World Heavyweight Championship (WWE)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about WWE's version of the World Heavyweight Championship. For the original WWWF/WWF/WWE World Heavyweight Championship, see WWE Championship. For the other versions of the "Big Gold Belt" design, see Big Gold Belt.

The World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling championship. Currently, it is the highest ranked championship on the SmackDown! brand of World Wrestling Entertainment. The belt was introduced in 2002 originally as the top-level championship for the RAW brand.

Contents 1 History 2 Lineage controversy 2.1 Creationist factors 2.2 Restorationist factors 3 Terminology confusion 4 Statistics 5 Trivia 6 Current champion 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] History

The championship was originally represented by the "Big Gold Belt", an iconic wrestling belt that previously represented the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, and later the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. In 2003, several months after the title was reintroduced, the belt was modified from the original design to include a new WWE logo at the top of the belt and a slight curve on the face plate. It is certainly not disputed that the current World Heavyweight Championship belt has a design inspired by the "Big Gold Belt," but whether the championship is considered to be in the lineage of the two has been under debate (see Lineage controversy).

In August 2002, after Brock Lesnar won the WWE Undisputed Championship (the top-tier championship of the WWE, defended on both RAW and SmackDown!), he declared he would be a SmackDown!-exclusive wrestler and would no longer wrestle on RAW or defend the title against any RAW superstar under any circumstances. In response, on September 2, 2002, then-General Manager of RAW Eric Bischoff introduced the World Heavyweight Championship to be the new top-tier championship for RAW and also stated that he wanted the legacy of this belt to continue to make history. Bischoff immediately awarded the old WCW belt to Triple H because he was the "last man to wear the belt," in reference to Triple H being the last to physically hold the WCW title belt as champion. Also, Triple H had a title shot set up, before Lesnar signed exclusively to SmackDown!.

Following the formation of the World Heavyweight Championship and the creation of a separate set of tag-team belts for SmackDown!, the two sets of tag-team belts were renamed to mirror those of the top belts: hence the WWE World Tag Team Championship became simply known as the World Tag Team Championship, while the newer belts took "WWE" into its name. When the two top singles titles switched shows, neither of the tag-team belts were renamed. With the top belts being show-exclusive, the WWE Women's Championship was quietly made into a RAW-exclusive belt.

With the WWE 2005 Draft, the two top belts effectively switched shows, with WWE Champion John Cena, moving to RAW as the first pick in the draft and World Heavyweight Champion Batista moving to SmackDown!. In the four-week interim period between the first and last draft picks, RAW had both of the top belts while SmackDown! had neither, prompting SmackDown! General Manager Theodore Long to attempt to introduce a third top belt (presumably called the "WWE SmackDown! Championship"), only for it to be deemed unnecessary when Batista was introduced to SmackDown!.

In a shocking twist, SmackDown!, a taped show that is shown two to three days later on television, announced the new champion at the night of the taping as major breaking news, contrary to WWE's spoiler conventions in which such stories would be relegated to the background (as it was felt that spoilers for SmackDown! would have a negative impact on its ratings). Even more shocking was the fact that the new champion was Kurt Angle, who was a RAW wrestler at the time. Angle would reveal on RAW the next week, where he was still obliged to fight Shawn Michaels, that he had negotiated a contract on SmackDown! after hearing of Batista's injury, and the fact that his RAW contract had expired at the end of the previous year (how Angle remained on RAW in a "handshake agreement" for several weeks after his contract expired remained unexplained), with negotiations on a contract extension stalled after the "firing" of general manager Eric Bischoff.

[edit] Lineage controversy

World Wrestling Entertainment has been in an inconsistent position regarding whether the World Heavyweight Championship inherits the history of the WCW and NWA titles before it, although it is been made clear that the World Heavyweight Championship is the successor to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and its title belt is reminiscent of the Big Gold Belt before it. The strong consensus is that WWE, due to being able to reinterpret their position as it sees fit, may adopt one or the other position to promote the title or the wrestler holding it. This is in the same vein as WWE's claim that The Fabulous Moolah had held the WWE Women's Championship for over 30 years, despite it being either inactive or under the auspices of the NWA for much of the time, or how WWE did not recognize its own Light Heavyweight Championship until it was separated from the J-Crown.

[edit] Creationist factors

Officially, according to World Wrestling Entertainment's website, the World Heavyweight Championship is a new title, created in 2002, and awarded to Triple H^[1]. It initially claimed legitimacy as the successor to the NWA and WCW counterparts, but this point was dropped after the belt gained a reputation of its own. Factors supporting the claim that the World Heavyweight Championship does not inherit the history of the NWA and WCW titles include the following:

• Chris Benoit was claimed to have won the belt for the first time at WrestleMania XX by announcers Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, despite Benoit having won the WCW Championship before - in fact, he had left for the WWF shortly after having won the WCW Championship at WCW Souled Out in a well-publicized move. This, however, may have been intentionally claimed so as to add to the drama of the victory. In addition, WWE and Chris Benoit don't really recognize Benoit's WCW Championship win, as Benoit left for the WWF the very next night.
• On May 19, 2003, Raw General Manager Stone Cold Steve Austin gave Triple H the choice to defend the World Heavyweight Championship against any former "world champion" on the roster, and specifically named former WWE Champions of the RAW roster: Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, and Kane, but did not state former WCW champions on the RAW roster who had, to that point, not held a world title in WWE: Booker T, Scott Steiner, and Goldberg. This implied that WWE did not recognize WCW Champions as former "world champions", or simply that the WCW Champions were in some way inferior (Kane, in fact, had never held the Big Gold Belt in any form). It should be noted that Triple H would eventually defend the title against someone Austin did not name: his ally Ric Flair, who had previously won both the WWE and WCW championships.
• When the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and the WWE United States Championship were restored from their WCW counterparts, the previous WCW titleholders of those belts were recognized by WWE, while previous WCW championships (except for those who subsequently won the World Heavyweight Championship, such as Chris Benoit, Goldberg, Kurt Angle, and King Booker) were not recognized by WWE as being former World Heavyweight Champions.
• WWE states that Randy Orton is its youngest World Heavyweight Champion at age 24, although The Big Show held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at age 23. Lou Thesz won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at age 21; which was also not recognized by WWE.

These all imply that the World Heavyweight Championship is a new championship with a belt identical in appearance to the WCW Championship, and indeed, in mid-2005 a separate title history section was added for the WCW Championship, listing Chris Jericho as its final champion^[2], although it was later removed.

[edit] Restorationist factors

Despite this position, WWE announcers and video montages occasionally make allusions to the title's lineage as far back as 1904, a reference to Georg Hackenschmidt's World Title reign, as well as that of the WCW championship. Supporters of the claim that the World Heavyweight Championship inherits the history of the NWA and WCW titles claim the following:

• After the Invasion storyline of 2001 concluded during Survivor Series, the WCW World Heavyweight Championship was simply renamed to remove references to WCW, which, as an on-air entity, was defunct as a result of the main event. The championship itself continued to be prominently featured until Chris Jericho won both the WWF Championship and this championship on the same night. Thereafter, the two belts were always defended together, until a singular title belt was introduced shortly after WrestleMania X8. Some argue that the World Heavyweight Championship today is, at the very least, a successor to the post-Invasion World Championship. The December fourth, 2006 edition of Monday Night Raw produced a segment called This week in wrestling history, which references Jericho becoming the first Undisputed Champion, but refers to the renamed WCW belt as the WCW Championship, rather than as the World Heavyweight Championship, which it had been renamed as.
• When Brock Lesnar signed the SmackDown!-exclusive contract, RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff claimed that the Undisputed Championship could no longer be undisputed, and simply introduced the World Heavyweight Championship by simply retracting the WCW Championship from the union. At the same time, the Undisputed name was dropped from Lesnar's title.
• On January 13, 2006, Batista was forced to drop the title due to legitimate injury. In his speech, he included Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes in his short list of previous World Heavyweight Champions, despite Flair having never held the World Heavyweight Championship in its present form and Rhodes having never won a singles title in WWE at all. However, Rhodes was a former NWA champion and Flair a former WCW champion. A montage airing the following week also made reference to the WCW championship as a predecessor to the World Heavyweight Championship.
• On August 9, 2006, as part of WWE's Mobile Service, Hulk Hogan was mentioned as simply winning the World Heavyweight Championship at Road Wild from Lex Luger on the same date in 1997, without making reference to it being the WCW championship.
• On October 30, 2006, Vince McMahon, in what was perhaps a legitimate blooper, accidentally referred to King Booker as the WCW champion before correcting himself. This, however, may have been a reference to Booker's five WCW championship reigns rather than any statement about the World Heavyweight Championship's successor.
• On December 6, 2006, WWE.com announced the temporary retirement of the Big Show. In this article they mentioned that he had been a WWE Champion, ECW World Heavyweight Champion, and World Heavyweight Champion during his career. While the Big Show has held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the past, he has never held WWE's incarnation of the World Heavyweight Championship since it's introduction in late 2002.

[edit] Terminology confusion

Perhaps adding to the confusion is due to the fact that WWE often uses the term "world championship" or "world heavyweight champion" as a generic term rather than the World Heavyweight Championship in particular. Ric Flair, for instance, is touted as a 16-time world champion, despite having never won any championship on 16 different occasions (and in fact, closer inspection reveals that the 16 itself is inaccurate - he has won a PWI-recognized world championship a total of 22 times). He did, however, win the WCW championship 6 times and was a two-time WWE Champion. Similar title count amalgamations have been made for other wrestlers - Hulk Hogan, Kurt Angle, Triple H are among the examples. However, this treatment has been used inconsistently: prior to Angle having won the World Heavyweight Championship, Angle was referred to as a "former WCW champion and a four-time WWE Champion" and not a "five-time world champion", while after his win he is solely referred to as a "six-time world champion". King Booker, however, is always referred to as a "five-time WCW champion and a World Heavyweight Champion" - perhaps a reference to earlier days (prior to winning the World Heavyweight Championship) where he was referred to as a "five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time WCW champion". This amalgamation is typically seen as a tribute to legendary wrestlers, where their championships may transcend the promotions that they were part of.

This does little to solve the issue to whether the World Heavyweight Championship inherits the history of the NWA and WCW titles - in WWE's tribute to Triple H's ten reigns, he is listed as the first World Heavyweight Champion^[3], while other statements have contradicted this fact.

[edit] Statistics

The following pertains specifically to the history of the belt since its WWE reintroduction in 2002:

Record:	Record holder:	Record number:	Notes:
Most reigns	Triple H	5	He was the only multi-time champion prior to the 2006 Survivor Series PPV when Batista defeated King Booker for the title and a second reign as Champion.
Longest reign	Batista	282 days	Forfeited title due to (legit) triceps injury.
Shortest reign	Randy Orton and Shawn Michaels	28 days	Both won and then lost the titles at consecutive pay-per-view events.
Oldest champion	King Booker	41 years	N/A
Youngest champion	Randy Orton	24 years	N/A
Heaviest champion	Batista	c. 318 lb (144 kg)	N/A
Lightest champion	Rey Mysterio	c. 160 lb (72 kg)	N/A

[edit] Trivia

• The only three superstars that have claimed both the World Heavyweight Championship and the WWE Championship in their careers are Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and Kurt Angle. Of the three superstars in the list, only Kurt Angle has held both titles since the brand split in 2002.
• Goldberg, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit and King Booker are the only former WCW World Champions to hold this belt.
• In the past 3 years the winner of the Royal Rumble match (Rey Mysterio, Batista and Chris Benoit) has gone onto win the World Heavyweight Championship in the WrestleMania main event match of their brand whether it was RAW or SmackDown!, although Benoit moved from SmackDown to RAW to challenge for the title.
• With his win over King Booker at the 2006 Survivor Series, Batista became the first man to challenge for and win the World Heavyweight Championship on both RAW and SmackDown.

[edit] Current champion

The current champion is Batista, who is in his second reign. Batista won the title from King Booker on November 26, 2006 at Survivor Series 2006.

[edit] See also

• List of World Heavyweight Champions
• List of World Heavyweight Championship reigns by length
• List of World Heavyweight Championship reigns by combined length
• Championship unification
• List of Number of World Title Reigns
• WCW World Heavyweight Championship
• World Heavyweight Championship

[edit] References

1. ^ World Heavyweight Championship title history
2. ^ WCW World Heavyweight Championship history at the Internet Archive
3. ^ Triple H's sixth title reign

[edit] External links

• WWE World Heavyweight Title History

Current WWE championships and accomplishments
Promotion championships
RAW championships WWE | Intercontinental | World Tag Team | Women's
SmackDown! championships World Heavyweight | United States | WWE Tag Team | Cruiserweight
ECW championships ECW World Heavyweight
Developmental territories
Ohio Valley Wrestling championships OVW Heavyweight | OVW Television | OVW Southern Tag Team | OVW Women's
Deep South Wrestling championships DSW Heavyweight | DSW Tag Team
Other accomplishments
Royal Rumble | Money in the Bank | King of the Ring (SD!) | Diva Search