Ranking Every WWE Title Change On Raw

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Triple H Wwe Title
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While annual reports that Monday Night Raw is haemorrhaging viewers tend to get everyone talking, the primary aim of WWE's weekly show has traditionally been to generate interest in its monthly pay-per-views.

As such, Raw is less likely to host long matches than it is 15 or 20-minute promos in which two men with a burning hatred for one another stand in the ring trading Comedy Central Roast-style verbal barbs instead of, you know, actually wrestling.

Even today, it's rare to see either of the company's world championships change hands anywhere other than a Network event. It only really happens when the creative team's hand is forced by someone abruptly vacating the title through injury or suspension.

In a quarter-century of Monday Night Raw, for example, there have only been 18 title changes - and a large portion of them came during the Attitude Era, when the company was forced into adopting a hot potato policy to keep pace with trigger-happy WCW.

While not all of them have gone down as classic moments, there's enough in there to convince us that free TV can, on occasion, be every bit as good as PPV.

18. John Cena Def. Rey Mysterio (25 July 2011)

Triple H Wwe Title
WWE.com

Dead last on the list is John Cena's victory over Rey Mysterio in July 2011, primarily on the basis that it was nothing short of heartbreaking to see the Ultimate Underdog's first-ever WWE Title run cut short after about an hour.

Of course, it made perfect sense to put the belt on Vince McMahon's real and true franchise player while the pretender CM Punk was gallivanting around the country with the title he won at Money in the Bank. But making Rey the fall guy seemed strange in all sorts of ways.

Cena didn't even have any business challenging a fellow good guy for the belt so quickly after he had made real his wrestling dreams; it was a character decision that would only really have worked in the context of a fully-fledged heel turn.

It was also damaging for the man whose shoulders he kept down for a three count. Rey was slowly but surely returning to the sort of popularity levels that helped him win the Royal Rumble in 2006, but defeat here confirmed to fans that he wasn't going to reach those heights again.

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