Back in the day, winning the world title was very difficult, title reigns were long, the list of men capable of doing the job that was required was short and breaking through the glass ceiling of popular mid carder to the champion of the world was often an insurmountable task. Gradually this changed, as audiences no longer had the attention span to follow a six year title reign and the brutal WWE travel schedule meant the chances of any man being able to hold onto the title for more than a couple of years highly unlikely.
So we find ourselves in an era where winning the big belt isn’t as difficult as it used to be and being world champion is an expectation rather than an aspiration for most popular wrestlers. As a result of these changing times where membership to the WWE title club is more open we see a number of individuals lifting the heavy gold who perhaps might not have done in times past and some who just make you scratch your head in bemusement or bury your head in your hands in despair. Ladies and gentlemen, here is our list of WWE champions that encouraged more facepalm moments than anyone else.
For the purposes of this article i will only be examining the history of the WWE title, I will leave the World Championship and its rich history of complete tools that have held that belt for another day.
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10 Comments
Ultimate Warrior rivalled Hogan for popularity in the late 80′s and early 90′s so I don’t know how you can say he was undeserving? Also how can you have a list with Jeff Hardy but not Kevin Nash? Hardy was more over and had far better matches
Hi Muzza
Thanks for your comments, let me go through my reasoning.
I acknowledged in the article that warrior was very popular but, and this really is the thing, he couldn’t work…like at all.
As for Jeff Hardy, if you read through the opening to the top ten list you will see that I stipulated only the WWE title was being addressed here. Jeff made a great World Champion, no doubt about it but only held the WWE title once, for about four weeks and had one title defence on pay per view (which was good though). Diesel (if we are comparing) had three very good pay per view defences (plus a lot of bad ones) all of which went 20 minutes or more. Diesel moreover had a long title reign, had a significant following and (this is very important) had been built for a year as a wrecking machine making his eventual ascension to the top floor expected and accepted by the audience. This is not to say i was a fan of Diesel as champion, i wasn’t but the list was only going to have 10 slots open, if it had 11 maybe Diesel would be there too.
I hope that makes sense.
T
Hi Tristan,
Thanks for your reply, the title of your article is “WWE Champions Undeserving of the Belt”, not poor title reigns. Hardy did deserve the belt as he had a great year going into that match with HHH and it was a culmination of a year long chase for him. As for the Warrior I do not think he gets enough credit, when it mattered in the big PPV he delivered. And his reign did include some great matches.
Anyway thanks for engaging in the debate, it is all about opinions after all!
personally, i’d add backlund’s ’94 title run to that list, (surprised he wasn’t on this list), kane in ’98 (another im surprised to not see), hogan in ’93, and i know of the historical factor, but also bret’s late ’97 run. i mean, yeah, if it weren’t for him holding the gold then their wouldn’t have been a montreal screwjob, which means no mr. mcmahon character, which means no central heel for the attitude era, etc… etc… but bret’s run was truly mediocre between august ’97- november ’97. his title defences… the patriot, thats it. he didn’t defend it at badd blood, and he dropped it to hbk at survivor series.
Hi Devante
The rule i set myself was when considering champions i had to take into account their entire contribution as champion (which would include all their reigns as champion) and workrate which is why Backlund, Hart and Hogan don’t make the list. Kane is a fair point though and probably should have made it.
ah, ok, i understand. i thought you were evaluating reigns.
Im mainly suprised to see JBL on the list. i thought he was a superb heel champion and would even go so far as to say probably the best reign of a heel since Triple H was feuding with The Rock. His feud with Eddie was superb!
unlike most i understand why Hardy is in this as i could never get over how poor he was at putting over a feud. He had to be put into a programme with a top talker to have it mean anything. Saying that, i do find it cool he actually made it to the top of the mountain considering his brother was by far the better wrestler / talker.
Warrior was the best thing going at the time in terms of popularity and would even say he was more over than Hulk for a period so his reign is justified.
thanks for your comment Chris
Once again, i will say i like JBL a great deal but his in ring work was not of a high enough standard to warrant his title reign and the same goes for the Warrior, popularity isn’t enough for me.
As i said regarding Jeff Hardy, fan pressure can make WWE award someone the belt but it cannot make them keep the title on that person.
“i do find it cool he actually made it to the top of the mountain considering his brother was by far the better wrestler / talker.”
I think that is main thing that upset me the most about Jeff Hardy’s WWE title run, Matt was WAY more qualified than Jeff.
Great article and I totally agree with your picks of Jeff Hardy, JBL, Sheamus, Big Show, and The Miz.