WWE Speed Championship | |||||||||||||
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Details | |||||||||||||
Promotion | WWE | ||||||||||||
Date established | March 27, 2024 | ||||||||||||
Current champion(s) | Andrade | ||||||||||||
Date won | June 7, 2024 (aired June 14, 2024) | ||||||||||||
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The WWE Speed Championship is a professional wrestling internet championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE, available to male wrestlers from all three of the company's brand divisions. Revealed on March 27, 2024, it has a stipulation in which matches have a time limit of five minutes. The title is named after WWE's online program Speed, which is where the matches exclusively air. The inaugural champion was Ricochet, who was a member of the Raw roster at the time of his reign. The current champion is Andrade from SmackDown, who is in his first reign. He defeated Ricochet during the Speed tapings on June 7, 2024, which aired on June 14, 2024, and is when WWE officially began recognizing him as champion.
On February 9, 2024, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE announced a partnership with X to introduce WWE Speed, a weekly video series to stream exclusively on the social media platform where wrestlers would perform in matches with a five-minute time limit.[1] The following month on March 27, WWE commentator Corey Graves announced that Speed would premiere on April 3, 2024, but regular matches would instead be three minutes in length. An eight-man tournament was also announced to crown the inaugural WWE Speed Champion that would take place over the first few episodes of the program. It was also revealed that male wrestlers from all three of WWE's brand divisions—Raw, SmackDown, and the developmental brand NXT—were eligible to challenge for the title.[2]
During the inaugural Speed Championship tournament final, which was taped on April 26, 2024, and aired on tape delay on May 3, Ricochet defeated Johnny Gargano to become the inaugural champion.[3][4] This tournament final also confirmed that the championship matches would have a duration of five minutes instead of Speed's regular three-minute length.[5]
Quarterfinals Speed (aired April 3-April 17, 2024) | Semifinals Speed (aired April 24-May 1, 2024) | Final Speed (aired May 3, 2024) | ||||||||||||
Ricochet | Pin | |||||||||||||
Dragon Lee | 02:57[6] | |||||||||||||
Ricochet | Pin | |||||||||||||
JD McDonagh | 01:58[9] | |||||||||||||
JD McDonagh | Pin | |||||||||||||
Axiom | 02:26[7] | |||||||||||||
Ricochet | Pin | |||||||||||||
Johnny Gargano | 04:21[3][4] | |||||||||||||
Bronson Reed | Pin | |||||||||||||
Cedric Alexander | 01:50[6] | |||||||||||||
Bronson Reed | 02:23[10] | |||||||||||||
Johnny Gargano | Pin | |||||||||||||
Johnny Gargano | Pin | |||||||||||||
Angel | 02:08[8] |
As of June 25, 2024, there have been two reigns between two champions. The inaugural champion was Ricochet. The current champion is Andrade from SmackDown, who is in his first reign. He defeated Ricochet during the June 7, 2024, tapings of Speed, which aired on June 14, 2024, and is when WWE officially began his reign.[11][12]
No. | Overall reign number |
---|---|
Reign | Reign number for the specific champion |
Days | Number of days held |
Days recog. | Number of days held recognized by the promotion |
+ | Current reign is changing daily |
No. | Champion | Championship change | Reign statistics | Notes | Ref. | ||||
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Date | Event | Location | Reign | Days | Days recog. | ||||
1 | Ricochet | April 26, 2024 | Speed | Cincinnati, OH | 1 | 42 | 42 | Defeated Johnny Gargano in the tournament final to become the inaugural champion. WWE recognizes Ricochet's reign as beginning on May 3, 2024, and ending on June 14, 2024, the dates in which the episodes aired on tape delay. | [3][13] |
2 | Andrade | June 7, 2024 | Speed | Louisville, KY | 1 | 18+ | 11+ | WWE recognizes Andrade's reign as beginning on June 14, 2024, when the episode aired on tape delay. | [11][12] |