10 Most Shocking First-Time WWE Champions
9. Sgt. Slaughter
When Sgt. Slaughter won the WWE Championship at the 1991 Royal Rumble, it came as a huge shock to professional wrestling fans around the world, as many were preparing to see The Ultimate Challenge Part II at WrestleMania VII. Most fans expected Warrior to run through the heel-of-the-month, Slaughter, and headline his first WrestleMania as defending WWE Champion.
Whether he would defend against the Macho King or in the rematch of all rematches against Hulk Hogan would be a wait-and-see game that never came.
Slaughter tells a story of Hulk Hogan threatening to quit the company unless he worked with Sgt. Slaughter at WrestleMania VII. That's far from accurate as the reason Slaughter was given the title was to, ahem, capitalise on the Persian Gulf War, a move that WWE was blasted for by the public and media.
Slaughter was cast as an American patriot turned Iraqi sympathiser and the levels of heat that the new WWE Champion received was off the page. Still, his reign came as a surprise, even thought it was a transitional one.
Slaughter defeating Warrior at the 1991 Rumble, with the help of Sensational Queen Sherri, the Macho King, and the King's sceptre was seen as perhaps the most shocking WWE title change of the Hulkamania era.