8 Quickest Elevations From Midcard Titles To WWE Champion

5. Randy Orton - 35 Days

Bobby Lashley
WWE.com

The image on the left there is Randy Orton coming out to his glorious gold-laced entrance back at 2004's Vengeance PPV. Skip ahead 35 days, and Orton had upgraded the Intercontinental Championship for the World Heavyweight Championship.

That Vengeance event saw Orton's first and only Intercontinental Title reign brought to a halt by rival-turned-BFF-turned-rival Edge in a 26-minute barnburner. To this day, the bout holds up as one of the very best straight-up singles matches of the Viper's career, and likewise so too does his World Heavyweight Championship win that followed just 35 days later at SummerSlam.

Read into it what you will that two of Orton's greatest ever singles matches came 17 years ago, but it's fair to say that 2004 was a banner year for the former Legend Killer.

At SummerSlam, Orton would dethrone Chris Benoit, in the process becoming the youngest World Champion in company history. In the years since, Randal Keith has gone on to add a further 13 World Title runs to his résumé - most recently embarking on a brief 22-day run as WWE Champion after defeating Drew McIntyre at last year's Hell in a Cell PPV.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.