Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) is a professional wrestling promotion in Japan founded by Antonio Inoki in 2007. The IGF is now also the official National Wrestling Alliance territory of Japan, since Antonio Inoki is the person who holds those rights and transferred them to IGF from New Japan Pro Wrestling.

History

Antonio Inoki left New Japan Pro Wrestling, a promotion he founded in 1972, to start the IGF. Inoki carried over to IGF his National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) accreditation, making IGF the official Japanese territory of the NWA.

In 2007, the IGF began a talent exchange with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) of the United States, with Kurt Angle being the first TNA talent used by IGF despite TNA having officially broken ties with the NWA as of May 14, 2007.

The first IGF show was held on June 29 2007 at the Sumo Hall in Tokyo, Japan. The card was completely changed at the last minute, resulting in the 8,426 fans in attendance not knowing who or what they were going to see outside of the main event of Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar.

IWGP Third Belt Championship

The IWGP Third Belt Championship was IGF's only sanctioned championship. IGF refers to the belt as the IWGP Heavyweight Championship (and is recognized as such also by TNA), but it is not the same title recognized by New Japan Pro Wrestling. IGF claims that the IWGP Heavyweight Championship was never held up despite Brock Lesnar being stripped of the title by NJPW on July 15 2006. This is due to Antonio Inoki believing that Brock Lesnar was being treated unfairly by NJPW. As Inoki was the one who had originally established the IWGP Title, he still viewed Lesnar as the rightful champion. The championship was defended for the first time by Lesnar against Kurt Angle in the main event of the debut IGF card on June 29 2007 .

Angle made his first successful title defense against Samoa Joe on August 12 2007 in Orlando, Florida at TNA Hard Justice in a match where, in addition to the Third Belt Championship, Angle's TNA World Heavyweight, and Joe's TNA World Tag Team and TNA X Division Championships were on the line.

On December 20 2007 Angle successfully defended the title against Kendo Kashin and again against Yuji Nagata at the New Japan Pro Wrestling Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome supershow on January 4 2008.

Angle ended up losing the title in his fourth defense, against then-IWGP Heavyweight Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, in a title unification match, at February 17, 2008; therefore, the IGF now has no championships.

Title history

Wrestler:	Times:	Date:	Location:	Notes:
Brock Lesnar	1	October 8 2005	Tokyo, Japan
Kurt Angle	1	June 29 2007	Tokyo, Japan
Shinsuke Nakamura	1	February 17 2008	Tokyo, Japan

References

External links

• The Official Website of the Inoki Genome Federation
• CygyWrestling.com - IWGP Heavyweight Title History (IGF version)