10 Awesome Things You Don't Remember About WWE's Ruthless Aggression Era
7. The Greatest Cruiserweight Champion In History
Beginning the WWF/E part of his career as superhero wannabe The Hurricane, Shane Helms didnt just embrace the midcard comedy gimmick, he bought it a ring and took it to meet his parents.
One of the unanswerable truisms of pro wrestling is that if the performer steps up and owns whatever character they end up saddled with, then 90% of the time theyll get over with the crowd despite a lack of creative support from the office.
Thats Helms all over; a perennially underrated in-ring talent, he had the chops to perform geeky character comedy and slapstick too. The Hurricane character would always have a natural ceiling to it, but Helms must have impressed somebody, because he was handed the ball and told to run with it.
Turning heel in October 2005, he dropped the gimmick, reverting to his own name and putting on some solid muscle. He'd soon win the Cruiserweight Title at the 2006 Royal Rumble.
Hed hold the title for 385 days, well over a year, and 223 days longer than anyone else had ever held it. That speaks to how well he was regarded by the office, and Helms stepped up once again. His heel work was a revelation and his trashtalking, arrogant piece-of-sh*t villain was a beautiful thing to behold.
During this historic title reign, Helms would retain his title against pretty much every cruiserweight contender on the roster. In fact, hed actually feud with the entire cruiserweight division all at once - incredibly, not once, but twice.
In doing so, he forced every other performer in that division to step up their game, not just in the storylines, but in real life too. They had to, just to try and keep up with him - he might not have been The Hurricane anymore, but he still created his own weather system.
There arent enough good things to say about Gregory Helms, and this was the midcard run of a lifetime. What a guy.