10 Worst Wrestling World Title Reigns Ever
Conspiring to rust gold.
A World Champion in professional wrestling should be outstanding at the craft or so imposing as a force of nature that they resonate as invincible. They should be worthy, in that intangible way, of holding the strap: a genius, a megastar, or an attraction.
It's professional wrestling, so they should, ideally, in most circumstances work fantastic professional wrestling matches heavy on work rate. This term is often conflated with high spots and excitement and sh*t some people have this weird thing about not liking, but it's not that.
It's about how hard the wrestler works, and it's the absolute least a wrestler can do, 99 times out of 99.1. Nobody is getting over the way Hulk Hogan got over in the 1980s WWF anymore. The world is less "colourful and simplistic morality play that muscle beast with skullet proves is conquerable" and more "agonising wave upon wave of insurmountable awfulness".
A World Champion should make the belt, and not the other way 'round. It's not a magical property that Vince McMahon believes will make a superstar because that person is large.
A World Champion in professional wrestling should not be sh*tty at literally all of these attributes...
10. Randy Orton - October 27, 2013 To April 6, 2014
Bear in mind that this was yet another attempt to promote Randy Orton as the face of the company - this time, at the expense of a white-hot babyface act in Daniel Bryan.
But it wasn't Daniel Bryan that got over, was it?
It was the chant he came up with that fans would mimic arbitrarily and not, for example, at the apex of a fire babyface promo or at the last moments of an exhilarating, unbelievable comeback. The chant Bryan created - but, more crucially, commanded - was perceived by WWE to be a craze and was folded into the wider Authority angle of late 2013. It was given to the Big Show, who in frame, familiarity and style was antithetical to Bryan. WWE didn't just give you the exact f*cking opposite of what you literally screamed for: they were mystified that you wouldn't want it in the first place.
And so, WWE's response to the first real wave of anti-WWE protest was "More WWE: got it!"
They strapped Orton, who had a dog sh*t match at the same Survivor Series 2013 show on which Bryan had been relegated. It ended with a distraction finish after 11 sleepwalking methodical minutes. Randy Orton Vs. John Cena, WWE's hilarious idea of a legendary rivalry, was resumed and vocally rejected as the antique forgery it was.
Unwanted, tedious matches wrestled by the same crew Bryan was to rescue us from - connected in storylines by the catharsis-devoid Corporation retread and the exact same hyper-ironic "Best for business" sh*t every week - this was too boring to even enjoy retrospectively with the knowledge of how right we were.