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WWE Championship
Current WWE Championship belt with default plates
Current WWE Championship belt with default plates
Details
Current
champion(s)
Adam Cole
Date won January 22, 2024
Date established July 2005
Promotion WWE

The WWE Championship is the highest honor in WWE The E-Fed. It is currently the highest ranked championship on the Raw brand. This title was introduced by in 2005.

WWE Championship title reigns are determined by professional wrestling matches, in which wrestlers are involved in rivalries that are played out on WWE programming. These narratives create feuds between various wrestlers, which cast them as heels and faces.

History[]

Origin[]

The WWE Championship was introduced in 1963 with "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers becoming the first champion. However, its origin is attributed to events that began in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), which had various territorial member promotions. In the 1950s, Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) was a member of the NWA and by 1963, CWC executives held a controlling stake over NWA operations. During this time, Buddy Rogers held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship until January 24, when Lou Thesz defeated Rogers for the championship. Following a dispute over the result, CWC seceded from the NWA and became the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). The WWWF World Heavyweight Championship was then established as having spun off from the NWA title when the recognition was awarded to Buddy Rogers following an apocryphal tournament in Rio de Janeiro, defeating Antonino Rocca in the finals. Affiliated with the NWA once again, the WWWF was renamed to World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979, and after conclusively ending its affiliation with the NWA in 1983, the championship became known as the WWF World Heavyweight Championship and later simply as the WWF Championship by the 1990s.

Prominence[]

In 1991, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), a member of the NWA, established the WCW World Heavyweight Championship to complement the NWA's world title. WCW then seceded from the NWA and grew to become a rival promotion to the WWF. Both organizations grew into mainstream prominence and were eventually involved in a television ratings war, dubbed the Monday Night Wars. Near the end of the ratings war, WCW began a financial decline, which culminated in March 2001 with the WWF's purchase of WCW. As a result of the purchase, the WWF acquired the video library of WCW, select talent contracts, and championships, among other assets. The slew of former WCW talent joining the WWF roster began "The Invasion" which effectively phased out the WCW name. Following this, the WCW Championship (which had become known simply as the "world championship") was unified with the WWF Championship at Vengeance 2001. At the event, Chris Jericho defeated The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin to win the WCW Championship and WWF Championship respectively. Jericho, recognized by WWE as the final WCW champion, went on to hold both the Big Gold belt (representing the "world championship") and the WWF title belt (representing the WWF championship) under the single Undisputed banner. WWE recognized these belts as representing separate championships until the introduction of a single belt by Triple H in 2002.

Undisputed Championship[]

In 2001, after Team WWF beat Team Alliance (WCW/ECW) at the Survivor Series of that year, the superstars of The Alliance would become an essential part of WWF programming. There were two world champions, with The Rock holding the WCW Championship, and Stone Cold Steve Austin holding the WWF Championship. It was announced that the PPV following Survivor Series of that year would be a vengeance that would carry the slogan "One Undisputed Champion". It was announced that there would be three matches to unify the WCW and WWF Championships. It was announced that Kurt Angle would challenge Austin for the WWF Championship, and Chris Jericho would face The Rock for the WCW Championship. Austin would win against Angle, thus retaining the WWF Championship, and Jericho would beat The Rock to become the new WCW Champion. Following his win, Jericho would face Austin and won, thus unifying the WWF and WCW Championships. Jericho would hold the championship for four months until he would lose it at Wrestlemania X8 against Triple H. Ric Flair awarded the WWF Undisputed Championship on the first Raw after the draft to Triple H, Triple H would go on to hold the title for a month until he would lose it at Backlash 2002 against Hulk Hogan. Many would hold it afterwards, superstars such as The Undertaker, The Rock, and Brock Lesnar before it would find a new home on SmackDown!.

By 2002, the WWF roster had doubled in size due to the overabundance of contracted workers from the original WWF, as well as those who had come across from WCW and ECW. As a result of the increase, the WWF divided the roster through its two main television programs, Raw and SmackDown!, assigning championships and appointing figureheads to each brand. This expansion became known as the Brand Extension. In May 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the championship became known as the WWE Undisputed Championship. Following these changes, the WWE Undisputed Championship remained unaffiliated with either brand as competitors from both brands could challenge the WWE Undisputed Champion. Following the appointment of Eric Bischoff and Stephanie McMahon as General Managers of the Raw and SmackDown brands respectively, Stephanie McMahon contracted then-WWE Undisputed Champion Brock Lesnar to the SmackDown brand, leaving the Raw brand without a world title. On September 2, after disputing the brand designation of the Undisputed title, Eric Bischoff announced the creation of the World Heavyweight Championship, spun off from the Undisputed title. Immediately afterward, the WWE Undisputed Championship became known as the WWE Championship.

Belt designs[]

Special custom belts have been created to match the characters of certain WWE champions:

  • The Ultimate Warrior - white, blue and purple leather straps
  • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin - Smoking Skull belt
  • The Miz - Spinner belt with the WWE logo turned upside down to resemble an "M", (which stood for Miz.)

A much larger version of the belt was created for André the Giant before WrestleMania III, although he never wore it as champion. A custom championship belt was designed and constructed for The Rock, which featured his trademark Brahma Bull logo in the center as an answer to Austin's Smoking Skull Belt, but due to creative reasons it never appeared on television. Similarly, Edge had originally designed an entirely different custom belt than the "Rated R Spinner" design he used for his second reign, however the plans were scrapped due to time constraints.

The "Spinner" belt's design, which featured a gold and diamond bling-bling style reflecting Cena's hip hop character, became the WWE Championship's primary design from April 11, 2005, to 2012. The belt ceased to spin in 2007, but spun again in 2012. The physical belt itself originally indicated the brand it was designated to. When it was first introduced, it featured a unique side plate design that read "SmackDown", though it was then replaced with one that read "Mon-Nite Raw" when it was on Raw. In 2009, the RAW plate was replaced with a second "WWE Champion" side plate. Furthermore, the belt also featured a silver tip on the end of the leather strap.

During Shane Helms' reign as WWE Champion he got rid of the Spinner design and brought in the old "Winged Eagle" championship design. After Helms lost the championship the spinner title was quietly re-introduced.

In July 2013, Tyler Chandler got rid of the Spinner design and introduced a completely new design. The new title (which was partially designed by Orange County Choppers of American Chopper fame) features a black strap with a large diamond encrusted WWE logo on the front with the word "CHAMPION" directly underneath, with WWE logo side plates. A distinctive feature of this belt is that there is no nameplate for the champion.

In 2014 the design for the championship was again changed which has a slightly updated design from the belt introduced in 2013 as a result of WWE adapting a new corporate logo originally used for the WWE Network. It features a large center plate dominated by a cut out of the new WWE logo inside an irregular heptagon with the words "WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION" along the bottom edges, in very small print. The large side plates, like the previous design, feature removable round sections, allowing the holder's personal logo to be added to the belt; the default sections feature gold and red world maps with the WWE logo over them, with the only difference being that this new title's original side plates do not feature a crown at the top of the plates.

Reigns[]

ChristianWWEChampion1

The inaugural WWE Champion Christian.

The WWE Championship was re-introduced in 2005. The inaugural champion was Christian, who won the title by defeating Kane in July 2005. Currently, John Cena holds the most reigns as champion with 6. Shawn Michaels, in his 2nd reign, had the longest reign in the title's history which lasted 371 days. Drew McIntyre is the current champion, and is in his first reign. Overall, there have been 71 WWE Championship reigns.

List of WWE Champions[]

As of June 6th, 2023

# Wrestler Name Reign Date Days held Venue Notes
1 Christian 1 July 31, 2005 21 Bad Blood

Christian defeated Kane to become the inaugural champion.

2 John Cena 1 August 21, 2005 147 SummerSlam
3 Matt Cross 1 January 15, 2006 29 New Years Revolution
4 John Cena 2 February 13, 2006 55 RAW
5 Ken Shamrock 1 April 9, 2006 28 WrestleMania 22
6 Test 1 May 7, 2006 22 Backlash
Vacated May 29, 2006 RAW

The title was vacated following Test's release from the company.

7 Randy Orton 1 June 5, 2006 155 RAW

Randy Orton defeated John Cena to win the vacant championship

8 Matt Hardy 1 November 7, 2006 67 Taboo Tuesday
9 John Cena 3 January 28, 2007 29 New Years Revolution
10 Triple H 1 February 26, 2007 188 RAW
11 John Cena 4 September 2, 2007 357 SummerSlammiversary
12 Kevin Thorn 1 August 24, 2008 28 SummerSlammiversary
13 Raven 1 September 22, 2008 146 Unforgiven

Raven vacated the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble PPV.

Vacated February 15, 2009 Royal Rumble
14 Michael Noventa 1 March 2, 2009 41 RAW

Noventa was awarded the title due to legal action.

15 Chris Jericho 1 April 12, 2009 176 Wrestlemania 25
16 John Cena 5 October 5, 2009 48 RAW
17 Chris Jericho 2 November 22, 2009 63 Survivor Series
18 Cody Rhodes 1 January 24, 2010 91 New Years Revolution
19 CM Punk 1 April 25, 2010 8 Wrestlemania 26
20 The Undertaker 1 May 3, 2010 27 RAW
21 John Cena 6 May 30, 2010 91 Backlash

This was was Cena's record setting sixth reign as WWE Champion, breaking his old record of five reigns.

22 Shawn Michaels 1 August 29, 2010 28 SummerSlammiversary
23 CM Punk 2 September 26, 2010 105 Night of Champions
24 Shawn Michaels 2 January 9, 2011 371 New Year's Revolution
25 The Miz 1 January 15, 2012 21 New Years Revolution
26 Triple H 2 February 5, 2012 <1 Royal Rumble

Triple H would defeat the Miz to win the championship however minutes later, Co-RAW General Manager, Shane McMahon stripped him of the championship and vacated it.

Vacated February 5, 2012 Royal Rumble
27 Sean Marino 1 March 4, 2012 49 Cyber Sunday
28 Matt Hardy 2 April 22, 2012 91 Wrestlemania 28
29 Shane Helms 1 July 22, 2012 98 Unforgiven
30 Ciaran O'Donnell 1 October 28, 2012 147 Halloween Havoc
31 Tyler Chandler 1 March 24, 2013 126 Cyber Sunday
32 Ciaran O'Donnell 2 July 28, 2013 91 Unforgiven
33 Shane Helms 2 October 27, 2013 78 Halloween Havoc
34 Matt Hardy 3 January 12, 2014 114 New Year's Revolution Hardy won the Elimination Chamber also involving Shane Helms, Ciaran O'Donnell, Daniel Bryan, Edge, and Justin Gabriel
35 Raven 2 May 5, 2014 21 Raw
36 Ciaran O'Donnell 3 May 25, 2014 36 Extreme Rules
37 Randy Orton 2 June 23, 2014 36 Raw This was a King of the Mountain match also involving Ciaran O'Donnell, The Miz, Shawn Michaels and Seth Rollins.
38 Ciaran O'Donnell 4 July 28, 2014 55 Raw
39 Roman Reigns 1 September 21, 2014 112 Night of Champions
40 Ciaran O'Donnell 5 January 11, 2015 41 New Year's Revolution
41 Finn Bálor 1 February 22, 2015 28 Royal Rumble
42 Baron Corbin 1 March 22, 2015 161 WrestleMania 31
43 Dean Ambrose 1 August 30, 2015 56 SummerSlam
44 Wade Barrett 1 October 25, 2015 35 Halloween Havoc
45 Seth Rollins 1 November 29, 2015 42 Survivor Series
46 Dean Ambrose 2 January 10, 2016 49 New Year's Revolution
47 Colt Cabana 1 February 28, 2016 260 Royal Rumble Colt Cabana cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase
48 The Undertaker 2 November 14, 2016 <1 RAW
49 Roman Reigns 2 November 14, 2016 95 RAW
50 Noam Dar 1 February 19, 2017 146 Royal Rumble (2017)
51 Dean Ambrose 3 July 16, 2017 <1 Unforgiven (2017)
52 Adam Cole 1 July 16, 2017 100 Unforgiven (2017) Adam Cole cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase
53 Jinder Mahal 1 October 22, 2017 112 Halloween Havoc (2017)
53 Edge 1 February 11, 2018 36 No Way Out (2018)
54 Adam Cole 2 March 19, 2018 118 Monday Night Raw
55 Chuck Taylor 1 July 15th, 2018 42 Unforgiven (2018)
56 Jinder Mahal 2 August 26th, 2018 77 Summerslam (2017)
57 Dean Ambrose 4 November 11th, 2018 56 Survivor Series (2018)
58 CM Punk 3 January 6th, 2019 42 Royal Rumble (2019)
59 Roman Reigns 3 February 17th, 2019 147 No Way Out (2019)
60 Finn Balor 2 July 14th, 2019 43 Unforgiven (2019)
61 Alberto Del Rio 1 August 26th, 2019 111 SummerSlam (2019)
62 Tyler Breeze 1 December 15th, 2019 196 Cyber Sunday (2019)
63 Chris Jericho 3 June 28th, 2020 63 Unforgiven (2020)
64 Kenny Omega 1 August 30th 2020 91 SummerSlam (2020)
65 Chris Jericho 4 December 14th, 2020 76 Raw Defeated The Undertaker for the vacant title
66 Andrade 1 February 28th, 2021 91 No Way Out (2021) Elimination Chamber Match
67 Montez Ford 1 May 30th, 2021 84 Backlash (2021)
68 Roman Reigns 4 August 22nd, 2021 45 SummerSlam (2021) Triple Threat featuring Randy Orton
Vacant October 6th, 2021 56 Raw Roman Reigns was stripped of the championship and released from his contract
69 Finn Bálor 3 October 17, 2021 182 Halloween Havoc (2021) Defeated Montez Ford to win the vacant championship inside Hell in a Cell
70 Adam Cole 3 April 17, 2022 91 WrestleMania 200
71 Kevin Owens 1 July 17, 2022 8 The Great American Bash (2022)
72 Maxwell Jacob Friedman 1 July 25, 2022 27 RAW
73 Montez Ford 2 August 21, 2022 63 SummerSlam (2022)
74 Adam Cole 4 October 23, 2022 56 Halloween Havoc (2022)
75 Brock Lesnar 1 December 19, 2022 20 Raw
76 Maxwell Jacob Friedman 2 January 8th, 2023 98 Royal Rumble (2023)
77 Drew McIntyre 1 April 16th, 2023 42 WrestleMania 39
78 Will Ospreay 1 May 28th, 2023 49 Unforgiven 2023
79 Raven 3 July 16th, 2023 91 Barely Legal 2023
80 Billy Gunn 1 October 15th, 2023 29 Halloween Havoc 2023
81 Nick Jackson 1 November 13, 2023 36 Survivor Series (2023)
82 Maxwell Jacob Friedman 3 December 18, 2023 28 Raw
83 Matt Jackson 1 January 14, 2024 8 Royal Rumble (2024)
84 Adam Cole 5 January 22, 2024 1+ Raw Cole cashed-in his Money in the Bank breifcase post Matt Jackson's match against Will Ospreay.

List of combined reigns[]

Indicates the current champion
<1 Indicates the reign was less than 1 day

As of March 19th, 2023

Rank Wrestler # of Reigns Combined Days
1. John Cena 6 727
2. Roman Reigns 4 438
3. Shawn Michaels 2 399
4. Chris Jericho 4 378
5. Ciaran O'Donnell 5 374
6. Adam Cole 5 366+
7. Matt Hardy 3 272
8. Colt Cabana 1 260
9. Raven 3 257
10. Finn Bálor 3 253
11. Tyler Breeze 1 196
12. Randy Orton 2 191
13. Jinder Mahal 2 189
14. Triple H 2 188
15. Shane Helms 2 169
16. Dean Ambrose 3 161
16. Baron Corbin 1 161
17. CM Punk 3 155
18. Maxwell Jacob Friedman 3 153
19. Montez Ford 2 147
20. Noam Dar 1 146
21. Tyler Chandler 1 126
22. Alberto Del Rio 2 111
23. Cody Rhodes 1 91
23. Kenny Omega 1 91
23. Andrade 1 91
24. Sean Marino 1 49
24. Will Ospreay 1 49
25. Chuck Taylor 1 42
Seth Rollins 1 42
Drew McIntyre 1 42
28. Michael Noventa 1 41
29. Edge 1 36
29. Nick Jackson 1 36
30. Wade Barrett 1 35
31. Matt Cross 1 29
Billy Gunn 1 29
33. Ken Shamrock 1 28
34. Kevin Thorn 1 28
35. The Undertaker 2 27
36. Test 1 22
37. Christian 1 21
38. The Miz 1 21
39. Brock Lesnar 1 20
40. Kevin Owens 1 8
40. Matt Jackson 1 8

External links[]

WWE The E-Fed

World Wrestling Entertainment championships and accomplishments
Current championships Raw: WWEIntercontinentalWomen's
SmackDown: World HeavyweightUnited StatesDivas
Cross-brand: Tag TeamDivas Tag Team
Former championships HardcoreTelevisionX-DivisionEuropeanECWECW TelevisionECW FTWxXxSmackDown Women'sPure DivasSmackDown Tag TeamECW Tag TeamFCWFCW Florida HeavyweightFCW Queen of the Ring
Other accomplishments Royal RumbleSlammy AwardsMoney in the Bank
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