3. The Ultimate Warrior (April 1990- January 1991)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRyPKm7wHg The incomprehensible, awkward, stiff and impossible to work with Ultimate Warrior was incredibly popular from 1988 to 1992. He was booked in a clever manner, never working long matches and always being paired with experienced hands who could make him look good. One of those hands was Rick Rude who is largely responsible for the Warrior's title reign. In 1989 Warrior was the intercontinental champion and for all intents and purposes it never looked as though he would be anything more than that and this would have been the case were it not for the determination of Rick Rude. Ravishing Rick had been given the Intercontinental title over the Warrior at Wrestlemania 5 with the idea being he would drop the belt back at Summerslam 1989 to give that show a boost by featuring a title change. Rude was fine with this but wanted to do something else as well, he wanted to steal the show. Being a legitimate hard man Rude was able to do something most others weren't, he was able to impose his will on the Ultimate Warrior and make him do what Rude wanted in the ring. As a result Rude carried the Warrior to a fantastic match at Summerslam 1989 and, in a sad sign of the times, sat back and watched as Warrior was given the express elevator to the penthouse as a result whilst he got embroiled in a mid card feud with Roddy Piper. Warrior was given the title at Wrestlemania 6 in a great clash with Hulk Hogan and then set about proving his doubters right by having one interminably bad match after another until WWE pushed the panic button and brought Rick Rude up to the main event level to work with Warrior once again. The result of this was a highly entertaining cage match at Summerslam 90 but the die had already been cast for the Warrior and the decision had already been made that being they couldn't have him work with Rick Rude in perpetuity they would have to switch the title back to Hogan and this was done via transitional champion Sgt.Slaughter leaving the Warrior to embroil himself in a program with Randy Savage which would ironically turn out to feature probably his best ever in ring performance. After this the Warrior departed WWE and though he would make two brief comebacks and did remain very popular his work never improved and he never sullied the title with his presence again.