A Look Back: The World Heavyweight Championship

Among the long list of things I love about professional wrestling: the belts. Different promotions have had some cool-looking belts over the years, but IMO, the best looking belt in all of wrestling was the one used as WWE's World Heavyweight Championship during the beginning of the Ruthless Aggression Era. The belt actually had a long history dating back to the 1980s, as it actually served as the National Wrestling Alliance's top prize before gaining more steam as the main belt for World Championship Wrestling.

The belt's first appearance in the then-named World Wrestling Federation came during the Invasion angle in 2001, though it was still known as the WCW Championship even though the company folded in March of that year. In previous years, legends such as Ric Flair, Sting, and Goldberg were among the names holding that prestigious belt. During the Invasion/Alliance angle in 2001, Booker T held the title, along with Kurt Angle, The Rock, and Chris Jericho, who actually unified the renamed World Championship and the WWF Championship to become the first ever Undisputed Champion. At WrestleMania X8, Triple H defeated Jericho to become Undisputed Champion, but once a solitary belt became used to represent the Undisputed Title, the "Big Gold Belt," as it's often known, was retired. But not for long.

After Brock Lesnar captured the WWE Undisputed Championship at SummerSlam, he decided that he would only defend the title against his fellow SmackDown superstars, coming after Triple H defeated The Undertaker in a #1 Contender's Match. As a result, Raw, the senior brand, was left without a World Champion. However, on September 2, 2002, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff called Triple H to the ring and presented him with an absolute surprise: the Big Gold Belt. For the first time in five months, the belt was back, and was known as the World Heavyweight Championship, with Triple H being awarded the title, kicking off his sixth World Championship reign (he had been WWF Champion five times before this).

Triple H's first run as World Heavyweight Champion lasted just over two months until he was defeated inside the Elimination Chamber by Shawn Michaels. The Game won the title back at Armageddon, and he would reign as champion for a whopping nine months before Goldberg ended Triple H's run at the top. For the most part, Triple H dominated the World Heavyweight Championship picture for three years; in fact, between Unforgiven 2002 and Vengeance 2005, only two pay-per-view World Heavyweight Championship matches did not feature Triple H--Bad Blood 2004 (Chris Benoit vs Kane) and SummerSlam 2004 (Chris Benoit vs Randy Orton).

As Raw's top prize, the World Heavyweight Championship was vacated once back in November of 2004, but New Year's Revolution's Elimination Chamber match saw Triple H capture the vacant title; holding it until WrestleMania 21, when Batista (coming off winning the Royal Rumble) won his first World Championship. What followed was a thrilling feud that saw Batista on the winning end every time, with the last victory coming at Vengeance inside Hell in a Cell.

Vengeance took place during the 2005 WWE Draft, which saw both World Champions switch brands. As a result, the World Heavyweight Championship became SmackDown's main prize for the first time, and it was still held by Batista, who would end up battling foes such as John "Bradshaw" Layfield, Eddie Guerrero, and Randy Orton. Batista had to vacate the title in early January 2006 due to injury, allowing a 20-man battle royal to be held to crown a new champion. The bout was won by Kurt Angle, who was originally part of Raw, though it was revealed that his Raw contract came to an end.

Though I myself preferred the title being on Raw, the SmackDown period had its great moments, with one of them being Rey Mysterio's run during the heart of 2006. After a spectacular feud with JBL, Mysterio's run ended at The Great American Bash when he was defeated by King Booker, but it was during this run that Batista returned and eventually regained the title that he never lost.

2007 was an interesting year, as that year saw The Undertaker actually capture the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 23 as part of his streak. What should have been a long run ended up cut short by a man with a briefcase: Edge. Edge swooped in with the Money In The Bank briefcase and took the title from Taker following a steel cage match, but after feuding with Batista, Edge would have to give up the title due to injury, right before he was set to defend against Kane. A battle royal took place, with The Great Khali winning the title, and retaining the belt in a monstrous Triple Threat Match against Batista and Kane.

The World Heavyweight Championship served as SmackDown's top prize for three years until June 30, 2008, when CM Punk (who was drafted to Raw from ECW) cashed in his MITB case on Edge and took the title. With that win, the World Heavyweight Championship returned to the Raw brand, but it was only for 10 months. In that brief time, however, Chris Jericho won the title in the Championship Scramble, having two brief reigns until he was dethroned by John Cena, who was holding that title for the first time after a number of runs as WWE Champion.

I remember Cena's run well: my favorite wrestler with my favorite belt, that was the case in 2008 and 2009. Cena had to deal with Edge in early 2009 over the WHC, doing so after No Way Out. He would regain that title at WrestleMania 25, but Edge would take it back weeks later at Backlash, and afterwards, Edge would deal with CM Punk and Jeff Hardy until he ended up sidelined. Edge's win took the title back to SmackDown, and even though the brand split started to come to an end by 2011, the World Heavyweight Championship remained a SmackDown title and would be held by stars such as Kane, Mark Henry, Big Show, Dolph Ziggler, Christian, Sheamus, and Daniel Bryan. It was in 2013 that the two World Titles became unified, with Randy Orton defeating John Cena to become the unified WWE World Heavyweight Champion. The belt now represented half of the unified title, and continued to be portrayed as such until Brock Lesnar won the title from John Cena at the 2014 SummerSlam, after which a singular belt would be used to represent the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

Amazing how the World Heavyweight Championship's debut was caused by Brock Lesnar, and it was the same man who caused the belt's run to end. The World Heavyweight Championship was an important piece of WWE history; to this day, I truly enjoy those matches, and again, that belt is the best one in all of wrestling. I mentioned that Triple H dominated the WHC picture in the early years, holding that title five times, though the true master of the World Heavyweight Championship was none other than Edge, who held that belt seven times. The World Heavyweight Championship was a prestigious title held by several legends and Hall of Famers, and with the rumor that we could see a change to belt designs, this wrestling fan hopes that the Big Gold Belt does make a return for the first time in eight years.

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