doomsday", Paul Steel defeated Sean Steel in an impromptu match to become the UWE World Champion, and is recognized as the final champion. At the end of the event, Sean announced that a new federation, Higher Passion Wrestling would start in 2011. On March 12, HPW held it's first event. In it, Lustkill defeated Cody Douglas to become the first HPW World Heavyweight Champion. However, after the match, it was revealed that Blackwell had disguised himself as Lustkill and entered the match as an act of revenge against Douglas, Paul Steel, and Sean Steel. Both Lustkill and Blackwell's reigns are recognized by HPW. One month later on April 2, "April Anarchy" was held. Blackwell lost the title in a match to Dukalien. Dukalien defended the title valiantly until he was defeated by Sean Steel on July 2 at "Dirty Black Summer". At the same time, Sean was the TPBYWA World Heavyweight Champion, which he claimed was the true NBYWA World Heavyweight Championship. Steel started a feud with the National Backyard Wrestling Alliance founder Skull Jr. earlier in the year over who was the rightful champion. Steel, Skull, and Blackwell (who claimed he should get a shot because of a missed one two years prior and also revived the UWE brand during this time) entered in on the feud and it escalated to a 3-way, 3-Title unification match on September 3 at HPW's event "Homecoming". The match made backyard wrestling history, as it was the first time two backyard wrestling communities unified their World Titles. Steel retained the TPBYWA and HPW World Titles, while also winning the NBYWA World Title. He, Blackwell, his brother Max, Cody Douglas, and RPK formed the Masters of the Backyard after the match and beat Skull down until Skull was saved by Dukalien. Dukalien challenged Steel for the HPW World Title and Steel accepted. Dukalien won the match. One month later on October 1 at "HPW/NBYWA 7: Hell-O-Ween", Dukalien defended the belt against Blackwell and Douglas, which lasted the whole time limit and was declared a draw. Dukalien gave the belt to Steel (who earlier in the show lost the TPBYWA and NBYWA World Titles to Skull in a rematch) who was retiring after the show. However, Steel re-considered his stance and became an active wrestler again and was considered the champion until March 22, 2012, when on HPW's new website it was announced that the title (along with the Underground Title) was vacated. On April 7, a four-man Battle Royal took place to decide a new champion at "First Blood". Sean Steel was the surprise fourth entrant, and Cody Douglas became the World Champion. The other participants were James Blackwell and Dukalien. At the next show on May 5, Steel, Blackwell, and Douglas reformed TNT. After a brief hiatus in June, HPW came back on July 14 with "Dirty Black Summer". At the show, Cody Douglas was stripped of the championship by interim General Manager Kooleville Kid for being a member of TNT and awarded the belt to JC Grunge. After Blackwell and Steel won the NBYWA World Tag Team Championship, TNT was in control of HPW. On September 1 at "Labor Day Bash", Angel Blackwell (the new HPW General Manager) awarded Douglas the title after JC Grunge no-showed the August and September shows. He and James Blackwell lost the NBYWA World Tag Titles to Moustapha Akkad & Kooleville Kid (as members of Rev 6, Paul Steel's group) and TNT split afterward. Blackwell defeated Douglas later in the day after a challenge was accepted. At the same show, a match between Kooleville Kid and Blackwell was booked for "Hell-O-Ween: Wings From Hell" the next month. However, when the show happened on October 13, the Kid didn't show up. Blackwell instead successfully defended the belt against the legitimate Lustkill. On November 10 at "Final Pilgrimage", Blackwell defended the HPW World Title against Dukalien with Sean Steel serving as Special Referee. After a short but intense, hate-filled match, James came out on top. Sean kept mouthing "I'm sorry" to Dukalien, as did Blackwell, and it was shown that the two joined Rev 6 as they stood at the entrance, looking on at Dukalien.

Title History