The J-Crown was originally a
unified version of 8 junior heavyweight titles, set up by
New Japan Pro Wrestling in
1996. It came about due to the various scatterings of the current titles, which included things like
The Great Sasuke from
Michinoku Pro holding New Japan's
IGWP Junior Heavyweight Title, and
Shinjiro Ohtani of New
Japan holding the
WWA World Junior Heavyweight Title from
Mexico. So from August 2 through
August 5, 1996, New Japan hosted an 8 man
tournament, with the
winner being declared the J-Crown Champion, getting a nice
trophy, and getting each belt presented to him by young
Japanese women in
swimsuits.
The competitors and the belts represented were as follows:
Here were the results of said
tourney:
Sasuke was crowned first J-Crown champion on that night, but then lost the title to the man he defeated, the Ulitmo Dragon, on October 11 of that year. Now, the Dragon was also under contract in the
United States with WCW, so this is where most
American wrestling fans are familiar with the J-Crown. The Dragon showed off the belts in the states while managed by
Sonny Oono, and for a few days he unified the
WCW Cruiserweight Title (after winning it at
Starcade '96) with the J-Crown. Unfortunately, he lost the original 8 titles to Jushin "Thunder" Liger on January 4,
1997. Liger held all 8 titles until June 6, 1997, when he had to defend only the WAR International Title, and lost it to
Yuuji Yasuraoka. The remaining 7 titles were kept unified, and exactly one month later El Samurai defeated Liger for them. Then on August 10, Shinjiro Ohtani won the J-Crown, and held it until November 5, 1997. That was the date that the
World Wrestling Federation requested their previously forgotten
Light Heavyweight title back to promote a new version of the
division, which they've more or less trashed. Thank you,
Vince. In any case, Ohtani also vacated all the other titles except the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title, since he was a regular in New Japan. And that was the end of the J-Crown, it should have been a
worldwide legacy. Ah well...