Championship back to George Hackenschmidt's title victory in 1905, rather than the creation of the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship in 1948. 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 Worlds 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 Worlds Heavyweight Championship. PWI initially did not recognize the ECW World Heavyweight Championship as a world title but granted the championship and the promotion world title status in 1999. Current recognition Since 2021, Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) recognizes the WWE Championship, WWE Universal Championship, AEW World Championship, Impact World Championship, ROH World Championship, MLW World Heavyweight Championship, and NWA Worlds 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 as world heavyweight championships. PWI later additionally recognized the independent wrestling titles the Independent Wrestling World Championship and the Pan-Afrikan World Diaspora Wrestling Championship as world championships. List of all recognized world heavyweight championships According to the annual PWI almanac, PWI still recognizes select world title reigns from May 4, 1905 – January 28, 1946, before the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in July 1948. Rankings PWI 500 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. , Jushin Thunder Liger has appeared in the most editions of the PWI 500, with 29 appearances. In 1993, Miss Texas (Jacqueline Moore) was the first woman to be ranked in the list at No. 249. Since 2008 men and women