10 Great Wrestling World Title Reigns Marred By Bad Endings
When greatness falls at the last hurdle.
Championship reigns are like children: it takes the whole village to raise them.
Most wrestlers put backbreaking effort into climbing up the ladder and securing those championship spots. Of course, that's just half the battle and the finish line is often more gruelling than the race. One could be an exceptional promo with a great look and top tier work rate and still flop hard in the champion role.
Why?
Because the booking behind the gold is often what winds up mattering the most.
You can't be great if you're booked to look anything but. Fortunately, there have been many instances of both the wrestlers and the bookers ensuring a title reign proves to be something special. From the action to the angles, everything just clicks and fans are eating it up like there's no tomorrow.
Of course, as The Rock once made abundantly clear, what everyone remembers the most is, ultimately, the final act. If acts one and two are phenomenal but act three's a stinker, everything that came before the conclusion is marred by association. Some times it's the simplest of creative missteps that can hamper an otherwise A-grade legacy.
10. Brock Lesnar (WWE Championship)
In arguably the greatest rookie year in WWE history, a hulking (but oddly babyfaced) Brock Lesnar threw legends around the ring like they were haystacks at his family's South Dakota farm.
At SummerSlam '02, the University of Minnesota wrestling standout crushed The Rock to become WWE Champion. Despite being a brutish heel who'd savaged fan favourites like The Hardy Boyz and Hulk Hogan, Lesnar had the crowd behind him.
Fans had grown increasingly jaded with the departure of Steve Austin, and The Rock's movie commitments. Wanting a new, full-time star to carry the promotion forward, audiences embraced the young monster before them.
As WWE Champion, The Next Big Thing had a great (if rather soap opera-ish) feud with The Undertaker. Getting under The Deadman's skin and messing with his personal life (The Beast Incarnate bullying 'Taker's pregnant wife is not something that'd fly these days), Lesnar was portrayed as a diabolical legend killer.
After an epic Hell in a Cell victory, the future UFC Heavyweight Champion was challenged by The Big Show whose popularity had been in freefall since his demotion to the midcard (and OVW, at one point) in 2000.
Cashing in on a real-life rib injury, WWE booked Heyman to screw Lesnar and for Show to take advantage and steal the title. Just three months after his epic reign began, the super rookie was a former champion. What followed was an ill-fitting babyface role while WWE hurriedly moved the title over to Kurt Angle. It was all very disappointing in a year where hot potato was played with the top title far too much.