Enough Already...The truth of the World Heavyweight Title

[The One]

It seems like everyone has their messages crossed as the what the World Heavyweight Championship is, and were each of the title's history's are.

The WWE (SmackDown) Championship
Current champion John Bradshaw Layfeild holds the WWE Title, the first Champion of this title came in the form of Buddy Rogers in April of 1963...the World Wide Wrestling Federation dropped out of the NWA, weeks earlier the then NWA World Champion Buddy Rogers was defeated by Lou Thesz to win the NWA World Title, however Buddy Rogers went with the WWWF and instead of "awarding" him the World Title, or making him win it in a tournament, the WWWF said they refused to reconize Lou Thesz's victory of Rogers, so the WWWF continued to call Rogers the World Champion...and maybe my coment about him not winning it in a tournament was harsh, as he did put the title up for grabs in a tournament weeks later and he won that anyway...simple enough history, now comes the hard ones.

The (Raw) World Heavyweight Championship
Chris Benoit right now is the current holder of the World Heavyweight Championship, which before it was the World's Title, it was known as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The WCW Title was unified with the WWE Title to create the Undisputed World Championship by the Ayatola of Rock-And-Rolla himself Chris Jericho. The Undsiputed Title was split when the brand extension happened. But where does this title's history begin??? The World's Title history begins on January 11, 1991. Ric Flair had beaten NWA World Champion Sting to win the NWA World Title. However on September 8, 1991, Ric Flair left NWA-Mid Atlantic/WCW to join the WWF. On the date of September 8, 1991, the NWA VACATED the World's Heavyweight Championship for the first time in history...but wait, WCW had claimed that on July 1, 1991 Ric Flair was stripped of the World's Heavyweight Championship...how could that be? Officially, Ric Flair was both the WCW World's Champion and the NWA World's Champion between January 11 and July 1...then from July 1 to September 8 Ric Flair was simply the NWA World Champion...The controversy now lies in this...for a long time, the NWA World Title was called the WCW World Title on TV. But since the stripping of the titles came on different dates, and because NWA officially had legal rights to the title, the WCW title was effecttivly created on January 11, and Ric Flair was the first Champion...so all this talk about Ric Flair being a 16 time WCW World Champion is nothing more then WCW trying to lay claims to a title they never possesed (Ric was a 8 time WCW World Champion)...the NWA World Title and the WCW World Title are 2, count them, TWO totally different titles, created on different dates, the only similarity is that since Ric Flair was the NWA World Champion, the WCW gave him the WCW World Title...which brings us on to the 2nd company to claim to have the World's Heavyweight Championship...

(for the sake of everyone I am going to skip the WCW Universal World's Heavyweight Title...as that was just plain...skipable)

The NWA World's Heavyweight Championship
Since I have already gone through the controlversy surround the WCW deal, I will skip it and say that the NWA can't claim to have the original World Title either. The first NWA World Champion was Orville Brown, and he became the NWA World Champion in October of 1948...but much like the WCW Title, he didn't win it to become the first Champion, he was awarded the belt because he was the World Champion of another company (sound farmiliar). Orville Brown was the Midwest Wrestling Association's World Heavyweight Champion, and when the MWA, along with about a dozon other wrestling companies combined, they collectivly formed the National Wrestling Alliance. And since MWA was the most reconized of all the companies, and because Oville Brown was a big name, he was given the NWA World Title. (By the way, Ric Flair was a 10 time NWA World Champion...combine that with the 8 time WCW Champion, and his 2 WWE Titles, makes him a 20 time World Champ...oh and this is the title currently held by Jeff Jarrett of NWA-TNA). But what about this MWA...were does their history start?

The MWA World Heavyweight Championship
The first Champion of the MWA was Bobby Bruns, he beat Orville Brown in the finals of a tournament to crown the first MWA World Heavyweight Champion on January 19, 1940...the title would change hands 25 times in the 8 years before the MWA joined with others to form the NWA...Orville Brown was an 11 time Champion of the MWA before he was announced the first NWA World Champion...

So what is the first World's Heavyweight Title??? Finally I give you, the REAL World's Heavyweight Championship...

The Real World Heavyweight Championship
On January 30, 1904, George Hackenschmidt defeated Ahmed Madrali in London England to become the first World Heavyweight Championship, he currently held the American Heavyweight Title, the European Greco-Roman Heavyweight Title, and by defeating Ahmed Madrali he was the first World Champion...this is the title that Frank Gotch held for 5 years before retiring and effectivly vacating the title...Charlie Culter was then the American Heavyweight Champion, and once Frank retired he became the World Champion...the title effectivly ended on November 9, 1956 when Lou Thesz won a tournament to crown the Undisputed World Champion...Lou Thesz combined the World Wrestling Association Title (LA...different then the other WWA mentioned earlier), the World Heavyweight Title, and the NWA world Title be winning the tournament...Lou Thesz was reconized as the NWA World heavyweight Champion from that day forward, and the legacy of the original World Heavyweight Championship was lost forever.

So from now on if you know the truth...don't be fooled by the WWE, NWA, or anyone else...no one can claim to have the original World Title

[Innovator]

good job getting the facts straight :y:

[LK]

Good job

[Sephiroth]

Good job dude :y:

[MVP]

Excellent. :y:

[The CyNick]

Nobody would ever dispute the lineage of the WWE title, which is currently defended on Smackdown and held by JBL.

The disputed title is the title Benoit holds on RAW.

I feel stupid for trying to make sense of something the WWE doesn't even care about, but what the hell. My take on it is that Benoit carries around a belt that physically looks like the old WCW title, but DOES NOT carry its lineage.

WCW went out of business really in 2001 with Booker T as the last WCW Champion, then the WWE took over and WCW ceased to exist. Now, I can see making a case that WCW continued on in the WWE as a "separate" organization. In which case, WCW as a brand died at SurvSer 2002, and therefore the last WCW champion under that logic would have been The Rock.

From that point onward they started to call the WCW title the "World Heavyweight Championship". From there the title gets merged with the WWE title and becomes the Undisputed WWE Championship.

When Steph brought Brock over to SD exclusively Bischoff created a World Title for RAW and used the Big Gold Belt. Now to me that makes the SD title no longer "undisputed" but it still carried the lineage of the World Title (WCW) and the WWE title. There was no WCW at the time, so nobody would have the right to strip Brock of the WCW part of the title and certainly not Eric Bischoff.

Therefore, the World Heavyweight Championship as its known today on RAW has no history prior to 2002. I know they've done pieces where they talk about that belt going back to 1900 or whatever BS they shoot, but to me that makes no sense whatsoever. Because nobody has the power to split up the lineage of the title that is on SD.

Look at it this way, the version of the tag titles on SD is never claimed to have the same history of the old WWF tag titles or the WCW tag titles. It was created and has its own history exclusive to SD. The "real" tag team championship belts are on RAW because they carry the lineage of both the WWE and WCW tag team titles. Just because SD created new titles, doesn't mean they get to take the lineage of another title. And as such, the RAW world heavyweight title cant lay any claim to the WCW heavyweight title just because they use the same physicial belt.

The IC and US titles are a little more complicated because the IC title was merged with the RAW World Title. To me, the RAW World Title is actually the IC title (with the US/Hardcore and Euro titles merged) and the current version of the IC title is a new belt with no history before 2003 or whenever they brought it back. Ditto for the version of the US title on SD.

But like I said, this stuff is stupid because WWE never bothered to make sense of it when it was going down.

[The One]

I would agree, but a company has the right to split the title if they so desire...and if you take your logic to it (not that I am bashing you) but then the RAW World Title would have the WWE IC, WCW US, WWE European, and the WWE Hardcore title as it's liniage...I like to think of title unifications as saying "This guy currently holds the most important of the fallowing titles" but the company reserves the right to withdraw the titles at any point...hence the US Title Booker T holds is the same won that was in WCW...My guess as to why the SmackDown Titles have never once tried to been linked to the WCW Tag Titles is becuase the WCW Tag division was shit from about 1993 onward.

Also then by your logic, the only title in the WWE that has a history beyond 2002 is the WWE Title WWE Women's and the World Tag Titles...making the World, IC, US, WWE Tag, and Cruiserweight title basically baby titles.

The fact is the company owns the title, and therefore can do whatever they want with it...they could by definition, award George Bush and Osama Binladin the Cruiserweight Tag Champions and promot a Title defense against Satna Cluas and the Easter Bunny for SummerSlam...just so long as they had a "Card Subject to Chage" at the bottom... :shifty:

[The CyNick]

My logic says that the RAW World title = the real IC title, the real US title, the Euro and HC titles all combined together. But has no lineage to the WCW World Title.

Obviously a company can do whatever they want in terms of what they say is true, but when we are talking about lineage, a company shouldn't be able to just make it up as they go. Matches happen, and they have a result, and the results should matter. I mean 20 years from now they could claim Hunter won a 16 man tournament in Rio to win the World Heavyweight title in 2002. That wouldn't be true, but they could claim it, and since they own all the footage and stuff nobody would be able to dispute their claim to a wide audience. I just try to look at these things from a realistic POV, which as I stated is really stupid with this issue.

The new titles created after the split (World Title, SD tag, and the new version of the IC and US titles) are not worthless, they just dont have any history beyond their creation date (02-03). For example, I think you could make a case that the World Title on RAW despite having no lineage is still more prestigious than the WWE Title on SD because it has been booked better this year. Similarly when they created the SD tag titles, I thought those were more valuable than the RAW version (which has the history) because on SD they had much better matches and the division seemed to matter. Just because a title has very little history doesn't mean it isn't meaningful.

The CW title as best as I can remember is legit because it was kept in tact after it was unified (WCW CW title + WWF LHW title).

As for the WCW tag titles, well the WCW World Title was a worthless piece of shit in the last few years of WCW's existence but they still try to claim its lineage is in tact. So that doesn't hold water. And since they use the WWE initials for all the SD titles, why dont they claim the SD tag titles carry the lineage of the WWF tag titles (the ones won by the Bulldogs, the Harts, Demolition and so on)? They dont, because they are new titles, just like the RAW World Title was a new title created specifically for RAW.

[Splaya]

Someone summarize the last 8 posts please

[Boondock Saint]

I dunno. Sometimes I think of the World title as having all that lineage, but sometimes I think of it as new. I'm the same with the U.S. title.

But I always figured the I.C. title to have all the lineage with it. Especially when Orton kept saying he had held that belt longer than anyone else in the last 7 years.

[Quick1]

Someone summarize the last 8 posts please
MVP said excellent.:y: SP

[Kane Knight]

Someone summarize the last 8 posts please
Learn to read, retard.

Anyways, nicely done. I've seen it before, but :y:

[Archangel]

This is why the wwe doesn't post title lineage on there website, so they don't have to explain to people this shit. That and so the wwe can change history when ever they need to.

[Kane Knight]

More like they don't have a clue themselves.

[Archangel]

Good point

[Dorkchop]

Ayatollah Assahola.

That was mad sweet. What we need now is a history of the belts themselves. WWE has gone through a lot of title belts. It would be nice to see/read a history of them. I miss the WWF heavy weight title that was unified for the undisputed title.

[The Mackem]

What I don't understand is when the NWA title seperates from WCW and is what Jarrett holds today or is that part of the Ric Flair fiasco?

[Stickman]

If Jeff Jarret is the NWA Champ, does he defend on anything other than NWA TNA? If not, why isn't he just the TNA Heavyweight Champ?

[James Steele]

Officially, TNA as nothing but jack squat to do with the NWA. They just use the NWA titles (tag and world). Other than that, everything is TNA.

The X title is usually called "The X Title" instead of the "NWA X Title" for that reason. Eventaully, TNA will have to get its own titles or join the NWA.

[Mr. Nerfect]

OK, I agree with the WWE Title, but like The CyNick, I think the World Heavyweight Championship is it's own seperate "Championship", but the "Belt" goes back to everything you mentioned. This would explain why they are always saying "Benoit's career has finally come to a World Heavyweight Championship reign!", and "Chris Jericho wants his belt back!" on occassions. Eric Bischoff brought the belt back, but the official history of the WCW Championship, World Championship, etc. are infused into the WWE Championship. The history of the title belt however, takes that of the WCW route.

As for the WWE Intercontinental Championship, Stone Cold sort of withdrew that Championship from the World Heavyweight Championship. I believe since the Championships were unifyed on RAW, RAW has the power to "un-unify" them so to speak. Whether or not that takes the titles it was infused with with it, though. I guess since the European and Hardcore Championship are built into the IC Title, and it was withdrawn from the WHC, they would be removed from that title's compilation.

I like to think that since all the titles were combined on RAW, that Austin had the ability to take out just the IC Title, leaving the Hardcore and Eurpoean Titles properties of the big gold belt. Although it would make more sense to have the mid0card title compiled of three mid-card titles. :-\

[Mr. Nerfect]

Now onto the lesser titles. The Cruiserweight Championship was continued ever since WCW, so technically it is probably one Championship. But if someone did do a list of the Title History of the CW Championship, they should make a note of when it became WWE property, and when it had the name change. I can't remember, but is the Cruiserweight Championship actually unified with the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship? I think i just remember the LHC being discontinued.

The World Tag Team Championship is actually a compilation of both the WWE Tag Team Championship and the WCW Tag Team Championship. SmackDown!'s WWE Tag Team Championship is basically a new title, although someone might argue that the WCW and WWE titles where split up. I think of them as new titles, however.

I think of the WWE United States Championship as a new title as well. Just as the World Heavyweight Championship, the GM took a share of what makes up the opposing brands title history, and created a new one in an attempt to match it. So Eddie Guerrero, The Big Show, John Cena and Booker T are the only real champs of this title's history.

I'd LOVE to see a little angle pop up with Booker T or John Cena (whoever wins The Best Out of Five Series) trying to establish the US Title as a Heavyweight Title. All the champs other than Cena have been a Heavyweight Championat some point in their career, so it would be fitting for John Cena to feud with a WWE Champion in JBL.

[Blue Demon]

cool

[KaliKot]

I don't think the US title is a new title
The WWE booked the return of the IC and US titles as part of the history of the belts
remember when they promoted the return of these titles by using the past holders such as Bret Hart, Eddie, Benoit etc?

[Boondock Saint]

Now onto the lesser titles. The Cruiserweight Championship was continued ever since WCW, so technically it is probably one Championship. But if someone did do a list of the Title History of the CW Championship, they should make a note of when it became WWE property, and when it had the name change. I can't remember, but is the Cruiserweight Championship actually unified with the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship? I think i just remember the LHC being discontinued.



Not 100% positive because its been a while but I believe X-Pac was the LHC and Kidman was the CW during the Invasion and at Survivor Series 01, they wrestled to unify them.

[Boondock Saint]

But also, didn't Summerslam 2001 unify both the WCW and WWF titles when Kane/Taker beat DDP/Kanyon in a cage?

But later on at Surv. Series they unifed them AGAIN between the Dudleyz and Hardyz in a cage? Did they just forget or was the first match not a unification match?

[Cruiserweight 3:16]

The first match wasn't a unification match - it was just a winner holds both titles match