This article is about the championship that is currently defended on the SmackDown! brand of WWE. For RAW's main 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. The title was originally the highest ranked championship on the RAW brand. Currently, it is the highest ranked championship on the SmackDown! brand of World Wrestling Entertainment.

History

In August 2002, after Brock Lesnar won the WWE Undisputed Championship, he signed an exclusive contract to appear and defend the Undisputed Championship on the SmackDown! brand only, thus leaving the RAW brand without a major championship. Following Lesnar's actions, RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff introduced the World Heavyweight Championship and commissioned it to be the main title for the RAW brand. This new championship was represented by the Big Gold Belt, an iconic wrestling belt that previously represented the NWA Championship, and later the WCW Championship. He awarded the championship to Triple H citing the fact that he was "the last man to wear the belt," in reference to Triple H being the last person to physically hold the Big Gold Belt during his reign as Undisputed Champion. Months later, the Big Gold Belt was replaced with a new similar belt that features the WWE logo at the top of the center plate.

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, the "SmackDown! Championship", only for it to be deemed unnecessary when Batista was drafted to SmackDown!.

Lineage and terminology

Officially, according to World Wrestling Entertainment's website, WWE's position regarding the history of the belt is that the World Heavyweight Championship is a new title and not the same championship as the WCW or NWA titles before it, and that the championship does not inherit the title history of the two belts.^[1] However, it has been made clear that it is the successor to both titles as it traces its lineage from them.^[2]

Despite this position, WWE announcers occasionally make allusions to the World Heavyweight Championship's history as far back as 1904, a reference to Georg Hackenschmidt's World Title reign, as well as that of the NWA and WCW titles.

On January 13, 2006, Batista was forced to drop the World Heavyweight Championship due to legitimate injury. In his speech, he included Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes in his short list of previous holders of the belt. Flair has won two WWE World Championships, in 1992 by winning the Royal Rumble and again in September, 1992, defeating Randy Savage. However, Rhodes, while winning the NWA championship,never won the WCW World Title or the WWE's World Heavyweight Championship and Rhodes has never won a singles title in WWE at all.

Then on December 6, 2006, WWE.com announced the temporary retirement of The Big Show. In the statement it said that The Big Show is the only wrestler to hold the WWE Championship, ECW Championship and World Heavyweight Championship. However, while Big Show is a former WCW Champion, he has never held WWE's World Heavyweight Championship.

Perhaps adding to the confusion is due to the fact that WWE often uses the term "world championship" or "world heavyweight champion" in general for all acknowledged World Championships rather than WWE's World Heavyweight Championship in particular. Ric Flair, for instance, is touted as a 16-time world champion, referring to him winning the respective World Titles in the NWA, WCW, and WWE. Similar title count amalgamations have been made for other wrestlers, including Hulk Hogan, Kurt Angle, and Triple H. In WWE's tribute to Triple H's ten reigns, he is listed as the first World Heavyweight Champion.^[3]

Trivia

• The only superstars that have claimed both the World Heavyweight Championship and WWE Championship in their careers are Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, and Edge.
• Goldberg, Chris Benoit, and King Booker are the only former WCW World Heavyweight Champions to hold this belt. Kurt Angle also held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, but it was after WCW had been purchased by the WWE.
• For four straight years, the winner of the Royal Rumble match (The Undertaker, Rey Mysterio, Batista, and Chris Benoit) has gone on to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship in the WrestleMania main event match of their brand and win, regardless whether or not it was RAW or SmackDown!. However, Benoit moved from SmackDown! to RAW to challenge for the title.
• When Edge won the World Heavyweight Championship in 2007, this marked the frist time in the title's history that it was won on a non PPV event, by pinfall/submission

Current champion

The current World Heavyweight Champion is Edge, who is in his first reign. He defeated The Undertaker on the May 8 2007 SmackDown! taping in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after cashing in the Money in the Bank contract he won from Mr. Kennedy the previous night on RAW. Edge is the fifth wrestler to have held both the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship.

See also

• List of World Heavyweight Champions
• List of World Heavyweight Championship reigns by length
• WCW World Heavyweight Championship

References

External links

• WWE World Heavyweight Title History