On October 8, 2005, at
New Japan Pro-Wrestling's (NJPW) Toukon Souzou New Chapter event in
Tokyo, Japan,
Brock Lesnar defeated
Kazuyuki Fujita and
Masahiro Chono in a
Three Way match for the
IWGP Heavyweight Championship. He held the title for 280 days, having three successful defenses, until he failed to show up for a scheduled title defense. NJPW thus stripped Lesnar of the championship on July 15, 2006. Lesnar cited visa issues along with NJPW owing him compensation as his reasons for failing to appear at the planned title defense. After this series of events, NJPW founder
Antonio Inoki left NJPW and created a new promotion,
Inoki Genome Federation (IGF). Inoki then recognized Lesnar as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion due to Lesnar never having lost the championship in a match and Lesnar still maintaining physical possession of the title belt. NJPW recognized Lesnar as the IWGP 3rd Belt Champion and not the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, maintaining their stance on having stripped him of the title in 2006. On June 29, 2007, IGF held its debut show with Lesnar defending the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against
Kurt Angle in the main event. Angle defeated Lesnar to win the championship and went on to appear in the American
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA)
promotion with the physical title belt. TNA also referred to the title belt as the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in the same manner as IGF, recognizing Angle as the official IWGP Heavyweight Champion. TNA occasionally referred to the title as the "IWGP World Heavyweight Championship" to match Angle's
TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Angle went on to have two successful defenses as champion. His first defense came in TNA in a feud against
Samoa Joe. Angle first appeared with the title belt in TNA on the July 5, 2007, episode of TNA's television program
TNA Impact!. The title belt became relevant to the storyline rivalry between Joe and Angle heading into TNA's
Hard Justice pay-per-view (PPV)
event. Leading up to TNA's
Victory Road PPV event on July 15, 2007,
TNA X Division Champion Joe and TNA World Heavyweight Champion Angle teamed together to face
TNA World Tag Team Champions Team 3D (
Brother Devon and
Brother Ray) in a
Tag Team match with the stipulation being whoever scored the pinfall or submission for their team won the championship of the person pinned or made to submit. Joe pinned Brother Ray in the bout, thus winning the World Tag Team Championship for himself and a partner of his choosing. Joe chose to hold the title alone and challenged Angle to a Winner Take All match at Hard Justice for the TNA World Heavyweight, TNA X Division, TNA World Tag Team, and the IWGP Championships on the July 19 2007, episode of
Impact!. Angle accepted the match, with Joe and Angle facing at Hard Justice on August 12, 2007 in
Orlando, Florida for all of the titles. Angle defeated Joe at the event to win the TNA World Tag Team and TNA X Division Championships, while retaining the TNA World Heavyweight and IWGP Championships. Afterwards, TNA slowly fazed out the championship from their programming with Angle going on to defend the IWGP title at IGF shows. With NJPW and TNA forming a working relationship, Angle also defended the title at NJPW shows, where the title was referred to as the IWGP 3rd Belt. Angle's second defense of the title was at NJPW's
Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome event on January 4, 2008, where he defeated former NJPW-recognized IWGP Heavyweight Champion
Yuji Nagata to retain the IWGP 3rd Belt. Angle's third defense was against then-NJPW-recognized IWGP Heavyweight Champion
Shinsuke Nakamura in a
unification match on February 17, 2008 at NJPW's Circuit 2008 New Japan ISM event. Angle lost the match and the existence of the IGF-recognized IWGP Heavyweight Championship ended. IGF later introduced another title three years later with the
IGF Championship on August 22, 2011. ==Belt designs==