10 Times Wrestling Titles Were Relinquished Immediately
Finn Balor, offensive Jim Ross parodies feel your pain.
Last night on RAW, Finn Balor was forced to vacate the WWE Universal Championship just one night removed from winning it. It represents a pretty awful start for the championship, the design of which was universally panned from the get-go, despite everyone assuming that would be the belt's aesthetic.
This led to the Brooklyn crowd deciding not to pay too much attention to the match between Balor and Rollins, and everything sort of went wrong from there.
So less than 24 hours after picking up the title, Balor had to vacate it. This is professional wrestling though, there's no such thing as something happening for the first time. On a number of occasions in WWE history individuals (or teams) have won championships only to have them ripped away moments or hours later, either through injury or the decision-making of authority figures.
Surprisingly, world championships have been vacated in such a fashion more often than any other title in WWE history. Here are 10 times championships were relinquished practically immediately, and included within are a number of Hall of Famers, an offensive parody and a whole lot of Jack Tunney.
Finn Balor, these men and women feel your pain.
10. Antonio Inoki - WWWF Championship
A fascinating one to start off, as the first title vacation in WWE history is one that isn't recognised by the company at all. It involved two Hall of Famers, one notorious for his reluctance to lose and the other notorious for his flagging campaign to make Darren Young great again.
In 1979 Antonio Inoki defeated Bob Backlund for the WWWF Championship at a live show in Tokyo, Japan. Inoki doesn't often, if ever, lose at home you see. Inoki and Backlund's rematch was plagued by interference from Tiger Jeet Singh, and Inoki vacated the strap as a result.
Of course, this conveniently came at the end of the company's Japanese tour. Backlund battled Bobby Duncum in Texas Death Match in Madison Square Garden for the vacated championship, although no-one in the crowd knew the belt was held up in the air at the time. WWE recognises a grand total of zero of these changes, with Backlund's reign running continuously throughout.