WWE Speed Championship | |||||
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Details | |||||
Promotion | WWE | ||||
Date established | March 27, 2024 | ||||
Current champion(s) | Ricochet | ||||
Date won | April 26, 2024 (aired May 3, 2024) | ||||
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The WWE Speed Championship is a professional wrestling championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE, available to male wrestlers from all three of WWE's brand divisions. It was announced on March 27, 2024, and it has a stipulation in which matches have a time limit of five minutes. The title is named after WWE's online program Speed , which is where the matches exclusively air. The current champion is Ricochet, who defeated Johnny Gargano to become the inaugural champion during the Speed tapings on April 26, 2024, which aired on May 3, 2024, the date WWE officially recognizes as the beginning of Ricochet's reign.
On February 9, 2024, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE announced a partnership with X to introduce WWE Speed , a weekly video series to stream exclusively on the social media platform where wrestlers would perform in matches with a five-minute time limit. [1] The following month on March 27, WWE commentator Corey Graves announced that Speed would premiere on April 3, 2024, but regular matches would instead be three minutes in length. An eight-man tournament was also announced to crown the inaugural WWE Speed Champion that would take place over the first few episodes of the program. It was also revealed that male wrestlers from all three of WWE's brand divisions—Raw, SmackDown, and the developmental brand NXT—were eligible to challenge for the title. [2]
During the inaugural Speed Championship tournament final, which was taped on April 26, 2024, and aired on tape delay on May 3, Ricochet defeated Johnny Gargano to become the inaugural champion. [3] [4] This tournament final also confirmed that the championship matches would have a duration of five minutes instead of Speed's regular three-minute length. [5]
Quarterfinals Speed (aired April 3-April 17, 2024) | Semifinals Speed (aired April 24-May 1, 2024) | Final Speed (aired May 3, 2024) | ||||||||||||
Ricochet | Pin | |||||||||||||
Dragon Lee | 02:57 [6] | |||||||||||||
Ricochet | Pin | |||||||||||||
JD McDonagh | 01:58 [7] | |||||||||||||
JD McDonagh | Pin | |||||||||||||
Axiom | 02:26 [8] | |||||||||||||
Ricochet | Pin | |||||||||||||
Johnny Gargano | 04:21 [3] [4] | |||||||||||||
Bronson Reed | Pin | |||||||||||||
Cedric Alexander | 01:50 [6] | |||||||||||||
Bronson Reed | 02:23 [9] | |||||||||||||
Johnny Gargano | Pin | |||||||||||||
Johnny Gargano | Pin | |||||||||||||
Angel | 02:08 [10] |
As of May4, 2024, there has been one reign. The inaugural and current champion is Ricochet. He defeated Johnny Gargano during the April 26, 2024, tapings of Speed (aired May 3).
No. | Overall reign number |
---|---|
Reign | Reign number for the specific champion |
Days | Number of days held |
Days recog. | Number of days held recognized by the promotion |
+ | Current reign is changing daily |
No. | Champion | Championship change | Reign statistics | Notes | Ref. | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Event | Location | Reign | Days | Days recog. | ||||
1 | Ricochet | April 26, 2024 | Speed | Cincinnati, OH | 1 | 8+ | 1+ | Defeated Johnny Gargano in the tournament final to become the inaugural champion. WWE recognizes Ricochet's reign as beginning on May 3, 2024, when the episode aired on tape delay. | [3] [11] |
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