User:Vermon CaTaffy 8/TNA World Championship

The Total Nonstop Action (TNA) World Heavyweight Championship is the primary professional wrestling championship in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. It was originally sanctioned by the National Wrestling Alliance, officially making it the TNA-era NWA World Heavyweight Title from June 19, 2002 to May 13, 2007 when the business relationship between TNA and NWA was ended.

The start of the company
In 2002, Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Jarrett formed TNA, in the process negotiating a licensing deal with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) that granted them rights to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and the NWA World Tag Team Championship.

TNA withdrew from the NWA in 2004, but secured the right to continue to use the two NWA championships until 2014. TNA were permitted to use the titles any way they saw fit, without requiring approval of the NWA Board of Directors. While these titles were still defended in several NWA territories and federations, control of the titles was exclusive to TNA, making all NWA World Champions in TNA to be labelled as "TNA" or "TNA-era" World Champions using the NWA name, until sanctioning by the NWA was dropped in 2007.

Title creation—NWA title vacated
On May 13 2007 the NWA announced that it had ended their ongoing business relationship with TNA, which meant they no longer sanctioned Christian Cage and Team 3D as being the NWA World Heavyweight Champion and NWA World Tag Team Championship respectively. This occured before the TNA pay-per-view event Sacrifice could even take place that day. Despite this, TNA continued to recognize its TNA title holders as NWA champions until May 14 when they no longer had the physical NWA titles and had replaced them with the new physical TNA titles, as they were officially commissioned and used during television tapings. The TNA World Heavyweight Championship was then unveiled on TNAwrestling.com on May 15 and immediately given "World" status by Pro Wrestling Illustrated. On TNA programing past NWA Champions in TNA from June 19, 2002 to May 13, 2007 are referred to as TNA World Heavyweight Champions instead of NWA World Heavyweight Champions, which means the lineage of the TNA World Heavyweight Title dates back to June 19, 2002 with roots stemming from "TNA-era" NWA World Heavyweight Champions.

Current champion
The current champion is Sting, who is in his third reign. He defeated Samoa Joe on October 122008 at Bound for Glory IV

Title history

 * † indicates reigns not recognized by TNA.

List of individual reigns
As of October 13 2008.

List of combined reigns
As of October 12 2008.