The WWE made some mistakes with these so-called champions…
Sometimes aWWEtitle run just doesnt work.
Maybe the wrestler wasnt right for it.
Maybe the wrestler was right but the writing was all wrong.
Were looking back at 15 WWE wrestlers who shouldnt have been crowned world champions.
Lets have a look…
15.
A #1 contender four-man battle royal suddenly became a title match and Bret won.
An excellent match, but not the most satisfying title win.
The whole thing was very weird and unnecessary.
Anyway, Sycho lost to the Undertaker and wasnt around for much longer after that.
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14.
Unfortunately, WWE just had no idea how to use him in that spot.
In the months that followed, Mysterio was nothing more than a tiny punching bag.
He was constantly being put into non-title matches against guys who would crush him with little problem.
When the title was on the line, he would barely squeak out a win.
When it came time for him to lose, he moved on to wrestling Chavo Guerrero for a while.
Come on, man.
He faced Edge atWrestleMania, only to lose.
Christian came out of it the winner and it was a well-deserved and heartfelt moment.
Then Randy Orton was moved toSmackDownand immediately beat Christian for the title to preserve the WWE status quo.
As this was pre-taped, fans were angry before the whole thing even aired.
Orton and Christian tried to play damage control on social media, but what was done was done.
Bobby Lashley (ECW Championship)
Lets get one thing straight: Bobby Lashley is fantastic.
He would go on to do great work as champion in TNA and his later WWE career.
But as ECW Champion, Lashley was just unfortunate.
He represented the show that got Paul Heyman ousted from WWE for a good while.
Lashley was gone shortly after anyway, so the whole push as ECWs top guy felt incredibly pointless.
Instead, they did a segment where Cena wasnt fired after all.
The next week had Mysterio beat Miz in the opening match.
It made no sense other than that they really wanted to fast track Cena vs. Cena looked like a total bully and nobody on the show called him out on it.
AtKing of the Ring 1998, the two battled in a First Blood match.
Odd choice for a masked wrestler, but okay.
Kane won, becoming champion due to a technicality, not really befitting of someone with Kanes gimmick.
Kane then offered a rematch the following night and ate a clean loss from Austin to boost ratings.
Kane was never quite the same after that and the whole thing felt like an anticlimax.
He lost the belt and never came close to reaching his potential at WWE.
In 2007, Edge vacated the World Heavyweight Championship due to injury.
They held a battle royal to crown a new champion.
Batista was the golden boy, but he was better presented as the guy chasing the title.
Kane made some sense, but wasnt a fresh choice.
Finlay was also a contender, but maybe too odd to crown with the title.
Instead, they went with the immobile giant who was still being treated as a nigh-unbeatable monster.
Unfortunately, Khali just wasnt a very good character.
He was more of a slightly-animate target for Batista to chase for a couple months.
Still, he would always be remembered for becoming a world champion due to the promotions sudden desperation.
He then lost it to Miz, thanks to Otis tag partner Tucker betraying him.
There was no follow-up to that and Tucker vanished from TV before being let go.
Only Lashley came out of the situation with any shine.
Diesel (WWF Championship)
Kevin Nash is awesome and his Diesel persona was pretty rad, too.
His face turn atSurvivor Series 1994and the sudden title win a few days later were exciting stuff.
Too bad he spent the next year being shoved into a Hulk Hogan-shaped hole.
This is why we had Diesel vs. King Mabel main-eventingSummerSlam.
Instead, his opponents had to find some special Achilles heel to stop him.
What that was would presumably be revealed when he defended the Universal Championship against Roman Reigns atWrestleMania.
In the meantime, the Fiend had a special attraction match against Goldberg at the eventSuper ShowDown.
The exact thing that wasnt supposed to work.
Nice hustle, everyone.
Vince McMahon (WWF Championship)
Mr. McMahonhad two world title reigns.
Triple H was WWF Champion at the time and had a match with Vince.
This set up a multi-man match won by Triple H anyway, so it did feel kind of pointless.
Now it survives as a footnote of the era where we remember, Oh, right.
That was pretty dumb.
Sometimes WWE got cold feet.
Sometimes Jeff screwed himself via getting suspended for wellness violations (i.e.
the reason why he didnt win the Money in the Bank match atWrestleMania XXIV).
But whatever, were at the fireworks factory.
Jeffs run as champion made Rey Mysterio look like Roman Reigns.
He spent the whole reign looking like an ineffectual mess.
Jeffs run ended at the very next PPV where he gave the championship back to Edge.
The real main event was champion Bret Hart taking on Royal Rumble winner and absolute monster Yokozuna.
Hogan made it known that he wanted a shot at the winner.
Yokozuna won fairly quickly by cheating, causing Hogan to come out to save his all-of-the-sudden friend Bret.
Yokozuna laid down an immediate challenge to Hogan and lost.
Hogan was champion yet again and the company took a big step backwards.
This went on for way too long, only coming to an end in the lead-up toSurvivor Series.
Instead, Jinder dropped the belt to AJ Styles and fell into obscurity.
This wasbeforethe Indian tour, where he instead took the role of Triple Hs doomed opponent.
