| IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship | |||||||||||||||||
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| Details | |||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | New Japan Pro-Wrestling | ||||||||||||||||
| Date established | April 23, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||
| Date retired | June 7, 2006 | ||||||||||||||||
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The IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship was a professional wrestling openweight championshipinNew Japan Pro-Wrestling for younger wrestlers who were under the age of 30. It was proposed as part of a tournament called the G2 U-30 ClimaxbyHiroshi Tanahashi, who ended up winning the tournament in April 2003. The U-30 Openweight Championship became officially recognized as an IWGP title in November 2004.
Only two champions between three reigns were ever crowned over its three year existence, the inaugural and two time champion Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Shinsuke Nakamura.
As his 30th birthday began to approach (which would then make him ineligible to be the champion), Tanahashi vacated the title on June 7, 2006, to focus on the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, and soon afterwards the U-30 Openweight Championship was de-emphasized and soon deactivated.
| No. | Overall reign number |
|---|---|
| Reign | Reign number for the specific champion |
| Days | Number of days held |
| Defenses | Number of successful defenses |
| No. | Champion | Championship change | Reign statistics | Notes | Ref. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Event | Location | Reign | Days | Defenses | ||||
| 1 | Hiroshi Tanahashi | April 23, 2003 | Strong Energy 2003 | Hiroshima, Japan | 1 | 622 | 12 | Defeated Shinya Makabe (who ironically was already 30 years old) in the finals of the G2 U-30 Climax tournament to become inaugural champion at the age of 26. | [1] |
| 2 | Shinsuke Nakamura | January 4, 2005 | Toukon Festival: Wrestling World 2005 | Tokyo, Japan | 1 | 117 | 0 | Defeated the champion Hiroshi Tanahashi in the main event of the Tokyo Dome Show to win the championship at the age of 24. | [2] |
| — | Vacated | May 1, 2005 | — | — | — | — | — | Nakamura vacated the championship by company request due to not defending it. | |
| 3 | Hiroshi Tanahashi | June 18, 2005 | Best of the Super Jr. XII | Kyoto, Japan | 2 | 354 | 2 | Defeated Toru Yano in the finals of a six-man round-robin tournament for the vacated title at the age of 28. | [3] |
| — | Deactivated | June 7, 2006 | — | — | — | — | — | Vacated by Tanahashi at the age of 29 to focus on the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. | |
| Rank | Wrestler | No. of reigns |
Combined defenses |
Combined days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hiroshi Tanahashi | 2 | 14 | 976 |
| 2 | Shinsuke Nakamura | 1 | 0 | 117 |
