World Wrestling Entertainment currently has three seperate brands (television shows) in the form of Raw, Smackdown, and Extreme Championship Wrestling. As a result, they have felt the need to craft a world championship for each brand. Raw currently has the WWE Championship, a title which has a lineage dating back to 1963 when Buddy Rogers won a fictional tournament in South America and became the WWWF Champion. This title is typically viewed as the real deal when it comes to world titles in WWE, due to it's history and even it's name would suggest "champion of WWE."
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Smackdown is currently home to the World Heavyweight Championship. Some argue that this is the old WCW Championship, and shares it's lineage. I would disagree, as even though the WCW title was renamed "The World Championship" in late 2001 (before being unified with the WWF Championship when Chris Jericho became the first ever undisputed champion), the title lineage was broken and restarted when Eric Bischoff handed the belt to Triple H in September of 2002. I believe it is better to just accept a new lineage for the current World Heavyweight Championship, mainly because the WCW belt was booked into oblivion in 2000, and it is better if we don't have to look at Vince Russo and David Arquette as former title holders to the belt currently held by Edge.
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ECW is obviously the home of the ECW World Championship. This is generally considered to have the lineage of the ECW title from the original promotion. That can also be disputed because Rhino was the last title holder before the company folded in 2001, and was given the physical belt as a gift from Paul Heyman. The physical belt (held by Johnny Nitro) is actually a replica and not the original title. Rhino still has the old belt, though he is obviously not recognized as being the reigning champion of the last six and a half years.
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So even though WWE has three brands, does each brand really need their own world title? Wouldn't it be better to have one champion who peforms on all the shows? Well, that was the idea at first. When the WWE first split into Raw and Smackdown brands in April 2002, the idea was that the Undisputed Champion would go everywhere. This concept had it's benefits. The Undertaker held the title for two months, but his reign felt much more fulfilling due to him simultaneously feuding with Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam on Raw, and with The Rock and Kurt Angle on Smackdown. There were also kinks, as Ric Flair making a main event at Backlash that year as Triple H defending the belt against Raw's Undertaker, with Vince McMahon changing the match to Triple H vs. Smackdown's Hulk Hogan a few days later. The problem there was with the writing, and obviously not the concept, but it was a rough way to kick things off. 2002 was a truly miserable year for WWE.
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Having said that, I think it is possible for WWE to have three World titles within their company and to keep all three champions on the same level as one another. The problem though, is that they are not doing that. Soon after reviving the ECW title, the three title holders in WWE were John Cena, Big Show, and King Booker. These were three credible main eventers and worked as world champions. Then the ECW title was placed on Lashley, and the belt took a hit as it was clearly being used the way that secondary title belts should be used, to get a midcarder over. The trio of world titles rebounded from this after Undertaker won the Royal Rumble. They had John Cena, Lashley, and Batista (having won the World title from King Booker) on Raw, with Undertaker sizing each of them out. The mere possibility that Undertaker might have wanted to challenge Lashley for the ECW title as his prize for winning the Rumble did a lot to make the ECW title look good.
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But things have really gotten messed up since Wrestlemania 23. The WWE decided the best way to salvage their pay-per-view business was to make all the shows tri-branded. But doing this really kills the point of having three world champions. Before, when Raw had a pay-per-view, it would be headlined with a WWE title match. Smackdown pay-per-views would be headlined with a World title match. And ECW pay-per-views would be headlined by the ECW title. You see, a big part of keeping a title looking credible is to have the title defenses go on last on big shows, such as pay-per-views. If these so called World titles are regularly defended halfway through the show or so, they start to look like midcard titles.
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Since Wrestlemania 23, John Cena has main evented every single pay-per-view, defending his WWE title. The ECW title has been a complete midcard act, as Lashley's feud with Vince McMahon and Umaga didn't really set the world on fire the way they had hoped (compare it to the heat the DX/McMahons feud, it doesn't hold up well at all). Meanwhile, Smackdown had a credible main event program in Edge vs. Batista, but all of their matches were forced to take a backseat to John Cena and the WWE title.
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Now we all know that Raw is the flagship program. However, it will always be the flagship show at this point, so it actually benefits WWE to take measures to make the other two brands seem legit as well, as it will translate into higher ratings and better attendance. It would not be difficult to switch things out as far as where matches are placed on pay-per-view cards. For example, let John Cena defend the title in the main event at Backlash, let Batista and Edge go on last at Judgment Day, and let Lashley and McMahon go on last at One Night Stand. It would have made complete sense. The problem with WWE's pay-per-views right now is that they are making it appear that the WWE title is the only World title, the World title is the new Intercontinental title, and the ECW title is the new European title. Also, no Smackdown stars have main evented a pay-per-view since No Way Out in February, and as a result it is starting to seem that Smackdown has NO main eventers. Batista, Undertaker, Edge? All big stars, but none of them are being treated as main eventers outside of the television show. And the current ECW champion is Johnny Nitro, who has not been properly elevated to a main event status, and his title defenses will likely all be midcard attractions.
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So in a nutshell, WWE needs to throw the other two brands a bone every now and then. The current formula is hurting them more than they could ever begin to comprehend.
