10 Times Brilliant Wrestlers Endured Miserable Title Reigns

In what is an under-the-radar indictment of WWE in 2021, mostly, with the exception of the worthless transitional Miz reign earlier in the year, the promotion has nailed its top-tier title reigns.

Roman Reigns is a cool, sinister, hugely credible superstar, and the once-cursed Universal Title feels like a real accomplishment hoisted above his shoulders. It has never felt more prestigious. Bobby Lashley was a more than serviceable WWE Champion - if you forget his loss to Xavier Woods, which is the sort of inexplicable booking decision so commonplace that it barely matters - who contested several physical bangers and radiated credibility. Big E earned his run - he earned it years and years ago - and so far, his run has been backed with no losses and two fairly notable wins. This is the bare minimum, but this is WWE.

And it doesn't matter.

There's bullsh*t everywhere in WWE. It's WWE.

But if this sort of thing had unfolded about, say, three or four years ago, WWE might not be a buzz-bereft promotion endorsed only by defensive tribalists. Plainly, WWE has spent too long being WWE for people to truly care about competent, even solid developments.

The historical sh*t-show stunk too much...

An indictment of the state in which the midcard titles found themselves at the midpoint of the decade, Dean Ambrose was far more over and relevant as part of a three-man unit than he ever was holding the United States Title. That's because he barely held it; for just under an entire calendar year, Ambrose defended the title just four times on pay-per-view.

He defeated Kane at Payback 2013...by countout, with the disruption of The Shield's awesome streak of six-man matches just one of several in-ring atrocities committed by the Big Red Machine. On the SummerSlam pre-show, he lost to Rob Van Dam via disqualification in a nothing match with a rotten finish. At Night Of Champions, he defeated Dolph Ziggler in an overstuffed match that should have but did not sully Ziggler's "selling" rep (you mean "bumping"). At Hell In A Cell, he was defeated by Big E...by countout, again, bloody hell.

And then...nothing. Ambrose amassed the longest reign under WWE's umbrella, and the third longest overall, by defending it in inconclusive, tedious matches, and then not defending it at all.

The titled suffered from red, white and blue balls. This wasn't a reign, it was a meme; the United States Championship joined every recent NXT call-up and Stephanie McMahon's self-awareness in the wilderness.