This is not a comprehensive history of the WWE Championship, but rather a look at its numerous name changes and unifications between its creation in 1963 and the time of this writing in August of 2024.
The World Wide Wrestling Federation Championship was awarded to “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers in 1963 when the National Wrestling Alliance/NWA refused to put their Heavyweight Championship belt on Rogers. The WWWF Championship belt was eventually re-titled to the World Wrestling Federation/WWF Championship when the WWWF became the WWF in 1979.
Meanwhile, the NWA Championship became the main title of World Championship Wrestling when Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions and re-named the company to WCW. The NWA belt was, as of 1986, represented by Ric Flair’s custom-designed “Big Gold Belt.” Flair took the Big Gold Belt with him to the WWF in 1991 when he was fired by WCW, and WCW created a new WCW World Championship — this one had a blue globe in the center (unpictured). When Flair returned to WCW in 1993, the Big Gold Belt was redubbed the “WCW International Championship,” until the two were unified in June of 1994, just a month before Hulk Hogan defeated Flair for the title in The Hulkster’s WCW debut.
When WCW left the NWA in 1993, a court ruling stated that while WCW couldn’t use the “NWA” name or initials to represent their company or championship, they could continue to use the Big Gold Belt, the symbol of the NWA lineage since 1986, and it retained the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship lineage. Legally, the Big Gold Belt is both the NWA and WCW Championship, with its lineage dating back to 14 July 1948. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NWA_Worlds_Heavyweight_Championship#cite_note-WON93-9)
In March of 2001, WWF bought WCW, and the WCW Championship was defended as a second world title. In December of that year at Vengeance, Chris Jericho unified the WCW and WWF Championships and the two belts were re-dubbed the WWF UNDISPUTED CHAMPIONSHIP. In March of 2002, Triple H won the Undisputed Championship at Wrestlemania X8, and the two belts were replaced with the WWF Universal Championship in April.
The WWF split the company roster in half, with some superstars exclusively appearing on Raw and others exclusive to Smackdown. In the years since, they have been inconsistent about when they enforce this brand split. The WWF Undisputed Champion and WWF Women’s Champion were the only two who could appear on both shows, defending their titles against any and all challengers.
In May 2002, following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the initials “WWF,” the World Wrestling Federation changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment, and all of its championships were renamed accordingly. All the belts were re-cast with the “WWE” logo replacing the “WWF” logos, but were otherwise identical. Old photos had the WWF logo blurred to blacked out, in concordance with the lawsuit that forced the company name change. As of 2012, censoring the WWF logo was no longer necessary.
The WWE Undisputed Championship became exclusive to Smackdown after Brock Lesnar won the title at Summerslam 2002.
When Lesnar took the Undisputed Championship to Smackdown, Raw Superstar Triple H was the #1 contender. In September, Raw General Manager, Eric Bischoff, awarded Triple H a new, Raw-exclusive world championship, claiming Triple H was “the last person to hold” this belt (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBfxm82M6uo) Opening a briefcase, Bischoff revealed the old WCW Championshp, the Big Gold Belt — Triple H was the last person to hold the WWF and WCW Championship belts before the two belts were replaced with the single Undisputed Championship belt.
In 2009, WWE released a DVD set called “The History of the World Heavyweight Championship,” with matches from the NWA and WCW included (source: https://www.amazon.com/WWE-History-World-Heavyweight-Championship/dp/B002NXSRNY).
While the title was active, WWE claimed that the 2002 version of the World Heavyweight Championship was, in fact, the WCW World Championship, and shares its lineage with the NWA Championship. And that fits, given the aforementioned 1993 court ruling. They have since come to list the WCW Championship and 2002 WWE World Heavyweight Championship as different titles on their website.
During 2003, the word “Undisputed” started slowly being dropped when referring to the WWE Championship. In 2005, the Undisputed Championship belt was replaced with John Cena’s “Spinner” WWE Championship belt, and was, at that time, officially re-dubbed as simply the WWE Championship.
In 2006, Rob Van Dam won the WWE Championship from John Cena and was awarded the WWE’s ECW Championship. Since WWE owned all the intellectual property of ECW, this new ECW Championship retained the lineage of the original ECW Championship, and for a while, both titles were unified. However, Van Dam lost both titles individually later that summer, de-unifying the two. WWE’s ECW Championship was retired in 2010 when WWE’s ECW was replaced with NXT. No championship since has continued the lineage of the ECW Championship.
In February of 2013, after The Rock defeated CM Punk for the championship at that year’s Royal Rumble, the Spinner belt was replaced with a new belt that features a big “Scratch” WWE logo that just said “Champion” underneath it.
At TLC: Tables, Ladder, and Chairs in December of 2013, Randy Orton unified the WWE Championship with the World Heavyweight Championship. Both belts were carried around as a new version of the WWE Undisputed Championship.
Brock Lesnar won the title in 2014, those belts were replaced with the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt — Similar to the version The Rock had debuted just over a year before, but now with the updated WWE “Network” logo in the center plate, and the words “World Heavyweight Champion” underneath.
In 2016, while the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was exclusive to Smackdown, WWE introduced the WWE Universal Championship, a red-or-blue version of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, depending on which brand it represented. The WWE Universal Championship was later won by Roman Reigns in August of 2020, and unified with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship after he defeated Brock Leasnar at Wrestlemania 38 in 2022. The two belts were replaced by the current Undisputed WWE Universal Championship belt.
After Cody Rhodes defeated Roman Reigns for the belt at Wrestlemania XL, the name of the belt was shortened, removing the word “Universal.”
In conclusion: the Undisputed WWE Championship shares the lineage of the WWWF, WWF, NWA, WCW, WWE, World Heavyweight, and Universal Championships, and for a very brief time in 2006, arguably also the ECW Championship, officially dating back to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship’s creation in 1948.
No other World Championship in wrestling has a lineage anywhere near that deep.
Interestingly, WWE is currently keeping track of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and Universal Championship lineages separately on WWE.com (sources: https://www.wwe.com/titlehistory/wwe-championship and https://www.wwe.com/titlehistory/universal-championship). But since the two are represented by single championship belt — and a NEW World Heavyweight Championship belt has been introduced — I’d wager it’s only a matter of time before the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and Universal Championship are officially unified.