10 Times WWE Totally BOTCHED A New Title

Let’s be honest: WWE hasn’t really had the best track record when it comes to introducing new World titles in recent years. The Universal Championship and ECW Championships have already been covered, but this fumble preceded them.

Brock Lesnar won the Undisputed WWE Championship at SummerSlam 2002, but shortly after, he became exclusive to SmackDown, leaving Raw without a world champion (sound familiar?). Raw GM Eric Bischoff’s solution was to reestablish the World Heavyweight Championship. But rather than hold a tournament among all the Raw superstars, he simply awarded it to Triple H. That alone was a near-unforgivable offense.

Apologists will say that Triple H was a heel, and this just made him even more hated, but there’s a reason the World Heavyweight Championship of that era was often regarded as the B-title of the two. It’s hard to establish credibility for a title when it literally was pulled out of a briefcase and handed to a guy.

Sure, the title would be held by several future WWE Hall-of-Famers like Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle and Goldberg, but that misstep out of the gate was a pretty notable setback.