Well hello there. For today, I go by Mr. Warrior, and I would like to fill your minds with vast knowledge regarding World Championships and their unifications.
I see many wrestling fans who are uneducated on the intricacies of professional wrestling. They are not familiar with the facts, and this can sometimes lead to confusion and arguments. So without further ado, please put your thinking caps on, and be prepared to take notes.
Original World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship (1905-1956)
In order to grasp how we arrived at this moment in 2014, we have to understand how it all began.
It’s hard to imagine any wrestling fans today who could remember a time when the world only had one World Championship. The wrestling world was really basic back then, and it wasn’t until 1905 that the first World Champion would be crowned, George Hackenschmidt, who won a tournament.
This championship would last 51 years, and would be held by the likes of Hackenschmidt, Frank Gotch, Ed “The Strangler” Lewis & Lou Thesz. Many of these unsung legends can be credited for building the foundation blocks for what wrestling is today. Many of the basic moves and techniques used by wrestlers today were innovated by these men, and sadly, they are not given the recognition they deserve.
The only time this championship was not defended, was of course, during the World Wars. The old days was all about keeping kayfabe (acting like it’s real), and to be honest, the fans had no clue. Wrestling was considered a sport back then, and you had to be really tough to be a champion, otherwise your opponent might try to steal your championship by forcing a pinfall.
There were so many territories, and after some time, the NWA was formed. This would oversee the territory system, and during the 1950s, many promoters had grown tired of the way the World Champion would be booked in their areas. They wanted to crown a World Champion in their territories so they could bring in the money, and this led to the demise of the Original World title.
In 1956, a match between Lou Thesz(c) and Édouard Carpentier ended with the challenger winning by disqualification. This had such an effect that some territories decided they wanted to recognise Carpentier as World Champion, and thus, was crowned with their championships, leading to the Original World title to split. The Original World Championship has never been reunited to this day, and although it might be possible to do, it would be incredibly unlikely. (You will see why later)
The NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) would see to it that Lou Thesz became the NWA World Heavyweight Champion after their plans for the Original title didn’t work out as planned.
NWA World Heavyweight Championship (1948-Present)
The NWA title is the oldest World Championship in wrestling history, and is credited with inadvertently creating splinter championships from its legacy.
While Lou Thesz was the (original) World Champion, Verne Gagne had become frustrated with the lack of change, and wanted to become champion. When Lou Thesz became NWA Champion, he wrestled Verne Gagne in Omaha, Nebraska on August 9, 1958. Gagne won that match, and the title change was recognized by those NWA affiliate promotions that would later evolve into the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in 1960.
The NWA World Heavyweight Championship would cause other promotions to create their own titles after they seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance. These companies included the AWA, WWWF (WWE), WCW, ECW and TNA Wrestling.
AWA World Heavyweight Championship
The AWA created this title after they seceded from the NWA in 1960. It was one of the first championships to splinter off from the NWA World Championship, therefore being able to be traced back to the Original World Heavyweight Championship.
Verne Gagne was the promoter, and the longest reigning World Champion in AWA. When he didn’t hold it, names such as Nick Bockwinkel, Mad Dog Vachon, Larry Zbyszko, Curt Hennig & Jerry Lawler would keep the company afloat as World Champions.
Other championships splintered off from the AWA World Championship as well, just like the NWA title, however in 1991, the title was deactivated when the AWA shut down and closed its doors forever.
WCW World Heavyweight (91-01) & WCW International World Heavyweight Championships (93-94)
Back in 1988, Ted Turner purchased JCP (Jim Crockett Promotions), which was a successful wrestling show in the NWA. They would promote under the name of “NWA World Championship Wrestling” however, this was fazed out over time in favour of WCW. In January 1991, Flair defeated Sting to become the NWA Champion, but was recognized as the WCW Champion, despite using the same belt, and WCW using the NWA title lineage.
In July of the same year, a creative disagreement led to Flair leaving WCW for the WWF, Jim Herd (vice president of WCW) refused to give Flair his $25,000 deposit for the NWA title (Champions had to do that back then when they became champion) so Flair kept the “Big Gold Belt” that had represented the NWA World title. WCW was forced to find a new title belt and make an actual WCW World Championship, which was won by Lex Luger. The NWA revived the title during a co-promotional gimmick between WCW and NJPW (although any title changes at the time are recognized by some and not by others), and it wasn’t until September 1993, that WCW decided to part ways with the NWA.
WCW didn’t like the NWAs demands, and by the fall of 1993, conflictions on who was NWA Champion arose as Rick Rude appeared to be champion during the “disney tapings”, while Flair had returned to WCW and was crowned the NWA Champion. Are you confused yet?
The NWA were outraged that spoilers had gotten out showing Rick Rude becoming NWA Champion over Flair, so WCW decided to secede, and as they owned the Big Gold Belt, (which had represented the NWA title since 1986) created a new title, and a ficticious subsidiary known simply as “WCW International”, making Rick Rude the first WCW International Heavyweight Champion. He would defend the title outside America mostly, while Flair would defend the WCW World title in America. Both titles were treated equally and booked strongly, and no mention was made about the NWA going forward.
At Starrcade 93, it was decided that Ric Flair (WCW World) and Sting (WCW International) would fight in a Unification match. Flair won that match, and WCW decided to drop the lineage of the short lived WCW International title, but instead, use the Big Gold Belt as the WCW World Championship going forward.
The Big Gold Belt had now represented the NWA title, the WCW International title, and the WCW World title.
This championship would come to an end when the WWF unified the title into the WWF title after acquiring WCWs assets in 2001. More on that later.
ECW World Championship
After the fiasco with WCW, the NWA title became vacant, and a new champion would be crowned in NWA-ECW in 1994 by a tournament. The NWA-ECW Champion Shane Douglas, won the NWA title, therefore unifying them, however, any ECW fanatic would know, Douglas had other ideas, and decided to throw the old championship on the floor and annouce that ECW was going to get “Extreme”.
This was a huge spit in the face to all the old legends who held that title with honour, but ECW and Douglas felt it was time for wrestling to move forward, instead of living in the past.
ECW created the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, which would be defended in ECW until the company filed for bankruptcy. WWE would later revive the title and use it from 2006-2010 on their ECW brand until they decided to discontinue ECW programming.
WWF/E Undisputed Championship.
The WWF had survived the Monday Night Wars, they had survived bankruptcy unlike AWA and ECW, and therefore, held claim to the only remaining World Championships that mattered (NWA still existed, but was in severe decline), the WWF title, and the WCW World title.
WWF decided to unify the two World Championships, which was first won by Chris Jericho. They kept both title belts (the attitude era WWF title) and the Big Gold Belt (WCW version) as the Unified Championship until they created a newly designed belt that would represent it. The WCW title lineage was automatically deactivated after unification, and the Unified Championship carried on the WWF title lineage.
Due to an influx of talent, the WWE decided to make seperate brands of Raw and Smackdown, and felt they had the star power to keep two World Championships going seperately on different brands.
In 2002, the Undisputed title was split up, as the belt originally meant to represent the unification became the WWE title, and Eric Bischoff reintroduced the Big Gold Belt (now of a slightly different design) as the WWE World Championship.
World Heavyweight Championship (WWEs version)
Despite the Big Gold Belt representing the NWA and WCW in the past, the new belt (of very similar design but not the same) shared the heritage, but ultimately started a brand new title lineage, starting with Triple H when he was awarded it by Eric Bischoff in 2002. This title never shared its lineage with any other titles the Big Gold Belt represented, however it was a reminder that WWE had put an end to WCW and become much bigger then the NWA could ever imagine, so they would use it for the Raw brand going forward as the WWE Champion (formerly Undisputed Champion) Brock Lesnar had been drafted to Smackdown.
Triple H would unify the Intercontinental title into the World title at one point, adding the prestige from that Championship into it. The IC title would be revived further down the line.
The Championship had moments where it felt more important to the WWE then the much more prestigious WWE title, but over the years, the World title gradually became less important, and much more of a secondary title, replacing the Intercontinental title as the second most important. The WWE eventually rectified this by announcing a unification match, to once again bring the WWE title, and the Big Gold Belt back together as one. This was decided at TLC 2013, where Randy Orton defeated the World Champion John Cena. Randy Orton would be the last (WWE) World Champion, as the title was decactivated in favour of the WWE title.
The Big Gold Belt would represent all the history from the NWA, WCW and WWE, and would now represent the WWE title once again. The Undisputed WWE World Heavyweight Championship is the WWE Championship, with the Big Gold Belt also representing it, it is the closest thing we will ever get to reuniting the Original World Heavyweight Championship.
TNA World Heavyweight Championship.
The
TNA title can also be traced back to the Original World title, as it’s
a splinter championship formed from the NWA World title. TNA formed a partnership with the NWA from 2002-2007, and would regularly defend the NWA World and Tag Team Championships throughout that time on their programming.
In 2007, Christian Cage was the NWA World Champion, however, he refused to defend the title against opponents chosen by the NWA. This led to a dispute between the NWA and TNA, and therefore, TNA wanted to secede from the NWA. TNA were forced to make a new championship, and they made a match where Christian Cage would defend the “World Championship”. TNA stopped referencing the NWA, and held this match in order to move on from the NWA. Kurt Angle won the match, and would be crowned the first TNA World Heavyweight Champion.
WWWF/WWF/WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
This is where all the loose ends are tied up. In 1963, a match between Buddy Rogers and NWA World Champion Lou Thesz ended in a dispute between CWC (Capitol Wrestling Corporation) and the NWA. CWC, who had been affiliated with the NWA since the 1950s, seceded from the NWA and became the WWWF, crowning Buddy Rogers as the first WWWF World Heavyweight Champion.
The title would become prestigious, as men like Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan, and many others, brought in hoards of fans to the company, and put other promotions out of business.
The title would change over the years, including the actual name, and belt designs. The title would remain solely on its own until the WWF unified the WCW title into it. The WWE title would once again become completely solo when the Big Gold Belt was made into the WWEs version of the World Championship. It remained as such til late 2013, when they unified the WWE World Championship into the WWE Championship, making it an Undisputed title once again.
The WWE title lineage has never been deactivated since 1963. It has been vacated on occasions, but not for very long each time. Now the WWE title is represented by its own title lineage (1963), and the Big Gold Belt (shares the heritage from its NWA, WCW and WWE days), it shares a lot of history, while staying true to being the number one title for the WWE since 1963.
The Original World Championship has seen many titles splinter and evolve from it, and some of those World Championships are completely gone and buried. The only way the Original title could possibly be reunited once more, is if all remaining World Championships in existence are unified, and this would include a grand unification of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, and the TNA World Heavyweight Championship.
Some lay claim to the ROH Championship having a relation to the NWA title, however I feel like it’s a bit of a stretch to assume it is.
And that’s class dismissed for today. There will be no test on this, so you can gladly go away and do whatever you like, just be sure to educate others when you can, so they don’t look foolish.
I have been Mr. Warrior, in tribute to the Ultimate Warrior. I hope you learnt something, otherwise my time here has been all for nothing.
Peace out Warriors!
