by D. Vogt

Created on: October 06, 2010

The WWE Heavyweight Championship is a championship belt in the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was first created in 2002, when it was won by Triple H. The current Heavyweight Champion, as of October 2010, is Kane. As with all WWE titles, matches for the WWE Heavyweight Championship are actually scripted in advance, rather than being genuine athletic competitions.

- Creation -

In 2001, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, which shortly thereafter changed its name to the WWE) absorbed the wrestlers and titles of its former rival, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Along with its acquisition of the wrestling company came that company's World Heavyweight Championship belt. That title had been created by WCW in 1991, when it was operating as a subsidiary of the National Wrestling Alliance. The first champion wrestler to hold the belt was Ric Flair.

After acquiring WCW, the WWF integrated its wrestlers and titles into its own match storyline in a period known as "the Invasion." At the end of 2001, Chris Jericho unified the WCW's World Heavyweight Championship with the existing WWF Championship by winning both. For a brief period of time, the titles went together as the Undisputed Championship. In 2002, however, they were again split apart to become the WWE Championship and the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Traditionally, although not exclusively, the titles tend to be divided between wrestlers on the company's two headline shows, Raw and Smackdown.

- Champions Since 2001 -

In September 2002, Triple H won the Heavyweight Championship for the first time, in a match televised on Raw. Since then, eighteen wrestlers have won the title for varying lengths of time. Triple H and Edge have both held the title on five separate occasions, while Batista once held it for a record-setting 282 days between 2005 and 2006. Other wrestlers who have been WWE Heavyweight Champion include Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho (twice), CM Punk (three times), the Great Khali, Goldberg, Jack Swagger, Jeff Hardy (twice), John Cena (twice), Kane, King Booker, Kurt Angle, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio (twice), Shawn Michaels, and the Undertaker (three times).

The current WWE Heavyweight Champion is Kane. Kane won the title from Rey Mysterio in July 2010 at Money in the Bank, and has defended it on several subsequent occasions. The title has been changing hands much more frequently in recent years: it did so ten times between 2002 and 2006, but 28 times since then. Usually, it does so on Pay-Per-View events rather than on regularly scheduled programming.

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