History of WWE
The two top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, eventually left the company in 2003 and 2004 respectively, while newcomers such as Brock Lesnar, who would become the youngest WWE Champion and Randy Orton, who became the youngest World Heavyweight Champion, saw huge success. Triple H would also be featured prominently during this time, winning several of his fourteen world championships, as would The Undertaker whose WrestleMania win streak started gaining fame. Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions. From mid 2002 to 2003, WWE brought several prominent WCW stars to the company, including Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. The Great American Bash, originally a WCW pay-per-view event, made its debut in WWE.
List of former championships in WWE
In 1953, CWC became a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). During this time, CWC wrestlers could compete for championships operated by the NWA. In 1958, the CWC created the United States Tag Team Championship (the first title ever owned by WWE), which inaugural champions Mark Lewin and Don Curtis won in April of that year. In 1963, CWC was renamed as the WWWF and ended its partnership with the NWA. To reflect the changes, the WWWF introduced its world heavyweight championship (WWE's second overall championship and the current WWE Championship), while the WWWF acronym was added to the United States Tag Team title. Without a formal explanation by the WWWF, the Tag Team title was disbanded in 1967, the first championship to be retired by the promotion. Ten years later, the company retired its first individually contested title, the WWWF United States Heavyweight Championship, also without a formal explanation.