8 WWE Title Reigns That Were Completely Wasted

Winning a championship is a huge deal in professional wrestling. Sure, we might not perceive it as importantly as in times gone past, but to the men and women that win gold it must be a cathartic moment of satisfaction, the knowledge that your hard work has not gone unnoticed and your contribution has been acknowledged.

It is a commonly thought notion in professional wrestling that it is what happens after the moment that matters more than the moment itself, and it is difficult to argue with that sentiment. Winning a championship belt must be a huge moment, but if what follows is a conveyor belt of disappointment and frustration, that satisfaction must fade fast.

In recent WWE history, a number of championship reigns have gone down this route. Initial joy at a championship being won, huge creative opportunities for the company set out, only for creative to squander those opportunities. There's nothing worse than a championship reign being remembered as a wasted opportunity.

Which is unfortunately how these eight reigns will be remembered. Some were too short, some were too long, but all ended up being somewhat underwhelming and overall very disappointing. All within the last 10 years (except one), here are eight of the most wasted championship reigns in World Wrestling Entertainment history.

Currently out with a torn ACL, Luke Harper is one of the most underrated wrestlers on the entire World Wrestling Entertainment roster.

In his short tenure in the company he has put on excellent matches against wrestlers as varied as Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, Cesaro and Dolph Ziggler, and whilst some were surprised at him winning the Intercontinental Championship back in November 2014, they really shouldn't have been. He is a true talent.

Harper seemed to be in line for a respectable push at this time, carrying the IC title into Survivor Series and being the penultimate man eliminated from The Authority's team. His reign was utterly underwhelming though, another victim of the lack of interest WWE seemingly has in its secondary titles when they aren't held by a man called John Cena.

All Harper needed to do was defend the belt on a few occasions, pick up some wins and then drop it. Heck, you could have had the same length of reign (one month), but giving him a couple of defences in that month would have made a huge difference. As it was, Harper with the Intercontinental Championship was a big waste of time for both him and the title.

His time will come again though, that much I'm sure of.