JBL was one of the better big rough and tough, no nonsense type on the roster during his first 13-year stint in WWE. But making him champion was a couple steps too far for the former Blackjack. As Paul Heyman so famously put it at ECW's One Night Stand in 2005: "You were only WWE Champion for so long because Triple H didn't want to work Tuesdays." This seemed to rile JBL as he proceeded to take all his anger out on the Blue Meanie's face at the end of the show. Before this, JBL's most notable success came in the tag team division with the APA and as a hardcore competitor as he held that title 17 times. He had one of, if not the, best heel gimmicks in the company at the time so an ascension to the top, given his service to the company, could have been seen as warranted. However, for him to be the third-longest reigning WWE Champion of the 2000s, with his stint lasting 280 days is a bit too much for our liking. It is as much a travesty as it is a damming assessment of the roster in the mid-2000s.
