25 WWE Champions Who Never Got Their Rematch
6. Daniel Bryan
Title Lost: WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Lost Title To: Surrendered
Title Lost: Intercontinental Championship
Lost Title To: Surrendered
Daniel Bryan was the undersized, talented indy star who organically connected with WWE fans in a way that the company only wishes it could duplicate with in-house creations like Roman Reigns.
Bryan improbably won the WWE Championship at SummerSlam 2013, then spent the rest of summer and fall fighting Randy Orton and the Authority over the title. He faded out of the title picture until after the Royal Rumble, when the fans forcefully reinserted him into the program, culminating in a WWE World Heavyweight Championship victory at WrestleMania XXX. Bryan’s storybook title reign would end after less than three months when he was forced to surrender the title due to legit injuries.
Those injuries would keep him out of action until January 2015. Bryan would never get a world title rematch, as it transitioned from John Cena to Brock Lesnar. Instead, Daniel was moved to the Intercontinental Championship, which he won at WrestleMania XXXI. It seemed like a fitting consolation prize, but that reign would be even shorter, as injuries once again forced him to forfeit the title.
Sadly, Bryan would not compete for WWE again and currently serves as SmackDown Live’s general manager, which is about the closest to a consolation prize we can get.