15 WWE Title Changes That IMMEDIATELY Backfired
14. Apollo Crews Is Doomed From The Start (WWE Intercontinental Title)
Title Change: Repackaged "descendant of Nigerian royalty" Apollo Crews beat Big E to win the Intercontinental Title in a mediocre “Nigerian Drum Fight” at WrestleMania 37. On paper, this looked like a sure sign that WWE were prepared to finally go all in on Crews and give him a push worthy of his in-ring skills. Unfortunately, their interest in doing so wouldn't last long.
Why It Backfired: Crews held the title for 4 months but didn’t make another PPV/PLE appearance as champ. Then, he lost the belt to Shinsuke Nakamura on the 13 August 2021 SmackDown and the creative team pretty much forgot that they'd ever been invested in Apollo to begin with. It became painfully obvious that Crews wasn’t somebody WWE even planned to take seriously for long, so why even bother putting him over E following the New Day man’s emotional win over Sami Zayn the prior year?
That was the bit fans found hard to reconcile. E didn't need to drop the title - he was nowhere near finished as a popular midcarder pushing towards the promised land of main events. So, WWE shouldn't have taken the IC Title from him until they had the right successor. Crews, who happened to be the writing staff's flavour of the month, was never realistically that guy.
In other words, Apollo was doomed from the start once he started putting on an accent and claiming to have royal ancestors. Elements of the character even skirted around the awkward fringes of race baiting, which is never good, and the 'Mania match was a total joke in execution.
What even is WWE's "Nigerian Drum Fight"? It was just a brief, unsatisfying brawl, then they dropped Crews like a bad habit.