10 Forgotten Ric Flair World Title Reigns

3. WCW International (1993)

After leaving WCW, Flair would go on to hold the WWF’s version of the World Heavyweight Championship twice, adding two more World Titles reigns to his ever-growing list of accomplishments. When Flair eventually returned to WCW, the land he returned to was much different to the one he had left two years prior.

Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and disorder was well and truly still the order of the day, with Flair Immediately locking horns with new booker and former Horsemen ally, Ole Anderson.

Despite having made up with the National Wrestling Alliance during Flair’s absence, WCW was once again on the brink of divorce with the NWA and would shortly recede from the wrestling organisation for good. The problem was that WCW had once again started using the NWA Championship on their programming, with Flair holding the NWA Title at the time of the split.

In a muddy turn of events, WCW would need a quick-fix to resolve the NWA Title conundrum and eventually transition the previously-recognised NWA World Heavyweight Championship into the newly-christened 'WCW International World Heavyweight Championship' - recognised under the jurisdiction of the fictional “WCW International” division of World Championship Wrestling.

In doing so, the legendary “Big Gold Belt” created for Jim Crockett Promotions back in 1986 would come to symbolise its third incarnation of the World Heavyweight Championship in less than three years, having been previously used to represent both the WCW and NWA World Heavyweight Championships during that period.

While several companies have opted to change the name of a title mid-reign (see TNA’s Legend’s/Global/TV/KOTM Championship), this case presents an interesting anomaly whereby a new title was awarded to Flair under the jurisdiction of a new governing body. Flair was no longer NWA Champion, stripped of the NWA gold during the NWA/WCW divorce and then awarded the WCW International Championship in its place.

Despite being labelled as the very first WCW International World Heavyweight Champion, no additional title reign is accredited to Flair’s title tally. In a similar scenario to the introduction of the WCW World Title, Flair’s reign as current NWA Champ at the time is simply seen as an uninterrupted reign, despite the two belts being acknowledged as separate titles and the splintering of the respective lineages thereafter.