The World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned by WWE. It is one of two top championships in WWE, complementing the WWE Championship. It was established under the Raw brand in 2002, after Raw and SmackDown became distinct brands under WWE, and moved between both brands on different occasions (mainly as a result of the WWE draft) until August 29, 2011 when all programming became full roster "supershows". The World Heavyweight Championship was retired on December 15, 2013 when it was unified with the WWE Championship, which was renamed the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, continuing the lineage of the WWE title. In April 2016 a new brand split was announced and the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was split back into two titles again. The current champion is Damian Priest who is in his first reign.
The title was one of six to be represented by the historic Big Gold Belt, first introduced in 1986. Its heritage can be traced back to the first world heavyweight championship, thereby giving the belt a legacy over 100 years old, the oldest in the world.
Reigns[]
- See also: List of World Heavyweight Champions