11 WWF Title Challengers No One Remembers
7. Goldust
When people think about Goldust, he's often lumped in with other midcard acts of WWF's New Generation era. It was never unreasonable to see him challenging for, or holding the Intercontinental title against guys like Razor Ramon, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, or Owen Hart.
Fans forget just how close he was to breaking through that glass ceiling. He was practically breathing on it. He and Shawn Michaels main-evented a special edition of Raw called Raw Championship Friday. Unfortunately, the match didn't thrill that many people and simply felt like a standard singles encounter, with the bout not even approaching fifteen minutes. The most notable thing about it was Shawn winning with a moonsault rather than his signature superkick.
Goldust would get opportunities in several dark matches and house shows, one in Madison Square Garden, and another at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium, again against Shawn, this time in a ladder match.
His final televised shot at the gold would come against Stone Cold Steve Austin on the same night that DX invaded WCW. Goldust took a backseat in the match's story, as this was all about the feud between Austin and Mr. McMahon. Vince attempted to stack the deck against Austin with his corporate stooge Gerald Brisco as the referee, who was blind to the interference of Dude Love, but Stone Cold knocked out the ref, leading to a no-contest.