20 Superstars Who Only Had One Championship Reign In WWE
4. Rick Rude
Very few wrestlers have ever been as effective at working a crowd as "Ravishing" Rick Rude. The mustachioed musclehead's wicked tongue, washboard abs, and swiveling hips made the ladies go wild and the men go green with envy. Wherever he was, Rude always got a reaction.
His biggest feud in the WWF was with The Ultimate Warrior, against whom he faced off at WrestleMania V. With more than a little help from Bobby Heenan, Rude pinned his nemesis to win the Intercontinental Championship for the very first time.
Rude held the belt for a respectable 148 days and was the first person to defend the title outside of North America, when he beat The Warrior in Italy in April 1989. Warrior would eventually regain the title at that year's SummerSlam, but the two men's rivalry didn't stop there. One year later, Rude challenged Warrior for his WWF Championship in a Steel Cage match but came up short.
Considering he could have been one of the promotion's biggest stars, It is almost unfathomable that Rude had just one championship reign in the WWF, and that reign was designed to eventually elevate someone else.