The NEVER Openweight Championship is a professional wrestling championship owned by the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. NEVER stands for "New Blood", "Evolution", "Valiantly", "Eternal", and "Radical" and was a NJPW-promoted series of events, which featured younger up-and-coming talent and outside wrestlers not signed to the promotion. The project was officially announced on July 12, 2010, and held its first event on August 24, 2010.
Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won as a result of a scripted match. Masato Tanaka was the first champion in the title's history. He also holds the record for the longest reign in the title's history, at 314 days. The reign of Michael Elgin of 8 days is the shortest in the title's history. Tomohiro Ishii and Hirooki Goto hold the record for most reigns with the title, being four-time champions.
Title history
| # | Wrestler | Reign | Date | Days held |
Location | Event | Successful defenses | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Masato Tanaka | 1 | November 19, 2012 | 314 | Tokyo | Shodai NEVER Musabetsu Kyu Oza Kettei Tournament Final | 4 | Tanaka defeated Karl Anderson in the finals of a sixteen-man tournament to become the inaugural champion. |
| 2 | Tetsuya Naito | 1 | September 29, 2013 | 135 | Kobe | Destruction 2013 | 2 | |
| 3 | Tomohiro Ishii | 1 | February 11, 2014 | 138 | Osaka | The New Beginning in Osaka 2014 | 4 | |
| 4 | Yujiro Takahashi | 1 | June 29, 2014 | 106 | Tokyo | Kizuna Road 2014 | 1 | |
| 5 | Tomohiro Ishii | 2 | October 13, 2014 | 83 | Tokyo | King of Pro-Wrestling 2014 | 1 | |
| 6 | Togi Makabe | 1 | January 4, 2015 | 41 | Tokyo | Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome | 0 | |
| — | Vacated | — | February 14, 2015 | 0 | — | — | — | The title was vacated due to Makabe being sidelined with influenza. |
| 7 | Tomohiro Ishii | 3 | February 14, 2015 | 74 | Sendai | The New Beginning in Sendai | 0 | Ishii defeated Tomoaki Honma to win the vacant title. |
| 8
|
Togi Makabe
|
2
|
April 29, 2015
|
166 | Mashiki
|
Wrestling Hinokuni
|
2
|
|
| 9
|
Tomohiro Ishii
|
4
|
October 12, 2015
|
84 | Tokyo
|
King of Pro-Wrestling
|
1
|
|
| 10
|
Katsuyori Shibata
|
1
|
January 4, 2016
|
120 | Tokyo
|
Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome
|
3
|
|
| 11
|
Yuji Nagata
|
1
|
May 3, 2016
|
47 | Fukuoka
|
Wrestling Dontaku 2016
|
0
|
|
| 12
|
Katsuyori Shibata
|
2
|
June 19, 2016
|
139 | Osaka
|
Dominion 6.19 in Osaka-jo Hall
|
3
|
|
| 13
|
Evil
|
1
|
November 5, 2016
|
10 | Osaka
|
Power Struggle
|
0
|
|
| 14 | Katsuyori Shibata | 3 | November 15, 2016 | 50 | Singapore | Wrestling World 2016 in Singapore | 0 | |
| 15 | Hirooki Goto | 1 | January 4, 2017 | 113 | Tokyo | Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome | 3
|
|
| 16 | Minoru Suzuki | 1 | April 27, 2017 | 252 | Hiroshima | Road to Wrestling Dontaku 2017: Aki no Kuni Sengoku Emaki. | 4 | |
| 17 | Hirooki Goto | 2 | January 4, 2018 | 156 | Tokyo | Wrestle Kingdom 12 in Tokyo Dome | 3 | This was a Hair vs. Hair match. |
| 18 | Michael Elgin | 1 | June 9, 2018 | 8 | Osaka | Dominion 6.9 | 0 | This was a three-way match, also involving Taichi. |
| 19 | Hirooki Goto | 3 | June 17, 2018 | 92 | Tokyo | Kizuna Road 2018 | 1 | |
| 20 | Taichi | 1 | September 17, 2018 | 47 | Beppu | Destruction in Beppu 9.17 | 0 | |
| 21 | Hirooki Goto | 4 | November 3, 2018 | 36 | Tokyo, Japan | Power Struggle 2018 | 0 | |
| 22 | Kota Ibushi | 1 | December 9, 2018 | 26 | Iwate, Japan | |||
| 23 | Will Ospreay | 1 | January 4, 2019 | 92 | Tokyo, Japan | Wrestle Kingdom 13 | ||
| 24 | Jeff Cobb | 1 | April 6, 2019 | 27 | New York City, New York | ROH-NJPW G1 Supercard 2019 | 0 | Jeff Cobb's ROH World Television Championship was also on the line in a winner take all championship match with Will Ospreay. |
| 25 | Taichi | 2 | May 3, 2019 | 1813+ | Fukuoka, Japan |