10 WWE Stars With The Least PPV Matches Before A World Title Match

Finn Balor has arrived and by first winning a four-way match and subsequently defeating Roman Reigns clean as a sheet in the RAW main event, the Irishman is booked to make his World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view debut in a match for the newly-introduced WWE Universal Championship.

Balor will do it in his first match, but who else went from show opener to championship contender in the blink of an eye? Here are then 10 men who had the least WWE PPV matches before gaining a singles world title opportunity on pay-per-view.

There are a few qualifiers, however.

This list includes only WWE pay-per-view matches from 1996 onwards, and for good reason. It was in that year that the company moved to a model of one PPV a month. If I was opening this list up earlier, a whole host of folk would find themselves in the upper echelons. It's somewhat easier to jump this list if there are only 4 PPVs a year.

Also, it is one-on-one singles matches that constitute the end. AJ Styles' first match in the company was a Royal Rumble match for the WWE Championship, but that won't count here. He didn't have to wait too long for his first challenge though.

Finally, I'm not including the ECW Championship in this list, but for the sake of clarity Evan Bourne challenged for that title in his first PPV match with the company. Finally, The Great Khali had the same number of matches as the first names, but come on.

Wade Barrett's initial rise to the main event of WWE was meteoric to say the least. The first season of NXT seemed to be something of a wash, with David Otunga of all people making it to the end, until the entire group of rookies invaded RAW and turned wrestling upside down.

Well, for a while at least.

When Barrett challenged Randy Orton for the WWE Championship at Bragging Rights in 2010, he was already on to his fourth WWE pay-per-view match. His first came at SummerSlam 2010, where he captained his Nexus team in defeat against a WWE Dream Team.

Barrett would compete for the WWE Championship at Night of Champions one month later, but he was alongside Randy Orton, John Cena, Edge and Chris Jericho in challenging Sheamus for the title. The next time WWE was on PPV, Barrett was up against Cena, a match he won thanks to interference from the then-called Michael McGillicutty and Husky Harris.

One month later his first singles World Championship opportunity came.