10 Wrestlers Who Threw Their Championships Away
2. Shane Douglas - NWA World Heavyweight Championship
A show of disrespect that birthed a whole new company, and a new brand of extreme!
Going into 27th August 1994, Shane Douglas was the Eastern Championship Wrestling Heavyweight Champion. The promotion was a subsidiary of the National Wrestling Alliance, and Ric Flair had recently vacated the NWA Championship - so a tournament to crown a new champion took place on this night.
Douglas would go on to defeat The Tazmaniac, Dean Malenko and finally 2 Cold Scorpio to win the prestigious championship, becoming a double champ in the process. He then took to the mic, proceeded to list off some of the legendary names who had won the championship like Dory Funk Jr, Ricky Steamboat, Dusty Rhodes, etc. before proclaiming loudly that "they can all kiss [his] ass", before tossing the belt to the mat like it was nothing.
His actions in the ring that night were known only to a few, including Paul Heyman, and after throwing away one of the most valued prizes in wrestling history, held up the Eastern Championship Wrestling title and proclaimed the territorial title as the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. The Eastern territory broke away from the NWA to become a new company known now as Extreme Championship Wrestling.