10 Real Life Events That Forced Wrestling World Title Changes

3. Booker T Gets Big Gold Because Of The WCW Buyout

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WWE.com

By the time WCW closed its doors, Booker T was clearly a bona fide main eventer who was more than deserving of being the talent chosen to carry the World Heavyweight Championship across into the then-WWF.

The main reason why Book - at that point also the United States Champion - won the WCW Title on the final ever episode of Nitro, though, was largely down to the factors involved in Vince McMahon's purchase of WCW.

One big factor was the huge Time Warner deals that several of WCW's big names were contracted to. While a select few talent were willing to waive these massive paydays, the vast majority of those stars were content to stay at home and do nothing bar collect a giant paycheck - and one of those stars was Scott Steiner.

Going into that last Nitro, it was the Big Bad Booty Daddy who was the WCW Champ. Knowing that they'll have Booker T to work with immediately going forward, WWF brass made the call for the Master of the Spinarooni to take Big Gold from Steiner on Nitro's last hurrah.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.