IWGP Heavyweight Championship
On February 17, 2008, Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Kurt Angle to unify the two versions of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Afterwards, both the second and third generation title belts were retired with Nakamura being awarded a brand new belt to represent the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The fourth generation belt was created to symbolically end the issues surrounding the championship and start anew.