Interim championship

An interim championship is an alternate title that is awarded by the sanctioning bodies of professional boxing, and in other combat sports such as kickboxing, professional wrestling, and mixed martial arts.

Occasionally, the champion of a particular weight division is temporarily unable to defend his championship because of medical, legal, or other reasons that are beyond the competitor's control. When this case occurs, two highly ranked contenders may fight for an interim championship of the same weight division – leading to two champions existing in the same weight division simultaneously. Once the original champion is able to return, at the discretion of the sanctioning body or promotion concerned, they must defend their title against the interim champion - who will relinquish their interim title in order to fight for the full world title. If the original champion cannot return, refuses to defend their title or transfers to a different weight division, the interim champion is then promoted to full championship status. The WBC, however, have begun awarding interim titles to the winners of final eliminator fights, effectively signifying a mandatory challenger position for the full world title. Recent examples include the winners of Dillian Whyte vs Oscar Rivas and Devin Haney vs Zaur Abdullaev.[1][2]

In the case of professional wrestling, due to the entertainment and scripted nature of the sport, the usage of an interim champion is rarely used due to most reasons, while similar to the ones in combat sports that are sometimes beyond the wrestler's control, usually lead to the champion being stripped of the title and a new champion is determined. Examples of interim champions in professional wrestling include the following: on WWE's NXT brand, NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin was unable to travel to the United States to defend the title due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, rendering him only able to defend the title on NXT's UK brand at the time. Therefore, in the United States, an interim Cruiserweight Championship was created and won in a tournament by Santos Escobar. Once travel restrictions eased up, Devlin and Escobar fought in a unification match at NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver to determine the sole champion, which Escobar won.[3][4] In All Elite Wrestling, Sammy Guevara was scheduled to face Cody Rhodes for the AEW TNT Championship at the Battle of the Belts event, but Rhodes was forced to quarantine due to a family member exposing him to COVID-19. As a result, AEW owner Tony Khan announced that an interim TNT Championship would be determined between Guevara and Rhodes' brother, Dustin. Guevara would win the match and the title at the event,[5] later unifying it with lineal title against a recovered Rhodes at AEW Beach Break.[6]