10 Great WWE Championship Reigns (That Ended In The Worst Way Possible)

There’s never a good time to have to vacate a championship. Having a title reign come to an end at the hands of injury is miserable for performers of all shapes, ages and sizes, but for a 36-year-old late bloomer who has just established himself as a main event star? Catastrophic.

That was the situation faced by Batista as he approached one year as World Heavyweight Champion, a title reign that had established him as the dominant force on SmackDown. The Animal had vanquished Triple H before going on to defeat JBL in a feud that raged over the summer, a rivalry that did more for Bradshaw than his lengthy WWE Championship reign the year previous.

Batista then segued into a feud with Eddie Guerrero, the two displaying natural chemistry that could have set them up for a whole career of stories. The Animal’s reign could have been ended by Eddie but tragedy intervened, Latino Heat losing his life in a Minnesota hotel room. Batista’s title reign soldiered on, but the injury list was growing.

It eventually became too much. Just two days after passing Triple H’s previous record reign, Batista was forced to vacate the title after tearing his right triceps in a house show match against Mark Henry. That Batista managed to return from the injury and compete at such a high level for a few more years is a testament to The Animal.