WWE has no legitimate claim on the real world heavyweight championship which began with Hackenschmidt and Gotch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heavyweight_Wrestling_Championship_(original_version)
WWE's connection to that title lineage is HIGHLY indirect.
>title created in 1905
>Eventually becomes disputed between several supposed champions
>The NWA is created in 1948 to fix this and protect the integrity of the world championship.
>NWA protects that legacy until the collapse of jim crockett promotions
>WCW partners with the NWA upon its creation in 1988, unifying the WCW world title with the NWA world title
>A couple of years later, WCW pisses off the NWA and they split.
>WCW still claims that their champions can trace their lineage back to 1905, but that isn't true because the NWA and WCW belts are no longer unified.
>WCW gets bought by WWE
>WWE also starts claiming a connection to the original title, bringing it back as a secondary world title for a little while.
It wasn't legit when WCW claimed a connection to the original title, and so it isn't legit for WWE to do that either.