10 Saddest World Title Reigns In Wrestling History

Unlike the old NWA, WWE has always been a babyface territory. They've always been about creating marketable heroes and merchandising them to death, then passing the torch to a new top face down the line. This means, among other things, that WWE has a number of heel champions whose sole purpose was to get the title from babyface to babyface, and none of those champs was more transitional than Stan Stasiak.

A solid territory heel hailing from the Pacific Northwest territory, Stasiak happened to be the right pot-bellied gargoyle at the right time, passing through the New York territory just as Vince McMahon, Sr. wanted to move his top title back to Bruno Sammartino.

So it was that Stan 'The Man' captured the WWE Championship from Morales with the time-honored cheap-win strategy of getting one shoulder up at the last second on a double pin. Bruno Sammartino then became The Man by defeating 'The Man' in short order, with journeyman Stasiak casually moving on to never approach these heights again.