{"id":11600,"date":"2018-01-01T17:23:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T22:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=11600"},"modified":"2018-01-01T17:23:26","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T22:23:26","slug":"union-heavyweight-championship-to-make-a-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/01\/01\/union-heavyweight-championship-to-make-a-return\/","title":{"rendered":"UNION Heavyweight Championship to Make a Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <strong>UNION of Independent Professional Wrestlers<\/strong> held its last event in September of 2014. After more than eleven years with a few gaps and venue changes along the way, the promotion crowned its last UNION Heavyweight champion when <strong>Brent Banks<\/strong> defeated champion <strong>Ethan Page<\/strong>, <strong>Josh Alexander<\/strong>, and <strong>Michael Elgin<\/strong> in a four-way match.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11613\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11613\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11613\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/01\/resized_500x333_BanksChampion.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/01\/resized_500x333_BanksChampion.jpg 500w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/01\/resized_500x333_BanksChampion-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11613\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: UNION<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the final 1, 2, 3 count and the raising of Banks&#8217; arm, the books were closed on the UNION. \u00a0Or so we were lead to believe. \u00a0Today after almost four years of being dormant, <strong>Anthony Kingdom James<\/strong> announced via his twitter that he was resurrecting the UNION Heavyweight championship and naming himself as the new UNION Heavyweight champion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/MyNameIsKingdom\/status\/947771850142007296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">James has only just recently come out of in-ring retirement in preparation for his match in Sarnia on January 19th for <strong>Smash Wrestling<\/strong>, that will see him team up with his \u201cclient\u201d <strong>Sebastian Suave<\/strong> taking on the now former UNION champion Brent Banks and Sarnia city councilor <strong>Brian White<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sarnia Councilor Brian White joins <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_banks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@_banks<\/a> to take on the team of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/suavewrestling?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@suavewrestling<\/a> &amp; @MyNameIsKingdom when we return to Sarnia on Jan 19th!<\/p>\n<p>TICKETS: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3ofZhcGNsL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/3ofZhcGNsL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ApYLDgg8v4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ApYLDgg8v4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Smash Wrestling (@smashwrestling) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/smashwrestling\/status\/946536750792544256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 29, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">James was also quick to stop any rumors from starting and stated that the UNION promotion, which Kingdom himself ran from 2003 through 2014, was not making a return to running shows. \u00a0Instead, the UNION Heavyweight championship will be a traveling title which will be fought for in any promotion that dares to book him. Past UNION Heavyweight Champions have included &#8220;All Ego&#8221; Ethan Page, <strong>Matt Cross<\/strong>, <strong>John McChesney<\/strong>, <strong>Steve Corino<\/strong> and &#8220;The Walking Weapon&#8221; Josh Alexander.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11615\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11615\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11615\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/01\/shane-taylor-promo-1024x435.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"272\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11615\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Ring of Honor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the first to throw out a challenge to James was current <strong>Ring Of Honor<\/strong> superstar <strong>Shane Taylor<\/strong>. \u00a0James true to his word quickly accepted the challenge. \u00a0Taylor has been a wrecking machine in Ring of Honor, first teamed with Keith Lee in the Pretty Boy Killers, and then as a hired gun to whichever wrestler paid the fee for his services.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;m ready to throw hands!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; RumbleBadManRumble (@shane216taylor) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shane216taylor\/status\/947845737982889985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 1, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/MyNameIsKingdom\/status\/947846808562147328<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UNION of Independent Professional Wrestlers held its last event in September of 2014. After more than eleven years with a few gaps and venue changes along the way, the promotion crowned its last UNION Heavyweight champion when Brent Banks defeated champion Ethan Page, Josh Alexander, and Michael Elgin in a four-way match. With the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2367,"featured_media":11616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1919,271,204,1920],"class_list":["post-11600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america","tag-anthony-kingdom-james","tag-shane-taylor","tag-smash-wrestling","tag-union"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}