Undisputed Championship - World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE

World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE

When the AWA folded in 1991 with Larry Zbyszko as their final champion, one of the last major world titles was gone. Meanwhile, the NWA became less prevalent during the Monday night television ratings war that engrossed the WWF and WCW during the 1990s. ECW shut down in 2001 with Rhino as their last champion, seemingly leaving the group of prominent world championships down to two, and with WCW's subsequent fall and purchase by the WWF during the same year, the World Wrestling Federation Championship remained.

WWF took full advantage of their situation, unifying the World Heavyweight Championship (formerly 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 championship was then represented by the belts of its two predecessors until a singular belt design was commissioned. By May 2002 the WWF had been renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment and the WWE Undisputed Championship, as it was now called, became the top championship of the promotion.

With the purchase of WCW during the previous year, WWE's roster had doubled in size and with newly obtained properties and a desire to further expand, the promotion was essentially divided in what became known as the WWE Brand Extension. This resulted in WWE's two main programs, Raw and SmackDown, becoming distinct franchises or "brands", acting as complementing promotions under WWE. The WWE Undisputed Championship was then consequently shared between both brands and soon conflict began brewing over the title. In late August 2002 after becoming the youngest WWE world champion at the time by winning the WWE Undisputed Championship, Brock Lesnar and his title were made exclusive to SmackDown. To remedy this, the World Heavyweight Championship was reinstated and became Raw's top championship, this making the WWE Championship no longer Undisputed. (Although the World Heavyweight Championship used almost the same belt as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and shared its name, the new title did not carry its lineage, though it is considered to be a successor to it.)

In 2011 the WWE Championship was temporarily referred to as "undisputed" again. After a storyline in which John Cena and CM Punk both claimed the WWE Championship, the two faced off at the 2011 Summerslam, resulting in a single title holder. This was not, however, the same as the Undisputed title that existed between 2001 and 2002, as the WWE's World Heavyweight Championship was unaffected.