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.
World Heavyweight Championship (WWE)
The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the World Heavyweight Championship between the Raw and SmackDown brands.
The inaugural champion was Triple H, and there were 25 different champions overall. The longest reigning champion was Batista who held the title from April 3, 2005, to January 10, 2006, for a total of 282 days. Triple H holds the record for longest combined reigns at 616 days. The shortest reigning champion was Randy Orton in his fourth reign, who immediately retired the championship upon winning it and unifying it with the WWE Championship. He was also the youngest champion, at the age of 24. The oldest champion was The Undertaker who won at the age of 44. Edge held the title the most times with seven championship reigns. There were six vacancies throughout the title's history.