10 Best Wrestlers Who Were Never WWE Champion
8. Ravishing Rick Rude
A superlative pr*ck heel against the Ultimate Warrior during a 1989 feud for the Intercontinental Title and a genuinely threatening one when both levelled up a year later, Ravishing Rick Rude sadly never got to deploy either version of himself against Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage during their own babyface title stints.
Rude was a villain in a hero's world for the entirety of his time in WWE. A stupendous heel, there was no place in Vince McMahon's heart for a long-standing bad guy on roster dominated chiseled 1980s icons. Rude's body was no less cut, but his cutting remarks instead made his body a show of unfiltered arrogance rather than aspiration.
As brightly as the 'Ravishing One' shone in the 1980s, his star burned out too quickly the following decade. By the mid-1990s he was all-but retired after a decent run in WCW, but his comeback as D-Generation-X's "insurance policy" was his final chance to make history with the organisation. He did so too, but only by leaving it - Rude appearing on a live Nitro whilst also working the taped Raw was a cute way to use and abuse the warring brands, but his chances of a top title run were long diminished before be bantered Vince McMahon off one last time.