DEFY World Championship
Men's professional wrestling
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The DEFY World Championship is a men's professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by the American promotion DEFY Wrestling, being sanctioned as the promotion's top championship. There have been a total of twelve reigns shared between nine different champions. The current champion is Bryan Keith who is in his first reign. He won the title by defeating Clark Connors at Aeon on September 19, 2025 in Seattle, Washington.
| DEFY World Championship | |||||||||||||||||||
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Current title design (2017–present) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Details | |||||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | DEFY Wrestling | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date established | June 30, 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Current champion | Bryan Keith | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date won | September 19, 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Title history
There have been a total of 11 reigns shared between 9 different champions. Davey Richards was the inaugural champion who also holds the record for the shortest reign with eight days. Randy Myers had the longest reign at 1,009 days, however without scoring any defenses due to the COVID pandemic impact. Swerve Strickland holds the record for most reigns with three. The current champion is Bryan Keith who is in his first reign. He won the title by defeating Clark Connors at Aeon on September 19, 2025 in Seattle, Washington.
| No. | Overall reign number |
|---|---|
| Reign | Reign number for the specific champion |
| Days | Number of days held |
| Defenses | Number of successful defenses |
| <1 | Reign lasted less than a day |
| + | Current reign is changing daily |
| No. | Champion | Championship change | Reign statistics | Notes | Ref. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Event | Location | Reign | Days | Defenses | ||||
| 1 | Davey Richards | June 30, 2017 | DEFY5 Gigantic | Seattle, WA | 1 | 8 | 0 | Defeated Shane Strickland in the tournament final to become the inaugural champion. | [1] |
| 2 | Shane Strickland | July 8, 2017 | CZW Evilution | Voorhees, NJ | 1 | 279 | 5 | This was a four-way Winner Takes All match also disputed for Strickland's CZW World Heavyweight Championship which also involved Joe Gacy and Lio Rush. | [2] |
| 3 | Austin Aries | April 13, 2018 | Vibes | Seattle, WA | 1 | 98 | 1 | This was a Winner Takes All match also for Aries' Impact World Championship. | [3] |
| 4 | Shane Strickland | July 20, 2018 | Swerve Vs. Aries | Portland, OR | 2 | 147 | 3 | [4] | |
| 5 | Artemis Spencer | December 14, 2018 | On Edge | Seattle, WA | 1 | 252 | 8 | [5] | |
| 6 | Schaff | August 23, 2019 | Defyance Forever | Tacoma, WA | 1 | 182 | 4 | [6] | |
| 7 | Randy Myers | February 21, 2020 | Kings Of Crash | Seattle, WA | 1 | 1,009 | 0 | [7] | |
| — | Christopher Daniels (Interim) | December 18, 2021 | Dark Horse | Seattle, WA | — | 294 | 6 | Daniels defeated Brody King to become the interim champion. | [8] |
| — | Swerve Strickland (Interim) | October 8, 2022 | City Of Thorns | Portland, OR | — | 49 | 0 | [9] | |
| 8 | Swerve Strickland | November 26, 2022 | Fightwave | Seattle, WA | 3 | 133 | 1 | This was a Championship Unification match in which Strickland wrestled as the interim champion. The bout was a six-way ladder match which also involved Artemis Spencer, Christopher Daniels, Cody Chhun and Schaff. Strickland was previously known as Shane Stricklad. | [10] |
| 9 | Nick Wayne | April 8, 2023 | The Realest | Seattle, WA | 1 | 56 | 2 | [11] | |
| 10 | Kenta | June 3, 2023 | Your Nightmare | Seattle, WA | 1 | 626 | 10 | [12] | |
| 11 | Ricky Starks | February 7, 2025 | Hundredth | Seattle, WA | 1 | 21 | 0 | [13] | |
| — | Vacated | February 28, 2025 | — | — | — | — | — | Starks vacated the title after signing with WWE. | [14] |
| 12 | Clark Connors | March 15, 2025 | Aftermath | Seattle, WA | 1 | 188 | 1 | Defeated Starboy Charlie in a Super 8XGP Tournament final to win the vacant title. | [15] |
| 13 | Bryan Keith | September 19, 2025 | Aeon | Seattle, WA | 1 | 175+ | 0 | [16] | |
Combined reigns
As of March 13, 2026.
| † | Indicates the current champion |
|---|---|
| Rank | Wrestler | No. of reigns |
Combined defenses |
Combined days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Randy Myers | 1 | 0 | 1,009 |
| 2 | Kenta | 1 | 10 | 616 |
| 3 | Swerve Strickland[a] | 3 | 9 | 559 |
| 4 | Artemis Spencer | 1 | 8 | 252 |
| 5 | Clark Connors | 1 | 1 | 188 |
| 6 | Schaff | 1 | 4 | 182 |
| 7 | Austin Aries | 1 | 1 | 98 |
| 8 | Bryan Keith † | 1 | 1 | 175+ |
| 9 | Nick Wayne | 1 | 2 | 56 |
| 10 | Ricky Starks | 1 | 0 | 21 |
| 11 | Davey Richards | 1 | 0 | 8 |
Notes
- Strickland was known as "Shane Strickland" during his first two title reigns.