The World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It is the world title of the SmackDown brand and one of three in WWE, complementing the WWE Championship and ECW Championship. It was established under the Raw brand in 2002, after Raw and SmackDown became distinct brands under WWE, and has moved between both brands on different occasions, mainly as a result of the WWE Draft.

It is one of a number of world titles represented by the historic Big Gold Belt. World Heavyweight Championship title reigns are determined by professional wrestling matches, in which wrestlers are involved in scripted pre-existing rivalries that are played out on WWE programming. These narratives create feuds between various wrestlers, which cast them as villains and heroes.

The World Heavyweight Championship was introduced in 2002 with Triple H becoming the inaugural champion on September 2. However, its origin is attributed to events that began in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), a promotion with various subsidiaries. In the early 1990s, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was a subsidiary to the NWA.

During this time, WCW used the NWA World Heavyweight Championship as its world title. The WCW World Heavyweight Championship was soon established when the recognition was awarded to then-NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Ric Flair, in 1991. In 1993, WCW seceded from the NWA and grew to become a rival promotion to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), itself a former subsidiary to the NWA.

Both organizations grew into mainstream prominence and were eventually involved in a television ratings war, dubbed the Monday Night Wars. Near the end of the ratings war, WCW began a financial decline, which culminated in March 2001 with the WWF's purchase of WCW. As a result of the purchase, the WWF acquired the video library of WCW, select talent contracts, and championships among other assets.

The slew of former WCW talent joining the WWF roster began "The Invasion" which effectively phased out the WCW name. Following this, the WCW Championship was unified with the WWF Championship, the WWF's world title, at Vengeance 2001 in December. At the event, the WCW title was decommissioned with Chris Jericho becoming the final WCW Champion and the subsequent WWF Champion after defeating The Rock and Steve Austin respectively.

The WWF Championship became the Undisputed Championship in professional wrestling with no other prominent world title to dispute the claim until September 2002 when this World Heavyweight Championship spun-off from the WWE Undisputed Championship as the successor to the WCW and NWA titles.

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