Undisputed championship (professional wrestling)

Jenkins was eventually defeated by Frank Gotch, who took over as the only man with a potentially legitimate claim to being "the true champion".

Gotch wrestled for several years before retiring as undisputed champion[4] Other wrestlers who were recognized as the only major World Champion following Gotch's retirement[5] were Earl Caddock, Joe Stecher, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Stanislaus Zbyszko, and Wayne Munn.

After Brown suffered career-ending injuries in an automobile accident on November 1, 1949, the NWA recognised Lou Thesz as the champion.

Thesz had earlier won the National Wrestling Association's World Heavyweight Championship on July 10, 1948, from Wild Bill Longson.

[7] In light of having unified three of the major world heavyweight championships of his time (as well as numerous other lesser-prestige titles) and defeating the reigning AWA World Heavyweight Champion in a non-title match (a major title that was abandoned soon after), Thesz became the Undisputed Champion for some time.

[7] When the AWA folded in 1991 with Larry Zbyszko as their final champion, one of the last major world titles was gone.

[9] Meanwhile, the NWA became less prevalent during the Monday night television ratings war that engrossed the WWF and WCW during the 1990s.

After a storyline in which John Cena and CM Punk both claimed the WWE Championship, the two faced off at SummerSlam, resulting in a single title holder.

Although WWE billed the match as a championship unification, both titles have maintained their individual lineages.

[30] On Day 1 of WrestleMania XL, the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship was defended in a ladder match.