Ranking Every WCW Champion In History - From Worst To Best

This past week on Raw, Michael Cole dubbed a returning Goldberg the greatest WCW Champion in history. Big claim, Michael. Big claim.

Granted this was just your typical dose of pro wrestling hyperbole, but even so it does get you thinking; who really was the best champion in the history of the old Atlanta promotion? This article looks to answer that, as we take a stab at ranking every WCW World Heavyweight Champion in the company’s 13-year history.

First off, the big question here is how exactly we’re going to determine the "greatest". For me, and as will probably soon become apparent, it seems most logical to consider a combination of how impressive their actual reigns as WCW Champion were, as well as other achievements that they might have earned over the course of their wider career.

Also, I should probably note that we won’t be considering Kurt Angle, the Rock and Chris Jericho’s reigns, because these arrived during the championship’s brief stint in WWE where it was tossed around like nobody’s business and basically a shadow of its former self. Then again, I guess part of that sentence could apply to the belt’s latter days in WCW, too—as we’ll soon see with these first couple of entries…

In a verdict that was surprisingly tricky to arrive at, Vince Russo props up this list and claims the wooden spoon for being the worst WCW World Heavyweight Champion in history.

Despite having approximately zero in-ring experience, and despite being a member of the booking team by trade, Russo captured the big gold belt on the Sep. 25, 2000 showing of Nitro when he defeated Booker T in a steel cage match. Days later, he’d announce his retirement having decided he didn’t really fancy being a wrestler, and thus the title was promptly vacated.

Those two sentences should tell you everything you need to know about the train wreck that was Vince Russo’s disastrous decision to make himself WCW Champion. Admittedly the organisation was already circling the drain by this point, but for a non-wrestler to book himself to win the world title was still a significant nail in the company coffin.