HQW Universal Openweight Title History

HQW Universal Openweight Championship

History

The HQW Universal Openweight Championship was the first HQW singles title to be crowned. The Openweight title is actually a unified championship that used to be refered to as the HQW Grand Guignol Championship. The title got its name from Grand Guignol theatre in 20th century Paris, France, which specialized in live horror shows.

The title was initially decided in an 8-Man tournament with the finalists being HQW mega star Marek and former Horseman of Oblivion Suffering(nka Celestial). It would be Suffering who would immerge victorious and have a dominant five month reign before dropping the title to an unlikely challenger in Virus. Virus would only go on to hold the belt for one whole month before dropping it to Naserick.

Naserick would become the most successful Grand Guignol Champion of all time, holding the belt for nearly a year. However, at the ten month mark, a frustrated Nexus Solem would take matters into his own hands and crown himself champion with a title that was a blast from the past. Nexus would resurrect the HPW American X Championship, and go around the defending the title against all comers, including Naserick. After Naserick's defeat at the hands of Nexus, a title unification match was booked for the 100th episode of HQW. To his delight, Naserick defeated Nexus and unified the Grand Guignol and American X titles to form the now HQW Universal Openweight Championship, a title that would pride itself on being ambiguous to any and all kinds of challengers, beit the big, the small, or the extra-terrestrial.

HQW would close it's doors in late February of 2014, ending Naserick's incredible reign at eleven months.

When HQW made it's triumpthant return in 2019, the first main event of the new HQW would crown a brand new Universal Openweight Champion. Being an obvious first choice, Naserick was named the first challenger, but to everyone's delight, his oppenent was the returning Marek, who hadn't been in an HQW match since he lost his HQW World Heavyweight Championship. Marek and Naserick would wrestle an unbelievable match that saw Marek emerge the victor and the new champion that would help lead the HQW roster in this new era.

After an incredible, 4 month title reign that saw some of the best matches ever for the championship, Marek would love the belt on episode 20 to Zenith Mathison, who challenged for the belt after daring Marek to put the title on the line against him.

Zenith Mathison would go on to put great defense after defense against guys like Marek, Arcana, and Naserick, but it would be Donovan Dark who would abuse his way into the title picture and steal a #1 Contender's spot from Naserick, with the help of his Apophis cronies. At HQW Mayhem Unleashed 2020, Donovan Dark would do the unthinkable and defeat Zenith for the title, debuting a new finisher along the way. This would cement the resurgence of the Apophis as a dominant faction once again in HQW.

Title History