10 Oldest WWE Champions Ever
7. Sgt Slaughter - 42
Date Last WWE Title Won: January 19th, 1991
Age: 42 years, 2 months, 5 days
Arguably the most controversial choice for the champion in company history, Sgt Slaughter's victory over the Ultimate Warrior at 1991's Royal Rumble was as risqué as WWE would ever get in reflecting global socio-economic strife outside of the Titan bubble.
The organisation had already drawn negative press for promoting former patriot Slaughter as an Iraqi sympathiser whilst tensions mounted between the two nations, but when the execution of Operation Desert Storm confirmed that a burgeoning Gulf War had reached 'combat stage' just 48 hours earlier, the military man's win seemed beyond the pale.
Slaughter would later claim that an increasingly disinterested Hulk Hogan himself had said he would only work WrestleMania 7 with him, but 'The Hulkster' himself hasn't corroborated the claims.
The company to this day claim that the shift from the 100,000 capacity Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the adjacent 17,000 seater Sports Arena was due to security concerns for Slaughter due to threats they had received, but the 16,158 tickets sold for the jingoistic headline attraction highlight a more inconvenient truth.