Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The AWA World Women's Wrestling Championship

Hikaru
The AWA World Women's Wrestling Championship has a long and varied history.

The first AWA World Women's Wrestling Champion was June Byers.
After the AWA split from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), she was recognized as the Champion. Mainly because of the infamous 1954 wrestling match in Atlanta, Georgia where Byers beat the NWA World Women's Champion Mildred Burke in what became one of the greatest women's bouts of all time.

In 1960, Penny Banner won a battle royal to become the new AWA World Women's Champion. The AWA had stripped Byers of her title due to not showing up for a title defense.
In 1963, the AWA vacated the title. But the NWA continued to be recognize June Byers as champion until she retired in January 1964.

On April 13, 1963, Kay Noble defeated Kathy Starr to become the new AWA Women's Wrestling Champion.

The title was then held by Vivian Vachon, Betty Nicoli, Candi Devine and Sherri Martel. Sherri and Candi swapped the title back and forth until Sherri finally was stripped of the title for leaving the AWA to go to the WWF in 1987.

On December 27, 1987 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Madusa Miceli defeated Candi to take the belt.
Then Wendi Richter defeated Madusa, and held the belt until she too was stripped of the title for leaving the AWA.

On December 6, 1989 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Candi Devine got the belt once again when she defeated Judy Martin.

When the AWA closed in January 1991, the title was retired.

However, in 1999, Dale Gagner revived the belt when he started the independent promotion AWA Superstars of Wrestling, re-licensing the AWA name.
The AWA Superstars of Wrestling awarded the title to former champion Sherri Martel.
On June 19, 2007 the belt was retired again after the passing of Sherri Martel on June 15.

The title was last held by Nanae Takahashi, who is now recognized as the first holder of the newly created AWA Japan Women's Championship.
Jamie D. defeated Nanae Takahashi to take the belt, and Jamie was in turn defeated by Saki Maemura.

Then on December 16, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hikaru defeated Maemura in a hair versus title match to become the first Hawaii Championship Wrestling World Women's champion.
After that, Hawaii Championship Wrestling folded in July 2008.

However, I checked and the Hawaii Championship Wrestling site has a page up that says " Under Construction, Coming Soon" so the title may be revived again.

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