The highest achievement in professional wrestling is to hold the World Heavyweight Championship — an honour currently held by 837 wrestlers on the independent (or indy) wrestling scene.

Although indy wrestling promotions tend to have a “territory” of roughly 10 miles in any direction from the promoter’s parents’ house, nearly every promotion also boasts a “World Heavyweight Champion,” who in some cases weighs more than 150 pounds.

A recent survey further showed that 1,238 wrestlers currently co-hold the World Tag Team Championships, though only 46 of them have travelled out of their home countries, mostly to Jamaica.

“I always dreamed of being world champ, and my boyhood dream has finally come true,” said Roughhouse Jeff Black after being crowned World Heavyweight Champion at a wrestling event in the parking lot of a Toronto IHOP.

The number of Women’s World Champions is at an all-time high at 972, thanks in large part to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices rigorously enforced throughout the indy wrestling circuit.