19 WWE Extras Who Became World Champion
Those forgotten cameo appearances from future World Champions!
Not every future wrestling megastar is lucky enough to hop straight into the WWE system at the start of their career before eventually enjoying a steady push up the card and finally lifting a world title.
Some of the very best in the business today had to put in years of hard work and pay their dues on the independent scene first, hoping and praying that they would one day get noticed by the biggest promotion on the planet.
And when they did, it certainly wasn't just a case of having the rocket strapped to their back there and then.
Their early experiences on the WWE stage often consisted of standing with their arms crossed in the background, playing rather ridiculous cameo characters, and regularly getting their asses handed to them by the stars of that time.
It all worked out in the end, though, as this collection of gifted talents all made their way to the very top of the industry, ultimately holding top championship gold either inside and outside of WWE.
But it's still fun to look back on the days these eventual superstars spent dancing around like goofballs and playing "security guard" on WWE TV. Everyone has to start somewhere, folks, and the same goes for the wrestling champions of the world, too.
19. Claudio Castagnoli
The first of many future world champs to pop up on WWE programming acting like a person qualified to protect one of the product's stars, Claudio Castagnoli would actually first arrive in the land of sports entertainment back in 2006.
At that point, the human horse was still doing his thing over in Ring of Honor and ripping up the independent scene. But he understandably jumped at the chance to appear on the WWE flagship, Monday Night Raw, on August 28th of that year.
And it was on that night when the eventual ROH World Champion strutted into frame alongside none other than EC3, with those two future WWE talents pretending to be cops backing up Shane McMahon as he confronted a D-Generation X who had been terrorising his father.
Thankfully, most people remember this cringey exchange more for the Blackpool Combat Club man's sneaky early cameo rather than the string of inevitably dumb d*ck jokes spewed by Triple H and Shawn Michaels or the awkward promoting of Vince McMahon's DVD.
Put simply, the segment hasn't aged all that well.