Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Pro Wrestling Illustrated is an American professional wrestling magazine that was founded in 1979 by publisher Stanley Weston. PWI is headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and published by Kappa Publishing Group. The magazine is the longest published English language wrestling magazine still in production. PWI publishes bimonthly, as well as special issues such as their annual "Almanac and Book of Facts" and "PWI 500" edition. The magazine recognizes various world championships as legitimate, similar to The Ring in boxing.
PWI is often referred to as an "Apter Mag", named after its long-time photographer Bill Apter, a term used for wrestling magazines that keep kayfabe. In recent years, the PWI has moved away from reporting on storylines as actual news and mixed in editorial comments on the behind-the-scenes workings of wrestling.
Since 1991, PWI has been publishing its annual "PWI 500", listing the top 500 male wrestlers in the world. In 2008, they added an annual "Top 50 Female Wrestlers" list, which was later expanded and renamed to the "Top 100 Female Wrestlers" list in 2018 and then again in 2021 as the "Top 150 Female Wrestlers." In 2020, they added an annual "Top 50 Tag Teams" listing the top tag teams in the world.
History
The first issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated was released in 1979. The magazine soon became known for not breaking kayfabe in its articles as it traditionally treated all "angles", or storylines, as real. However, in more recent years the magazine has taken an editorial approach between kayfabe and "shoot" writing, differentiating between on-screen feuds and controversies behind the scenes. PWI is not limited to covering only prominent professional wrestling promotions, as it also covers multiple independent promotions in the United States. PWI also published other special issues, which included: PWI Wrestling Almanac & Book of Facts since 1996, Women of Wrestling, and a weekly newsletter entitled PWI Weekly from 1989 to 2000.Yearly awards
PWI has given out annual awards and recognitions since its inception. These awards had previously been given out by another Victory Sports Magazine property, Sports Review Wrestling. PWI has also given out monthly rankings for big promotions, some select independent promotions, and overall rankings in singles and tag teams divisions. Additionally, readers are given the ability to vote for the winners of the year-end awards with ballots being included in special year-end issues. A special PWI Awards Magazine is issued annually, which reveals winners and the number of votes counted. The following is a list of categories in which PWI has issued awards.- Wrestler of the Year
- Tag Team of the Year
- Match of the Year
- Feud of the Year
- Most Popular Wrestler of the Year
- Most Hated Wrestler of the Year
- Most Improved Wrestler of the Year
- Most Inspirational Wrestler of the Year
- Rookie of the Year
- Stanley Weston Award
- Comeback of the Year
- Woman of the Year
- Manager of the Year
- Midget Wrestler of the Year
- Announcer of the Year
World championship status
Historical recognition
Although many wrestling organizations promote their lead title as a world heavyweight championship, Pro Wrestling Illustrated has only recognized a few championships as valid world titles at any one time. PWI has also generally recognized the main tag team title from any promotion with a recognized world heavyweight championship as being a world tag team championship and certain other select titles from those promotions as world championships.In 1983, PWI withdrew world title recognition from the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, citing how champion Bob Backlund was not facing contenders from outside the World Wrestling Federation territory and was only facing rulebreakers. This coincided with the WWF's withdrawal from the National Wrestling Alliance in summer 1983. PWI reinstated the WWF's world title recognition retroactively in 1985 on account of the WWF's massive mainstream media profile.
The AWA World Heavyweight Championship was stripped of its world title status in January 1991 when the American Wrestling Association was in its final days. By this time, the championship was vacant and would remain so until the promotion's closure.
Until March 1991, PWI and its sister publications steadfastly referred to World Championship Wrestling as "the NWA" despite WCW having increasingly phased out the latter name in the preceding months. In spring 1991, the family of magazines adopted a new policy of referring to the current promotion and its champions as WCW and the promotion's pre-1991 past as the NWA. The magazine also announced it would refer to the overall history of the promotion's world title as the "NWA/WCW World Championship". PWI generally traced the lineage of the NWA/WCW World Championship back to George Hackenschmidt's title victory in 1905, rather than the creation of the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship in 1948. Subsequently, after Ric Flair left WCW and was stripped of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in July 1991, PWI and its sister publications nonetheless continued to recognize the WCW title as held by Lex Luger, Sting, Vader, and Ron Simmons as the rightful continuation of the historic NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship. When Masa Chono won an NWA world title tournament in Japan in August 1992, PWI and its sister publications only recognized Chono's title as the "NWA Championship" and rejected it as a world title or as a continuation of the historic NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship.
PWI initially did not recognize the ECW World Heavyweight Championship as a world title but granted the championship and the promotion world title status in 1999.