Pro Wrestling Illustrated

PWI has given out annual awards and recognitions since its inception. These awards had previously been given out by another Victory Sports Magazine property, Sports Review Wrestling. PWI has also given out monthly rankings for the big promotions, some select independents, and overall rankings in singles and tag teams. Additionally, readers are given the ability to vote for the winners of the year-end awards with ballots being included in special year-end issues. A special PWI Awards magazine is issued annually, which reveals winners and the number of votes counted. The following is a list of categories in which PWI has issued awards.

• Wrestler of the Year (since 1972)
• Tag Team of the Year (since 1972)
• Match of the Year (since 1972)
• Feud of the Year (since 1986)
• Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (since 1972)
• Most Hated Wrestler of the Year (since 1972)
• Most Improved Wrestler of the Year (since 1978)
• Most Inspirational Wrestler of the Year (since 1972)
• Rookie of the Year (since 1972)
• Stanley Weston Award (since 1981)
• Comeback of the Year (since 1992)
• Woman of the Year (1972 to 1976, re-established in 2000)
• Manager of the Year (1972 to 1999)
• Midget Wrestler of the Year (1972 to 1976)
• Announcer of the Year (1977)

Although many wrestling organizations promote their lead title as a World Heavyweight Championship, PWI has only recognized a few top versions as valid World titles at any one time. About the NWA World Heavyweight championship, PWI has generally recognized the lineage retrospectively traced by the NWA from its 1948 formation back to Georg Hackenschmidt in 1905.[1] PWI has also recognized any tag team title corresponding to a recognized World title as a World Tag Team Championship.

Until March 1991, Pro Wrestling Illustrated and its sister publications steadfastly referred to WCW as "the NWA" despite WCW having increasingly phased out the latter name in the preceding months. In Spring 1991, the family of magazines adopted a new policy of referring to the current promotion and its champions as WCW and the promotion's pre-1991 past as the NWA. The magazine also announced it would refer to the overall history of the World title as the "NWA/WCW World Championship" (and likewise with other WCW championships).[2]

Subsequently, after Ric Flair left WCW and was stripped of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in July 1991, PWI and its sister publications nonetheless continued to recognize the WCW title as held by Lex Luger, Sting, Vader and Ron Simmons as the rightful continuation of the historic NWA World Heavyweight Championship. When Masa Chono won an NWA World title tournament in Japan in August 1992, PWI and its sister publications only recognized Chono's title as the "NWA Championship" and rejected it as a World title or as a continuation of the historic NWA World title.[3]

In 1983, Pro Wrestling Illustrated withdrew world title recognition from the WWF, citing how champion Bob Backlund was not facing contenders from outside the WWF territory and was only facing rulebreakers.[4] This coincided with the WWF's withdrawal from the NWA in summer 1983. PWI reinstated world title recognition in 1985[5] on account of the WWF's massive mainstream media profile.

The AWA was stripped of world title recognition in January 1991 when the promotion was in its final months.[6] By this time, the AWA World Heavyweight Championship was vacant and would remain so until the promotion's closure in August that year.[7] ECW was finally granted world title status in 1999 only for the promotion to close two years later.

As of August 8, 2021, PWI recognizes the WWE Championship, WWE Universal Championship, AEW World Championship, Impact World Championship, ROH World Championship, MLW World Heavyweight Championship, NWA World Heavyweight Championship from the United States, the AAA Mega Championship and CMLL World Heavyweight Championship from Mexico, as well as the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, World of Stardom Championship and GHC Heavyweight Championship from Japan.[8][9][10][11][12] PWI also recognizes the independent wrestling titles IWTV Independent Wrestling World Championship and Pan-Afrikan World Diaspora Wrestling Championship.[13]

Dates	Championships	Promotion
July 14, 1948 – January 11, 1991; May 8, 2006 – May 13, 2007; January 1, 2021 – present	NWA World Heavyweight Championship	National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)
August 16, 1960 – December 12, 1990	AWA World Heavyweight Championship	American Wrestling Association (AWA)
April 25, 1963 – present	WWE Championship	WWE
January 11, 1991 – December 9, 2001	WCW World Heavyweight Championship	World Championship Wrestling (WCW)
July 6, 1999 – April 11, 2001	ECW World Heavyweight Championship	Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW)
September 2, 2002 – December 15, 2013	World Heavyweight Championship (WWE)	WWE
May 13, 2007 – June 29, 2015; January 1, 2021 – present	Impact World Championship	Impact Wrestling (Impact)
August 21, 2016 – present	WWE Universal Championship	WWE
April 3, 2020 – present	AEW World Championship	All Elite Wrestling (AEW)
April 3, 2020 – March 4, 2021	IWGP Heavyweight Championship	New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW)
January 1, 2021 – present	AAA Mega Championship	Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA)
January 1, 2021 – present	ROH World Championship	Ring of Honor (ROH)
January 1, 2021 – present	CMLL World Heavyweight Championship	Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL)
January 1, 2021 – present	Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship	All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW)
January 1, 2021 – present	MLW World Heavyweight Championship	Major League Wrestling (MLW)
January 1, 2021 – present	World of Stardom Championship (Stardom)	World Wonder Ring Stardom
February 12, 2021 – present	GHC Heavyweight Championship	Pro Wrestling Noah (Noah)
March 4, 2021 – present	IWGP World Heavyweight Championship	New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW)
August 8, 2021 – present	IWTV Independent Wrestling World Championship[14]	IndependentWrestling.tv (IWTV)
August 8, 2021 – present	Pan-Afrikan World Diaspora Wrestling Championship[15]	PAWDWC Presents F1ght Club Pro Wrestling (F1ght Club)

According to the latest PWI almanac, PWI also recognizes select world title reigns from May 4, 1905 – January 28, 1946, before the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in July 1948.

PWI has published the list of the top 500 professional wrestlers each year since 1991 in an annual special edition magazine, the PWI 500. PWI writers choose the position of the wrestler following a designated evaluation period starting from mid-June; anything a wrestler accomplished before or after that period is not considered. They follow a criterion that includes win–loss record, championships won, quality of competition, major feuds, prominence within a wrestler's promotion(s), and overall wrestling ability.[16][17] As of 2020, Jushin Thunder Liger has appeared in the most editions of the PWI 500, with 29 appearances.[18] In 1993, Miss Texas (Jacqueline Moore) was the first woman to be ranked in the list at No. 249. Since 2008 men and women have their separate lists, but some female wrestlers are still occasionally listed in the PWI 500.

PWI has published a list of the top female professional wrestlers each year since 2008 in a special edition magazine, the Women's 100 (formerly known as Female 50). As with the list of male professional wrestlers, PWI writers choose the position of the wrestler following a designated evaluation period starting from mid-June; anything a wrestler accomplished before or after that period is not considered. In 2018, after ten years of the list including 50 wrestlers, it was expanded to 100 and renamed from Female 50 to Women's 100 and expanded to 150 in 2021.[50][51]

PWI published a list of the top tag team in 2020. PWI writers choose the position of the wrestler following a designated evaluation period starting from October; a minimum of 10 matches or 4 months as a tag team is required.[66][67] The ranking included both male and female tag teams.