The World Heavyweight Championship
By 2002, the WWF had been divided in what became known as the Brand Extension and the promotion along with its parent company were renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The roster was divided into two franchises or "WWE brands", split between Raw and SmackDown. The Undisputed Champion appeared on both shows and defended against challengers from both brands. After SummerSlam, Undisputed Champion Brock Lesnar announced that he had signed an exclusive contract with SmackDown, ignoring the claim to the title's number-one contendership by Raw's Triple H. Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff said that the Undisputed Title was thus very much disputed, and he awarded the World Heavyweight Championship, in the form of the Big Gold Belt, to Triple H. A WWE logo was added to the belt, for copyright purposes, in March 2003.
On June 30, 2005, the World Heavyweight Championship was moved to the SmackDown brand when then-champion Batista was drafted to the program. It remained a part of SmackDown until exactly three years later, when then-champion Edge, a SmackDown wrestler, was defeated by Raw wrestler CM Punk. For a period of seventy days in early 2009, the title went back and forth between the Raw and SmackDown brands due to Edge entering the Raw Elimination Chamber match at No Way Out and winning the match, Raw superstar John Cena defeating Edge at WrestleMania XXV to take the belt, and Edge regaining the title at Backlash. Since that day (April 26, 2009), the World Heavyweight Championship has been part of SmackDown. (It should be noted that another Raw-contracted wrestler, Jack Swagger, won the title in that interim period. However he, along with Edge who did this in 2007, was able to join the SmackDown brand due to his cashing in of the Money in the Bank contract that was in his possession.) During the week of August 29, 2011, it was announced that all WWE programming would feature the entire roster. Due to this, the World Title, along with every other championship in WWE, can now be defended on any show against any wrestler.
Read more about this topic: Big Gold Belt, History
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