8 Non-Wrestlers Who Were Wrestling Champions

Despite their lack of training, these eight people were able to become champions.

By Douglas Scarpa /

Championship titles often hold a lot of prestige and importance in the sporting world, especially that of professional wrestling. Like with boxing and mixed martial arts, they€™re what wrestlers battle over and fight for. Holding a championship means that the company depends on that person in some way; that they have faith in them. Some titles are often considered stepping stones to bigger and better things, while World Championships traditionally meant that a promotion felt a competitor was capable of carrying the company -- sometimes to new and great heights. However, as the decades wore on and the world of sports entertainment changed, championships began to mean less. While they are still a definite honor within wrestling -- prestigious straps to signify importance -- there were some gross mishaps in regard to their use. Titles became a thing that booker€™s used to try and get superstars over, rather than putting a championship on a wrestler that deserved it. By the late 1990s, in the midst of the Monday Night War and the Attitude Era, championships were often tossed around with reckless abandon. WCW€™s World Heavyweight Championship went through 25 status changes in the course of just one year, back in 2000. From late €˜98 into 1999, the World Wrestling Federation€™s top prize changed hands multiple times, often within the span of just a few days. During this time period, and in the years following, there were some questionable decisions made in regard to championship titles and their holders. There were even a handful of non-wrestlers who held gold over the years. Join us as we take a look back at some of the most notorious non-wrestlers to hold a championship.