Finally decided to register an account. Needed to reply to this...
The current WHC is NOT the NWA or WCW Heavyweight title. Some of you are confusing the Big Gold Belt (which is nothing more than an actual title design) with a championship.
Ric Flair won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Sting. WCW also recognized him as the newly-created WCW World Heavyweight Champion. There was no WCW belt, Flair carried the Big Gold Belt and was represented as a dual champion through one belt. They weren't unified, they never were. It was just a matter of WCW not having a physical belt to represent their championship.
When WCW left the NWA, they kept the physical Big Gold Belt, and called it the WCW International Championship. The World Heavyweight title was represented by a different belt, until the two WCW titles were unified and represented by the Big Gold Belt as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
The Big Gold Belt is JUST a belt. It's not a championship. The NWA title never unified with WCW, they took their championship back and it carries on to this day. The WCW title was created, renamed the World Championship by WWF (no branding), and unified with the WWF Championship and retired.
Long story short, the WHC as we know it today was created in 2002, has no historical lineage beyond that, and is represented by the Big Gold Belt. Yes, the design is the same. No, it's not the same title.
Accoring to WWE on their website, DVD's and some of the old promos
(Unforgiven 2002) the WCW Title wasnt retired, it was merged with the WWE Title and that lineage wth the Unified Title exists today.
Yes, the name "WCW" wasnt used until 1991 when Ric Flair defeated Sting in the Meadowlands and won the World Title. However, that lineage traces back through the NWA Title because it was nothing more than a name change. All of the main assets, including wrestlers, known as the NWA in the US were purchased by Ted Turner in 1988. They simply changed their name to the more international sounding World Championship Wrestling in 1991. Flair didnt win a new title from a new and different wrestling promotionalng with the NWA title in 1991, he won the same title from the same company he had represented the last 10 years as champion, the company simply changed it's name. It's like saying the WWE Intercontinental Campion today shares no history with Randy Savage because he was WWF IC Champ or that Bruno Sammartino shares no history with Hulk Hogan because Bruno was WWWF Champ (
World Wide Wrestling Federation) and Hogan was WWF Champ
(World Wrestling Federation).
It is true that their were smaller promotions that worked with the main arm of the NWA, what was the core of Jim Crockett Promotions, the Ted Turner assetts, the Sat Nite TBS Show,etc that for a long time had significant influence on the NWA as a whole. By the time Crockett sold to Turner most of those promotions ceased to exist and the others were on life support, and the main NWA (IE Turner, TBS, etc) was working with them less and less through 1990. By 1991 the NWA for all practical purposes was the Turner company and nothing else. Crockett himself had stopped working with many of those promotions at least two years before he sold to Turner even though all of his live shows and TV productions were uner the NWA banner. Florida had gone out of business, Crockett was no longer dealing Mid South or World Class by 86-87 even though they were still in busines, and no talent exchanges with the AWA by 1986 either. Thanks to Crockett by the time Starrcde 87 rolled around everything known as The NWA was basically his assetts and TV productions, his wrestlers, everything you saw weekly on TBS, all of which he sold to Turner in late 1988. Re naming the title WCW didnt change it's history.
After Flair was fired in 1991 the remaining smaller indy promotions in a move of protest wanted to continue to list him as champ which obviously the Turner group could not do. At this point they succeeded from the NWA/WCW but by then they werent really involved, had no say in decission making, etc prior to that, they were lucky by then that WCW even let some of their talent appear on their shows. In 1993 some of the indy assetts tried to resurrect the NWA brand as a separate company and WCW Mgt at the time actually let them appear on TV as such but they were not the original company, they were not the large nationwide old NWA, that was then and remained Turner's WCW. Legal wranglings about name rights and talent exchanges eventually lead to the short lived and very confusing for fans marriage between the new promotion using the old name and WCW ending, although since WCW had prominently featured the NWA Title on it's programming they scrambled to re brand it the WCW International Title, first won by Rick Rude over Flair in Sept 93. Sting and Vader also fueded over this title. By the summer of 94 WCW was gearing up for Hulk Hogan's arrival and decided it was too confusing having a World Champ & International Champ so they staged a Unification Match between WCW Champ Flair & International Champ Sting, with Flair pinning Sting and unifying the titles. As a storyline prop this also gave Flair a huge win heading into his PPV showdown with Hogan and facilitated his heel turn so Hogan would be the only good guy in their match.
That still gives the WCW Title a lineage that stretches all the way back through the original NWA.
Again WWE has portrayed the WWE Title as sharing this lineage through the 2002 Unification many times, it sint something new. And again, given that the Unified Title itself was split in two when champion Brock Lesnar went to SmackDown and refused to wrestle on RAW it really should have been the title on SD that kept the lineage and the title that HHH & Flair fought over on RAW that was "new" or whatever, but that's a moot point. There is ample evidence of WWE using this lineage over the years.
And yes, WWE does link the new ECW champions from the company's re birth with the original title holders from when they were a separate entity and not part of WWE, they dont have ECW champions and WWE ECE Champions. Likewise they link the heritage of the US Title through WWE to WCW and through the NWA as well and have ever since that title came back in the mid 2000s
