10 Wrestlers Who Refused To Drop Titles

10. Shawn Michaels Refused To Lose To Vader

Shawn Michaels might be one of the most respected backstage executives in WWE at the moment, but he didn't have the same reputation when he was in his prime as an in-ring competitor in the 90s.

He often found himself as the face of backstage politics and controversies back in the day, and he politicked his way into getting what he wanted on multiple occasions - even if that meant stepping over the other wrestlers on the roster.

WWE signed former 3-time WCW and IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Vader in 1996. After surviving Vince McMahon's attempts to rename him as The Mastodon, Vader made his WWE debut at the 1996 Royal Rumble.

WWE pushed Vader as a vicious and intimidating character on the road to booking him in a feud with Shawn Michaels for SummerSlam 1996. While Michaels defeated Vader at the event, the latter claimed during an interview with Wrestling Inc. in 2014 that WWE promised him two World title reigns.

Vader revealed that if he did the job for Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 1996, he was supposed to win the title from Michaels, drop it to another superstar, regain it again, and finally drop it to Shawn Michaels at Royal Rumble 1997 in his home-town San Antonio, Texas.

However, the plan didn't materialize after Michaels got pissed off when Vader missed a spot during their SummerSlam match. After the incident, Michaels refused to work with Vader in the future, claiming that the latter was too stiff to work with.