World Heavyweight Championship (professional Wrestling) - History

History

Most of the well-recognized world heavyweight championships today are derived from the first recognized version held by Georg Hackenschmidt in 1905 and Frank Gotch in 1908. Established in 1948, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) directly traces its lineage to these reigns, thus making it the oldest active world title. With many regional territories appearing across the United States, the NWA was formed in 1948 as a governing body in professional wrestling, operating as a talent and brand name franchiser for the territory system. Though promotions that were members of the NWA retained their ownership and recognition of its champions, they were to recognize the NWA World Heavyweight Championship as the premier title over their own. The American Wrestling Association (AWA) was formed in 1960 from NWA territories that began to secede from the NWA during the late 1950s. Unilaterally, the AWA established the AWA World Heavyweight Championship and awarded the recognition to NWA World Heavyweight Champion Pat O'Connor only to later rule that O'Connor had forfeited the title to the AWA's Verne Gagne. The title along with the AWA became inactive in 1990 and was officially decommissioned in 1991. The NWA World Heavyweight Championship has since served as the foundation from which other world titles have originated. Consequently, titles that spun off from the NWA World Heavyweight Championship lineage, are connected to the historical reigns of Georg Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch as well.

WWE is currently home to two such active world titles; the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship. The WWE Championship was introduced in 1963 when Capitol Wrestling Corporation, the precursor to WWE, seceded from the NWA and became World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). The WWWF World Heavyweight Championship was thus established as being produced from the NWA title when recognition was awarded to Buddy Rogers after he had lost the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Lou Thesz. WWWF was renamed to World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979 and the title became known as the WWF World Heavyweight Championship and later simply the WWF Championship.

Similarly, the WCW World Heavyweight Championship of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was introduced in 1991 and was established when the recognition was awarded to NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair, thus being produced from the NWA title. WCW seceded from the NWA in 1993 and became a rival promotion to the WWF, growing into mainstream prominence along with them and eventually being involved in a television ratings war. Meanwhile, due to WCW's secession from the NWA, WCW opted to recognize Ric Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship reign at the time of the secession as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship, which was then used for a fictitious WCW subsidiary until it was decommissioned in 1994. Ultimately, WCW was bought-out by the WWF, and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWF Championship in 2001. Chris Jericho become the final WCW Champion and the subsequent WWF Champion, defeating The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin respectively.

The WWF Championship became the Undisputed Championship in professional wrestling with no other prominent world title to dispute the claim until 2002. The WWF was renamed to WWE and its title became the WWE Undisputed Championship while WWE was divided into franchises or "brands" known as Raw and SmackDown, which act as complementing promotions under WWE. The WWE Undisputed Championship was then designated to a single brand, becoming simply the WWE Championship after the World Heavyweight Championship (WHC) was created in 2002, spun off from the WWE Undisputed Championship. The WHC was awarded using the Big Gold Belt that had previously represented the WCW Championship, linking it to the latter as a spiritual successor, as acknowledged by the WWE.

In 2006, WWE became home to another world title that had also spun off from the NWA World Heavyweight Championship; the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Originally of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the ECW World Heavyweight Championship was first introduced in 1992 in Eastern Championship Wrestling, the precursor to ECW. However, it was officially established in 1994 and produced from the NWA title when the promotion seceded from the NWA and became Extreme Championship Wrestling after Shane Douglas relinquished the NWA World Heavyweight Championship immediately after winning it and instead proclaimed himself the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. After ECW closed in 2001, its assets were subsequently purchased by WWE, and in 2006, the franchise was relaunched as a WWE brand complementary to Raw and SmackDown with the title being recommissioned and designated to the brand. The brand and title would continue to operate until 2010.

In Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), a promotion founded in 2002, NWA titles held a dominant role through an agreement, which allowed the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to be operated within the promotion after TNA's NWA affiliation had ended in 2004. The agreement was abruptly voided in 2007 and Christian Cage was stripped of the title by the NWA. TNA then introduced the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and awarded the recognition to Kurt Angle while also recognizing NWA reigns recorded in TNA. Also founded in 2002, Ring of Honor (ROH) is a promotion that grew from the independent circuit of professional wrestling to become one of the major organizations. Originally introduced as the ROH Championship in July 2002, the title became established as the ROH World Championship a year later in May 2003.