10 Stages Of The WWE Championship’s Devolution: From Prize To Prop
6. There Is No Guy
Diesel, infamously, was the worst-performing WWF champion in history. He tanked, and Bret Hart was installed as transitional champion once more.
Successor Shawn Michaels, who dethroned Hart at WrestleMania XII in 1996, wasn't 'the guy' - largely because his latent obnoxiousness melted the thin veneer of his goody-goody, dream-weaving babyface. Michaels was a phenomenal in-ring talent, one who maintained the prize as a benchmark of seminal in-ring performance. He wasn't a draw, nor particularly popular amongst the intended demographic; despite a raft of blinding defences, Michaels was booed out of the building at Survivor Series 1996, at which he lost the gold to white-hot heel Sid. The prestige of the belt took a battering when Michaels, who'd reclaimed the prize - by this point, the title was well worth the descriptor - infamously relinquished it under the pretence of a knee (and "mouth") injury.
Still, the events of the remainder of the year subverted the effects of that borderline sacrilegious locker room transgression. The Undertaker carried the gold as a legitimate storyline force, an oft-overlooked restoration, and the prize Michaels forfeited soon became the symbol for his intense personal rivalry with Hart. Their transposed onscreen feud dovetailed perfectly with the Undertaker's character arc in 1997. The gold became the one ring, and turned both men into Gollums - dark shadow selves ruined by its all-encompassing power.
Even if indirectly, the title became not merely a career accomplishment, but something worth destroying one over.