Now it has guys like Kane, Rey, Edge, even Batista to a point, Matt Hardy, Chavo, Victoria, Khali, MVP (cept his rubbish gimmick), Masters and Flair IMO all great wrestlers.
Congratulations kieran, you are, in all likelyhood, the first person in the history of history to call both The Great Khali and Chris Masters "great wrestlers". Good job.
First, no, the WWE did NOT use the lineage of WCW, go to their website and check the title history. The first World Heavyweight Champion was Triple H in 2002, they even have seperate pages for Khali's current title and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. That's from the WWE themselves, so you can't say THEY used the lineage of WCW.
Hdog, I am impressed by your extensive knowledge of championships, and you make some very good points, but I must correct you on this one issue. The WWE DID indeed use the lineage of WCW for the WHC UNTIL it was moved to Smackdown. If you were to look at wwe.com's history of the WHC back when it was still on Raw you would see the title's history going back to the WCW days. Then it was moved to Smackdown and they changed the title history to start with Triple H when the title was brought into the WWE in 2002. Why they handled it this way is anybody's guess. I have a few theories about it, but one of them is that they decided to call upon the history of WCW in inducting the title in the first place because otherwise it would just be a championship that came out of nowhere, and handling it this way gave it more credibility and prestige, much like how TNA used the NWA title as their world championship up until recently. Think about it, did this title really seem like it was worth a crap at first when it was handed to Triple H by Eric Bischoff?
But then by the time it got to Smackdown, it was already an established major title, so as they were in the process of shaking things up, they decided to just go ahead and establish it as a seperate title from WCW. By that time, it didn't need the added prestige (despite now being on what most consider to be the B show). To use another TNA comparison, it's like how TNA dropped the NWA titles and made their own titles. They were able to do this because, although they may not be anywhere near as big and established as WWE is at this point, they've come a long way and are way more established than when they first started out 5 years ago.
I also saw a point made that the WWE championship lost credibility because of it being made into a bling bling sideshow attraction (as JBL so bluntly put it). Well I'll start by saying that I don't agree with them doing that, but not because I feel it takes credibility away from the belt. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I think of any championship, I generally don't think of a belt, but rather a concept of prestige. When I think of the WWE championship in particular, I still think of a coveted title with a rich history, not a shiny spinny toy that looks like it came out of a plastic ball from a 25-cent machine at K-Mart. The reasons I don't agree with them changing the belt for Cena like that are as follows:
1. Cena isn't that special, nor is he worth being a long-term champion with his own belt. This isn't the first time someone has gotten their own championship, as Austin had the Smoking Skull belt back in his day, but although I'm not a huge Austin fan, he was much more entertaining than Cena, and if anybody deserves to be portrayed as the WWE's Superman, I'll take Austin over Cena any day. Besides, that belt was badass...which brings me to my next point about the more recent bling belt...
2. It looks stupid.
3. It contributes to the argument that the WWE championship has become the John Cena title, much like the WHC became the Triple H title several years back.
4. They used it as a long-term thing, whereas the Austin's Smoking Skull belt was more of a short-term novelty.
5. It set a precedent that led to the "Rated-R" belt. So apparently any WWE champion can have their own belt now. We're just lucky that when RVD was champ we weren't treated to a belt that said "4:20" and had a picture of a marijuana leaf.
And one more thing. Some people say the WHC is what the IC title used to be. That's simply not the case. The ECW title is what the IC title used to be. That's why Bobby Lashley wasn't able to capture the WHC but was able to go to ECW and instantly capture their title, then came to Raw and failed with the WWE title because even though he's on Raw he's at that awkward in-between stage where he's past the ECW title, but not ready for the WWE title. (That's why I think he would be believable as the World Heavyweight Champion, but that's another story.)That's why Johnny Nitro is the champion of ECW and The Great Khali is the champion of Smackdown. Although as an athletic competitor, The Great Khali is lightyears behind Nitro, he's still more believable as a major world champion than Nitro because between Nitro's history in the WWE and Khali's massive size, Khali's much more intimidating.
In closing...WWE championship vs. WHC...I'd say the WWE title is more prestigious, because I personally happen to subscribe to the theory that the show makes the title. For example, say the WWE were just the best title around regardless of which show it was on, period...can you really imagine Rey Mysterio as the champion of Raw? He held what is viewed by most as the B championship, and rightfully so. As talented as Mysterio is, I cannot imagine him holding the WWE's flagship championship, especially under the circumstances he won the WHC.
For another example, the WHC has always been challenged for by the Royal Rumble winner at Wrestlemania since WM 20 in 2004. But the WWE actually went ahead and broke from tradition at WM 22 and didn't make the Royal Rumble winner's match the main event because it was for Smackdown's title, the same title that had been in the two WM main events prior, simply because it was on Raw at the time. But despite the Royal Rumble winner challenging for the belt every time, they've been putting a women's championship match or a playboy pillowfight after it on the card ever since it was moved to Smackdown.
So basically, if you need proof that the prestige of the titles shifted when they were traded between Raw and Smackdown, you need only look at the history of Wrestlemania main events for the past few years.
Therefore, here is your winner, and the champion of championships, the WWE championship!
At least from where I sit.
