Undisputed championship (professional wrestling)
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An Undisputed Championship is a professional wrestling term for a champion who has obtained all of the major individual championships in his field during his era. The undisputed championship is an extremely rare and prestigious accomplishment.
The first undisputed champions
The reported first undisputed champion was Georg Hackenschmidt, who won a series of tournaments in Europe, including a world championship tournament to win the title. Amongst the other tournaments he won were the annual major tournaments in Paris, France; Hamburg, Germany, St. Petersburg, Russia, Elberfield, Germany, and Berlin, Germany. Hackenschmidt also defeated European Greco-Roman Champion Tom Cannon on September 4, 1902 in Liverpool, England to become the first undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.
The only other reigning champion with claim to the belt at the time was Tom Jenkins, the American Heavyweight Champion, who unified the American Greco-Roman Championship with the American Catch-As-Catch Can Championship. Jenkins was eventually defeated by Frank Gotch, who took over as the only man with a potentially legitimate claim to being "the true champion".
Hackenschmidt and Gotch finally met in the ring on April 3, 1908 in Chicago, Illinois. Gotch defeated Hackenschmidt to win the World Heavyweight Championship, then abandoned the American Heavyweight Championship in a process similar to today's championship unification. Gotch wrestled for several years before retiring as undisputed champion
Other wrestlers who were recognized as the only major World Champion following Gotch's retirement were Earl Caddock, Joe Stecher, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Stanislaus Zbyszko, and Wayne Munn. The championship became disputed in the late 1920s, and remained that way for over 20 years, when several major World Championships split from the primary title (namely, the American Wrestling Association World Championship, the National Boxing Association (later, National Wrestling Association) World Championship of Wrestling, and the New York State Athletic Commission World Championship). Other governing bodies would create their own version of the World Championship in the 1930s and '40s, as well.
Lou Thesz and the National Wrestling Alliance
After Gotch's retirement, several other men proceeded to hold the then World Heavyweight Title, including periods of time where the National Wrestling Association formed a second World Heavyweight Title to contend with the formerly undisputed belt. From that point onward, there was no undisputed champion, as multiple men laid claim to the title without ever backing it up by defeating multiple other contenders.
This all changed when the National Wrestling Alliance was formed by multiple promotions. Orville Brown, the then NWA (Association) World Heavyweight Champion, was awarded the NWA World Heavyweight Championship of the Alliance. Brown lost it soon after to Lou Thesz, who began the tradition of the Undisputed Championship once more.
Thesz traveled to many areas, winning the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Title from Bill Longson on July 20, 1948. He then went on to defeat Orville Brown for the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Title (on November 27, 1949), as well as defeating the American Wrestling Association (a Boston based federation different from Verne Gagne's more famous organization of the same name) World Champion Gorgeous George on July 27, 1950 in a non-title match. Finally, he defeated Baron Michele Leon on May 21, 1952 for the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium World Heavyweight Title.
In light of having unified 3 of the major World Heavyweight Championships of his time (as well as numerous other lesser-prestige titles) and defeating the reigning AWA World Champion in a non-title match (a major title that was abandoned soon after), Thesz became the Undisputed Champion for some time. From that point onward, the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Title (the belt that Thesz opted to keep as the designation of all the championships he'd won) became the undisputed world heavyweight title for all contenders to seek.
This, however, would change over the years and decades to come as professional wrestling grew and evolved. The American Wrestling Association, owned by Verne Gagne split off from the NWA and declared their primary singles title a world title in 1960. The World Wide Wrestling Federation, owned by Vince McMahon, Sr. followed suit in 1963 and declared their major singles title a world championship. Many other NWA affiliated promotions would split from the NWA over the years with Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling withdrawing and renaming itself the World Class Wrestling Association in 1986, Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling in 1991, and Tod Gordon's Eastern Championship Wrestling in 1993. Each of these promotions declared their primary singles championship to be a world championship.
World Wrestling Entertainment
After the AWA folded in 1991 (with Larry Zbyszko as their final champion), one of the major promotions claiming World Title status was gone. The NWA World Title lost recognition in January, 1991. ECW declared bankruptcy in 2001 (with Rhino as their last champion), bringing the legitimate claims down to two. WCW was the final promotion to fall, eventually being sold to the WWF in 2001.
WWF took full advantage of their situation, unifying the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and WWF Championship at WWF Vengeance 2001, with Chris Jericho becoming the first undisputed champion in over 50 years. The WWF Undisputed Championship (originally signified by both of its predecessors, and later, after Jericho lost the title to Triple H, a new version of the WWE Championship went back into one predecessor) became the main championship of the WWF (who by then changed their name to WWE in light of legal issues). Other holders of this title include Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, The Rock, and Brock Lesnar.
The title lost its undisputed status in 2002. The title came in dispute, in light of maintaining a roster too large to control, WWE created its brand split, in which the roster was halved, with each half being showcased on one of WWE's flagship shows. The Undisputed Title eventually became exclusive to SmackDown after Brock Lesnar agreed to only defend the championship on that show, with Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff creating the World Heavyweight Championship as a separate World Championship to contend. The Undisputed Championship would be renamed the "WWE Championship" as having two World Titles contradicted the term "undisputed".
Titles disputed again
During that same year, two current major players in the wrestling business started business, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and Ring of Honor. TNA Wrestling took the quick route to success, signing a deal that gave them a 10-year lease on the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the only North American World Heavyweight Title not owned by WWE. The NWA Title had lost value in light of having been treated as a belt from the independent circuit over the previous decade, but TNA presented the title defenses on an international scale as well as defended the belts overseas, instantly regaining its world title status. TNA eventually split from NWA, and later began to recognize their own World championship.
Ring of Honor took a much longer route, with then-champion Samoa Joe defending the title overseas in 2003 to give the belt world title status.
In 2005-2006, two more promotions entered the realm of major world championships. AWA was restored under the name AWA Superstars of Wrestling in 1996 and revived the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, which become part of Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX, an AWA territory at the time, in 2005. Whether this version of the AWA World Title is the same championship as the original is debated. Some, including the WWE, say Dale Gagne, the owner of AWA Superstars, only has control of the "American Wrestling Association" name, and not the history of the original organization. The WWE sued Dale Gagne over this, because they own the rights to the AWA video library. The WWE won their suit on October 24, 2008 and AWA Superstars changed its name to Wrestling Superstars Live shortly thereafter.
In addition, WWE proceeded to revive the Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion under their own banner, reviving the ECW World Heavyweight Championship in the process.
At this moment there is no undisputed world heavyweight title. The current promotions with potential claims to such legacy include World Wrestling Entertainment (the WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship, and ECW World Championship); the National Wrestling Alliance (the NWA World Heavyweight Championship); Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (the TNA World Heavyweight Championship); and Ring of Honor (the ROH World Championship)).