Every WWE Champion Of The 2000s Ranked From Worst To Best
4. The Rock
In late 1999, with the departure of Steve Austin due to injury, somebody had to fill the void and keep the then-hot WWE's momentum up. Thankfully, The Rock was already the real deal, and fans were more than accepting of him as the face of the company.
Although he would come up short against Triple H for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 2000 thanks to an interfering Vince McMahon, Rocky would get his revenge and win the title for the first time as a babyface at Backlash. He would trade the belt with Hunter for the next few months in a program fans hail as a classic, before holding onto the title until the fall, when he would drop it to Kurt Angle. The next reign to follow saw Rock win the title from Angle and then drop it to Steve Austin in one of the best title matches in company history. All the while, Rocky was taking over the wrestling and entertainment world, becoming a cultural icon in the process.
While his last run in the 2000s was soured as he was booed out of the building at SummerSlam 2002 (back then, the idea of Dwayne Johnson the actor was infuriating), all these title reigns were during peak-era Rock. He wasn't a novelty or a nostalgia trip, he was just the genuine article in his prime, and he was amazing at what he did.