On AEW Dynamite, during Fyter Fest 2020, Taz brought out a classic, unauthorized title and presented it to Brian Cage. This title was the FTW Championship.
For fans who don't remember, the FTW title has an NSFW meaning, which is "f the world," and it was something Taz initially introduced to the world in ECW in 1998. It even has a lineage to it and a history that made it more than just another vanity prop for a wrestler.
Taz wanted a world title shot in 1998 against Shane Douglas, but the ECW World Champion was ignoring his challenge. This insult caused Taz to bring in his new title, the FTW Championship, which signified his no-nonsense, accept-all-challengers attitude. While ECW did not recognize the title as an official championship, Taz said he was the real world champion since he didn't run from challenges like Douglas.
Taz even defended the title, and he even lost the belt once when Sabu captured the title on the Dec. 23, 1998 episode of Hardcore TV in a triple threat match. Taz won the title back at Living Dangerously 1999 in an Extreme Death Match and then unified it with the ECW World Championship, which Taz had also won, ending the title. Now, it appears that Brian Cage is going to defend the resurrected title in AEW, as he has a title defense against Brian Pillman Jr. on AEW Dark — the first FTW title match in 21 years.
However, the FTW Championship is not the only unsanctioned vanity championship introduced in wrestling over the years. There were some minor titles over the years, such as when the AWA created the Brass Knuckles Championship. Much like how the FTW title pushed Taz, the Brass Knuckles Championship was to push Don Fargo, who held the title for 595 days from 1979-80. CZW also had the Ultraviolent Underground Championship, which was unsanctioned due to the brutal nature of the matches, and it had 12 different champions.
The most famous was the WWE Million Dollar Championship. The Million Dollar Man introduced this unsanctioned title after he attempted to buy the WWE Championship from Andre the Giant, but WWE disallowed it. After Macho Man Randy Savage won the world title in a tournament by beating The Million Dollar Man thanks to Hulk Hogan's interference, Ted DiBiase introduced the new title.
In interviews in recent years, DiBiase has said that he doesn't mind being one of the best wrestlers never to win a world title. He knows people will know him as the Million Dollar Champion more than they would have remembered him winning the WWE title tournament at WrestleMania IV as a likely transitional champion. DiBiase rarely defended the title, and it was mostly a prop as a sign of his wealth. However, it did become a part of storylines and was integral when Virgil finally turned on DiBiase and won the title at SummerSlam 1991. DiBiase won it back in three months later and retired it the next year when he and IRS won the WWE tag team titles.
Much like the FTW Championship, DiBiase brought it back years later. He first awarded it to Steve Austin when he brought him in as The Ringmaster in 1995. Austin gave it up when DiBiase left WWE a few months later. In 2012, DiBiase brought it back again and gave it to his son, Ted DiBiase Jr., who held it for seven months before giving it back to his dad.
TNA Impact Wrestling has several titles that came and went, and even had a TV title that underwent several name changes, but that was an official title. In 2007, James Storm and Eric Young were feuding and created an unsanctioned gimmick title called the TNA World Beer Drinking Championship. Storm initially beat Young for the championship at Genesis 2007 in a backstage drinking contest, but then Young beat him later that same night in a second contest and held the title for three months. In February 2008, Storm won it back in a ladder match, but Rhino showed up and destroyed the title, ending the gimmick.
Not all unsanctioned titles have anything to do with on-screen storylines. In 2011, Zack Ryder wanted to prove he was worth pushing and did so on his Internet show, Z! True Long Island Story. It ended up a massive hit, and fans started to chant for Ryder on TV. Ryder named himself the WWE Internet Champion in April 2011 on his show, initially with a toy title with stickers over it. Eventually, Ryder had a real title created for himself. He even defended the title once at a house show against Primo. When Ryder ended his Internet show, the title disappeared. However, fans who own WWE '13 and WWE 2K14 can defend this unsanctioned title in video games.