Ranking Every First Current WWE Champion From Worst To Best
We Are The (First) Champions.
"Rio de Janeiro" was a bit of a rib, by all accounts.
Before many wrestling fans were old enough to know where the Brazilian state was on a map, they knew of the tournament hosted there to crown Pat Patterson the first ever Intercontinental Champion.
Patterson had held the company's South American strap and was thus selected as the first IC titleholder after it was binned, with the location apparently not down to proximity but those at the top table getting a kick out of the French Canadian not being able to pronounce it, having also used the destination as a location for the falsified WWWF Title Tournament a decade and a half earlier. Take that with a pinch of Prichard, but it feels legit, not least because it leans towards cruelty over actual comedy.
A bit more on the future "Stooge" later, but what of every other origin story for the current bits of hardware? From flukes to booking favourites and future legends, each title has a unique legacy that all started with those included here. Knowing what we now know about the longest-tenured secondary strap, were they chosen for prestige, or patter?
Your writer is falling over himself to get to the first entry...
18. 24/7 Champion - Titus O'Neil
Titus O'Neil was a punchline before he fell flat on his face in Saudi Arabia, because he'd fallen flat on his face years earlier.
Dropping a keg during a pathetically stupid NXT challenge in 2010, O'Neil's credibility hit the floor faster than his face in that moment, forever confined to being the butt of all jokes including during this 2019 title win.
He scooped it up from the ring where Mick Foley had left it, and was pinned on the ramp by Robert Roode seconds later.