12 Times WWE Buried Their Own Champions
10. Big Show Becomes Midcard Champ
Paul Wight went from being the new sensation on WWF telly to being called an out of shape waste of time within 12 months. That's actually rather impressive in a warped way. WCW behemoth The Giant signed on the dotted line with the fed in February 1999, and he was WWF Champion by November - the redubbed Big Show on the belt by replacing Steve Austin vs. Triple H and The Rock at Survivor Series '99.
Show struggled to convince as champ immediately, but he wasn't really given much help. Amongst other things, he only beat Kane by countout, went to a no contest with The Rock, and lost to Mankind by DQ on TV. To top it all off, his first pay-per-view title defence vs. Big Boss Man at Armageddon wasn’t even the main event. Triple H vs. Vince McMahon was.
A disastrous first reign ended at the hands of Trips on the 3 January 2000 Raw. To summarise, Show's title reign had been a waste of everybody’s time, and the man himself was booked like a midcard attraction more than a proper WWF Champion. Full federation focus went on the in-fighting between McMahon and Hunter.
Announcers might as well have said: 'Oh yeah, and Big Show is your WWF Champion. We forgot!'. The WWF made a lot of noise when they signed Wight, and there were bullish jibes fired at WCW for 'not knowing how to book a giant'. Then, almost hilariously, the McMahon family proved that they had no clue how to book Show themselves.
His title reign remains one of the worst ever.