List Of World Heavyweight Champions (WWE)
The World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in WWE. It is one of two world titles in WWE, complementing the WWE Championship. It was established by WWE in 2002 after WWE bought out World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), and split its roster into two franchises, Raw and SmackDown, in a brand extension.
WWE's original world title, the WWE Championship (then known as the Undisputed Championship, which was the combination of the WWF and WCW titles, unified by Chris Jericho), was designated to the SmackDown brand, which resulted in the World Heavyweight Championship being established and designated to the Raw brand The World Heavyweight Championship is not a continuation of the WCW Championship, but rather its successor by way of the WWE Undisputed Championship, just as the WCW Championship spun off from the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. For a list of champions who have held those titles, see List of WCW World Heavyweight Champions and List of NWA World Heavyweight Champions respectively.
The championship is generally contested in professional wrestling matches, in which participants usually execute scripted finishes rather than contend in direct competition. The first champion was Triple H, who was awarded the title on September 2, 2002 by Eric Bischoff, the General Manager of Raw. Overall, there have been 24 different official champions, with Edge having the most reigns at seven. The longest single reign was held by Batista, with said reign lasting 282 days. Big Show is the current World Heavyweight Champion and is in his second reign.
Read more about List Of World Heavyweight Champions (WWE): Title History, List of Combined Reigns
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