8 Quickest Elevations From Midcard Titles To WWE Champion

4. John Cena - 31 Days

Bobby Lashley
WWE.com

Like so often across their careers, wherever you find Randy Orton, there's a good chance you'll find John Cena. And similarly, again like the majority of their battles, Cena just about edges out the Viper when it comes the amount of time between a secondary title reign and a run with one of WWE's biggest prizes.

Whereas Orton's 35-day gap between belts centred on the Intercontinental Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship, the Master of Thuganomics' path took him in an entirely different direction.

While Randal Keith's rise to stardom played out on Raw in 2004, Cena's own road to glory took place over on SmackDown in 2005 - which means his career progression took him from the United States Championship to the WWE Championship.

After Big Match John's third US Title reign came to an end at the hands of Orlando Jordan on the 3 March 2005 episode of Smackers, it took Cena precisely a month to claim his next piece of gold. That gold, of course, coming at WrestleMania 21, where the Massachusetts native defeated Jordan's Cabinet leader JBL to claim the first of what currently stands at 16 World Championship wins.

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.