11 Wrestlers Who Waited The Longest To Win A World Title
10. Rob Van Dam (1798 Days)
Having arrived in the company in the midst of the 2001 Invasion storyline, it was a good five years before Rob Van Dam would win his first world title, eventually defeating John Cena for the WWE Championship at One Night Stand on 11 June 2006.
Of course, you could argue RVD’s journey to the title was even more arduous than that, because technically his first WWE match had actually arrived a few years earlier.
However, his WWE run in May and June of 1997 (if you could even call it a run) yielded only three appearances. Plus, Van Dam was never officially contracted to Vince McMahon’s organisation at the time, and was technically still an ECW talent, hence why July 2001 is seen as the point at which his WWE career properly began.
As one of the few plus points to come from that 2001 Invasion angle, few would have bet against Van Dam going on to become a major star for the company. Really the only surprise here was that it took a full 1798 days for that first world title win to arrive.