10 Times Title Belts Were Horribly Disrespected
5. Extreme
Marking an important turning point for 1990s wrestling in general, Shane Douglas throwing down his newly-won NWA Title to proclaim himself ECW World Heavyweight Champion sent real shockwaves through an industry built on pre-determined events.
Having won the belt in a tournament authorised by the archaic National Wrestling Alliance staged on Eastern Championship Wrestling's home turf, Douglas turned a standard celebratory promo into a vicious verbal assault on the outmoded nature of the group and punctuated it by hurling the title belt to the ground.
Name-checking iconic figures and former champions as he cut through the Alliance, Douglas was the perfect reborn anti-hero ECW needed to launch the brand beyond their Philadelphia roots and into the conversation as a third 'major' company in the flagging United States wrestling scene.
Throwing down the title (and conning NWA representative Dennis Coralluzzo in the process) was hugely contentious at the time, with many in the industry and associated with ECW itself shocked and offended by the treatment of the title and legacy held within.
To dismiss the title in such callous fashion was to disrespect every wrestler to previously hold the title, which was exactly the (scathing) point.