10 Best WWE Championship Reigns Of The 2000s
4. Kurt Angle (October 2000-February 2001)
Brock Lesnar's rookie year was good, but so was one of his greatest rival's.
Kurt Angle captured his first WWE championship at No Mercy 2000, around 11 months after he had his first televised match. He beat none other than The Rock to earn this accolade, one of the many big names that would fall to Angle over the course of his reign.
After holding onto the belt against The Undertaker at Survivor Series, the Pittsburgh native survived one of the biggest challenges any WWE Champion has ever face - the six-man Hell in a Cell match at Armageddon. Five of the best wrestlers in the world (and Rikishi) slogged it out in, around, and on top of the Cell, but it was Kurt who left with his head held high.
A great heel vs. heel match against Triple H at the 2001 Royal Rumble was followed by Angle losing the belt back to The Rock at No Way Out, ending his first title reign at an impressive 126 days and proving to everyone that he could hang with the big boys.