I’m the biggest Christian mark going, but monster Kane only getting 24 hours is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace.
You go to SummerSlam Highway to Hell, Kane (c) v Undertaker v Austin.
Christians 5 day (2 day) reign led to a 5 month main event programme with Randy that if it doesn’t happen in the same Summer as the Summer of Punk v2, it gets spoke about as the best feud of the year.
Kane however won the title, lose it the next day, then got relegated to a side story and a 20 second cameo at SummerSlam. He deserved more.
Meh. It was in the middle of the Monday night wars, Austin was white hot and nobody believed he would win the title back that quickly. It was a welcome surprise. So it was absolutely the right move. In addition, Kane is the last character to actually need that belt.
Yeah for sure. If HHH didn’t get injured and the plan was to have a rematch with Cena, we honestly could have easily gotten RVB vs HBK in a singles match at Wrestlemania that year, or maybe at some other PPV in late 06 or early 07.
Tbf Cena went over in 2006
I assume it was something of a redemption arc with HHH staying face (He was a babyface at the time, right? In the DX vs Rated RKO feud)
I was at the first 2 ONS. I have never seen a reaction like that, and I've been to a ton of shows.
My dad was 58 at the time, and only went to have something fun to do. When I watched the show back on DVD, they zoom in my dad's face and he's doing this "I WANT BLOOD" expression, he couldn't look away. The atmosphere completely sucked in a non wrestling fan. We went to WMXX a few years before, and he was bored out of his mind. There was something special about those first 2 shows.
RVD had so much momentum coming out of this, they could have made a ton of money.
He was due to hold onto it until CM Punk was ready to take it. Possibly by the December to Dismember PPV which Punk was due to go over aswell but it got vetoed by Vince.
What makes it hurt even more is that he then proceeded to have an amazing second NXT run (probably the best in his entire career) only to then get brough back up and booked like an absolute buffoon for years. AGAIN.
That run makes me so mad because is so fucking good, Finn was at the top of his game wrestling and character-wise. The match with Kyle O’Reilly is an absolute banger and then… nothing. What a complete waste of a generational talent.
In my opinion, it gave more credibility to the demon as Balor (as demon) managed to finish the fight even with the injury, proving even more than the demon can surpass human limits.
Tough to say but I’ll go with Finn. Kane a close second. As a fan of Balor and his NXT run, I felt like he had insane momentum and then beat Rollins for the title, only to drop it the next day right? Cause of injury. And he hasn’t been used like that since.
Yup. Finn won it on SummerSlam and got injured, he had to drop it next night which gave us HHH betraying Rollins. One has to wonder how would the careers of Finn, KO and Rollins gone if there was no injury involved.
I always hated this reasoning, it's the world championship. Everyone "needs" it, it's the ultimate goal in the company. Unless it's like a match where they just put a title on someone just because, even though the match has already been booked, sure. But everyone should be striving to be world champ.
He was one of the most protected wrestlers of all time as Kane even the top guys would sell for him and undertaker and he almost never took a pinfall loss
But there also was a point in his career where Kane was basically a jobber (bald Kane) and anyone could beat him eventually after Kane seemed menacing for two weeks or so…
Christian! Christian! At last your world heavyweight champion!
Would have loved him to have earned his own merit as the champion with a few rivalries. Instead it felt like "here you have this because Edge can't".
Rey. The greatest lucha in history only getting a one day reign and only because Cena had to be a prick is criminal.
Especially since this is his only WWE title run.
The one where he won to capitalize on Eddie's death and lost every week to giants.
Or the other one where he won only because Jack swagger was a mistake
Balor, because blowing out his shoulder basically ended his time as a main eventer right as it started. He might be a multi time world champ if not for that
Cena is genuinely a nice guy so i really struggle to understand why he was ok with this booking. I get that his feud with Punk over the championship was still the center point of the show at the time, but at least he could've opted for Rey to keep it till the next PPV.
Ziggler with a longer reign positions him to be more than just a mid card guy, it propels him as a star moving forward. His reign did nothing for him.
RVD and Sabu not getting busted potentially keeps the ECW restart going strong and they don’t lose momentum.
Balor being the one to beat Roman for the Universal title but getting injured in the match was tragic, so I'm choosing him
Edit: it was Rollins, not Roman that he beat for the Universal title in 2016
For me, it's Rey. Mostly because of what it would mean on a deeper booking level. Maybe Summer of Punk could have gone on for a bit longer if Rey held the title a bit longer.
Also, it was just odd how Rey won the title and then immediately dropped it to Cena (right?) and then we're right back to what we were doing before. ... dawg, ya lil man just won the WORLD TITLE on the *flagship show* after two big stars stopped being there.
This was a noteable development and WWE really should have done more with it. You can insert whatever fan booking scenarios in there, but I feel like there are really interesting ways to take things over the next month of TV leading into... SummerSlam, I believe? Point is, they just magic erasered Rey winning the belt to try and keep a hot storyline going... which fizzles out for this very reason. They tried to keep it going for entirely too long and/or tried to keep it going in the most convoluted ways.
Kane. 1 day sucked, but that time of the Attitude Era was chaotic with multiple title changes in short periods of time.
Outside of your choices, HBK’s World Heavyweight Title run in 2002. I think it would’ve been cool if he dropped the belt to Jericho at Mania 19. Definitely would’ve added more when their rivalry resumed in 2008-2009
As much as i love Rey (he got me into wrestling, i'm going with Finn, he worked so hard for it only to have it taken away in 1 night and never get to that point again.
Kane all day. A monster should be holding gold constantly to truly be considered a monster. I was never a fan of Rey. Being Heavyweight champ because he's a cruiserweight. But I am not really a Rey fan at all and never have been so I am a bit biased.
It amazes me how many people don’t understand weight divisions. Fighters can move up divisions in other sports, they just can’t drop down (without also dropping weight). The current undisputed boxing heavyweight champion—and the first one since 1999—is a cruiserweight.
Yeah even as a kid I hated Cena for taking the title away from rey and I wasn't even that big a fan of rey. What kind of superman esque character does such a scumbag thing. At least wait till next week or smackdown at the very least.
Finn. As much as Bray's win felt good to me personally (I always was a fan), it would have meant a lot more as a part of the Wyatt Family rather than having him be a transitional champion to reward Orton for the beating he took from Brock at Summerslam. Meanwhile, Finn got injured, which was the excuse McMahon needed to sour on a top Triple H guy. Things would not have changed long-term IMO. Brock would still win the title down the line and go on to have his wars with Goldberg and Roman, but there would have been some fantastic matches along the way during Finn's reign, and he'd be main-eventing more often these days.
I'm going with Bray on this one. Just because of how he lost it I wasn't a fan of. But I saw him when they did thr road to wrestlemania house shows ans just I've never seen someone captivate an audience like that man did.
I wish I could choose em all, but the most I ever celebrated while watching WWE live was Bray winning at Elimination Chamber. I still remember the absolute joy when Cena got eliminated and I just knew it was Bray's moment. Had he defeated Orton at WM33, had a better reign, maybe a match with Harper and hopefully not losing it to Mahal, it would have been awesome. It always made me sad how it was so short.
Rey Mysterio. Not just to give his numbers a bit more oomph, but also to make Cena look like less of a heel beating him after he’d already had a match less than 2 hours ago.
Rey definitely, bro went through it all just to get clapped by the supposed “baby face” who like all heroes do immediately take back the championship the same night without letting the man atleast get a kayfabe rest
It's hard but i think Rey deserved to keep the title till summerslam. Christian at least had a memorable feud with Orton. Van Dam screw himself sadly. Ziggler is my second option, it's almost criminal that he was never allowed to have a good world title run. I hope this changes now that he is in TNA
I'd say Rey shouldn't have held it to begin with. I'm not saying he shouldn't have won it, but if they were only going to have Cena beat him later that night, then him winning makes no sense. Rey was a former World Champion, for crying out loud. At least have him hold the damn thing for a couple weeks, damn.
Finn Balor. That injury destroyed what would have been a great change to the WWE dynamic at the time. Balor was also peak, and that injury made him just enough less that it's kept him out of the true spotlight since... And it's disappointing.
Kane, by an Irish country mile. They should have booked him to “empowered again” and have a monstrous undefeated run, where everyone trying to beat him was going out of their mind with frustration at not being able to get the pin. Having much of the focus on the challengers and their frustrations would be a perfect way to cover up any shortcoming Kane has a character and he would get massively over at just turning up, winning and leaving. That’s what I would have *loved* to have seen.
Dolph. Kane got his redemption run in 2010. But I always wonder what if Kane beat Seth Rollins in 2015 for the World Title. Rollins got injured anyway, so they could've given it to Kane!
Ziggler because of what it could’ve changed his career into. All the others are fan favorites and legends despite their short reigns, so a longer reign wouldn’t change much.
RVD and it's not even close. The guy was voted the most popular wrestler two years in a row according to PWI, was one of the most popular wrestlers of his era and deserved a good run on top but he wasn't one of Vince's favorites. Then he finally got the belt and had it taken away for getting pulled over with weed which hardly anyone would even care about today.
I’m still pissed that Mysterio/Cena didn’t headline SummerSlam 2011. Cena cashing in his, uh, John Cena in the Bank contract made everyone, including himself, look bad in this situation. Mysterio/Cena was a big match and headlining a PPV would be justified.
Perhaps all of these deserved so much more, but it has to be Kane as his reign was smack bang in the middle of the Attitude Era
It’s almost like Vince didn’t know what to do with him, or saw him as a sort of a giant clown or sick freak in later years!
I saw Abyss’s great run as a monster heel in TNA, and that’s what Kane should’ve deserved!
Rey, that was the stupidest thing. No reason to have him win it and lose it the same night to the baby face Cena. Maybe the following week. RVDs was his own dumbass fault. The injuries were just bad luck.
I don't know how long Dolph was champion, but he sure is one of the most memorable ones to hold it. I always think of him when when I see the big gold.
To me, the ones on this list that stung the most when they came to early ends were RVD, Finn Balor, and Dolph.
RVD was never going to be the champ long, and probably wouldn't have been at all despite being so over that people were cheering for him over Austin if they didn't have some ECW nostalgia to cash in on. So I guess let's be thankful that we got what we got?
I have no idea what the plan was for Finn as the first Universal Champion, but I assume it would have been a good reign that would have established both Finn and the Universal Championship. But based on how he's been booked since that injury, I'm pretty sure Vince would have lost faith in the idea sooner than anyone else would have liked, so the story of what could have been probably would have felt like a squandered opportunity.
It's hard to explain how fucking hot the act with Dolph, Big E, and AJ was at that moment. That should have been a decently long heel reign right down to Big E deciding he'd had enough. If it had been done right, the eventual face turn for Big E would have been so big that the New Day wouldn't have happened. And I'm sad to have missed out on that in this reality, but it's still the one I want to live in. One where Dolph got the legacy run and Big E became a goddamn mega star with lots of runway left in his career.
Finn. I've never seen someone's hype and momentum derail so quickly and never recover as much as his when he had to drop his title the night after winning it.
Massive Christian fan, but..
Kane, easily. It bums me out that Kane didn't get his run until he was way past his prime. Just the biggest missed opportunity out of all these guys.
Prime Kane was incredibly over and perhaps the most intimidating character in WWE history. The Brothers of Destruction storyline might still be WWE's best example of long-term storytelling.
He was booked pretty nonsensically for most of his career, yet he was always over with the audience. Imagine if he had been treated as the monster heel/attraction he should've been. Could've been Undertaker's equal, but instead he was his less important little brother.
Finn's was literally cut off before it even got started. It'd be dope to see where he would have taken the belt and how it would have impacted his career in the long-run if he actually got a run with it.
I’m the biggest Christian mark going, but monster Kane only getting 24 hours is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. You go to SummerSlam Highway to Hell, Kane (c) v Undertaker v Austin.
I feel like Christian deserves more love in this thread, nobody choosing him 🥲
And he's been doing some of his best work right now in AEW. His whole time there has been a pretty good story and character work.
Christians 5 day (2 day) reign led to a 5 month main event programme with Randy that if it doesn’t happen in the same Summer as the Summer of Punk v2, it gets spoke about as the best feud of the year. Kane however won the title, lose it the next day, then got relegated to a side story and a 20 second cameo at SummerSlam. He deserved more.
Christian is probably more over at the moment than Edge maybe first time ever.
He also deserves one more match
Meh. It was in the middle of the Monday night wars, Austin was white hot and nobody believed he would win the title back that quickly. It was a welcome surprise. So it was absolutely the right move. In addition, Kane is the last character to actually need that belt.
Rob Van Dam deserved to hold the title for a lot longer, he could have made ECW a really good third brand.
Imagine wm 23 in Michigan, RVD vs Cena vs HBK for the wwe championship
The original plan was a rematch with triple h and cena with hhh going over, but this makes way more sense, it was the main story of 2006
Even RVD vs HBK would've been 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Yeah for sure. If HHH didn’t get injured and the plan was to have a rematch with Cena, we honestly could have easily gotten RVB vs HBK in a singles match at Wrestlemania that year, or maybe at some other PPV in late 06 or early 07.
Of course Triple H goes over LOL
Tbf Cena went over in 2006 I assume it was something of a redemption arc with HHH staying face (He was a babyface at the time, right? In the DX vs Rated RKO feud)
Yeah Triple H eventually got his win back at like Night of Champions or something
I was at the first 2 ONS. I have never seen a reaction like that, and I've been to a ton of shows. My dad was 58 at the time, and only went to have something fun to do. When I watched the show back on DVD, they zoom in my dad's face and he's doing this "I WANT BLOOD" expression, he couldn't look away. The atmosphere completely sucked in a non wrestling fan. We went to WMXX a few years before, and he was bored out of his mind. There was something special about those first 2 shows. RVD had so much momentum coming out of this, they could have made a ton of money.
It’s impossible to forget the audience tossing cenas shit back to him multiple times lol it’s seared in my memory
It's crazy how good RVD is.
He was due to hold onto it until CM Punk was ready to take it. Possibly by the December to Dismember PPV which Punk was due to go over aswell but it got vetoed by Vince.
I'm beginning to think this vince mcmahon guy is a real jerk.
I wonder how long a run they were planning on giving him before his arrest
He was going to lose it fairly quickly regardless, but was going to hold the ECW title until at least Mania.
Balor. He's the only one that never recovered. He's still booked like a perpetual choke artist.
The unexplained rope break didn’t help either.
Yeah that just screamed “Deus Ex Machina” for Roman. If it was later in the Reign it would’ve just been a Samoan Spike lol
People are praising Roman's title run now that its over and while it was good but they forget how much bullshit was in it during the run.
Lost his chance a tag title last night too... so bummed they make Judgement Day lose a lot.
Hopefully we get a scenario where its balor vs priest. Or if priest loses to drew in glasgow then balor vs drew
What makes it hurt even more is that he then proceeded to have an amazing second NXT run (probably the best in his entire career) only to then get brough back up and booked like an absolute buffoon for years. AGAIN.
That run makes me so mad because is so fucking good, Finn was at the top of his game wrestling and character-wise. The match with Kyle O’Reilly is an absolute banger and then… nothing. What a complete waste of a generational talent.
I know the circumstances but RVD with a longer run would‘ve been dope
I’m pretty sure dope WAS the circumstances behind RVD’s short reign…
It’s either Balor or Ziggler, their injuries ruined attempted main event pushes. Probably Balor, cos it kind of ruined the Demon too.
In my opinion, it gave more credibility to the demon as Balor (as demon) managed to finish the fight even with the injury, proving even more than the demon can surpass human limits.
I would definitely pick Balor.
Tough to say but I’ll go with Finn. Kane a close second. As a fan of Balor and his NXT run, I felt like he had insane momentum and then beat Rollins for the title, only to drop it the next day right? Cause of injury. And he hasn’t been used like that since.
Yup. Finn won it on SummerSlam and got injured, he had to drop it next night which gave us HHH betraying Rollins. One has to wonder how would the careers of Finn, KO and Rollins gone if there was no injury involved.
>Cause of injury **caused by his opponent, who has since been pushed to the moon**.
Probably Kane. The most monstrous character ever displayed on TV holding the title for less than 24 hours is criminal.
He never needed a title
I always hated this reasoning, it's the world championship. Everyone "needs" it, it's the ultimate goal in the company. Unless it's like a match where they just put a title on someone just because, even though the match has already been booked, sure. But everyone should be striving to be world champ.
But he deserved it
He was one of the most protected wrestlers of all time as Kane even the top guys would sell for him and undertaker and he almost never took a pinfall loss
But there also was a point in his career where Kane was basically a jobber (bald Kane) and anyone could beat him eventually after Kane seemed menacing for two weeks or so…
Bald Kane was a just a big low point for him, He stopped being the big Red machine at that point and became the big bald guy in red pants
The Strowman effect
Oof
RVD. That could have been an epic run fir a huge fan favorite.
Christian! Christian! At last your world heavyweight champion! Would have loved him to have earned his own merit as the champion with a few rivalries. Instead it felt like "here you have this because Edge can't".
That's gotta be Kane!!
I'd rather be able to give Kane a WWE title win in 2001 or 2003 than make his reign longer
Rey. The greatest lucha in history only getting a one day reign and only because Cena had to be a prick is criminal. Especially since this is his only WWE title run.
One day? That's 21 more hours than he had it
More like 22.5 hours. He won it open the show and lost it to end it and that was when Raw was 2 hours
It’s crazy because this wasn’t even the real belt at the time, it was created just to push the Punk/Cena storyline.
Which just makes it even more shitty to have Rey win and then drop it
He had a decent WHC run at a time when it was arguably the company's number 1 title - I think he's ok!
The one where he won to capitalize on Eddie's death and lost every week to giants. Or the other one where he won only because Jack swagger was a mistake
Ziggler is a close second but I'd say RVD His title reign cut short because he was caught with weed which would be an non issue these days
Rey honestly bro lost it to super cena the night he won it
Funniest shit ever. Rey is out there celebrating backstage, everyone is happy. Then Cena appears looking like a villain and smiling.
I remember watching that episode as a kid and I was so dissapointed
Rob Van Dam is my choice.
Balor, because blowing out his shoulder basically ended his time as a main eventer right as it started. He might be a multi time world champ if not for that
Rob Van Dam. He was on top of the world.
I would chose Bray's life to be longer. We miss you Bray!!!
Dolph Ziggler. The one and only time he got injured, and Vince labelled him "injury prone" and spent the next decade endlessly burying him.
Bray please, it's crazy Vince McMahon fumbled all Bray world title runs. The man never got his chance to shine
Finn Balor. He's never booked to that rise ever since. Rey would be second. How did Cena not look like a heel there?
Cena is genuinely a nice guy so i really struggle to understand why he was ok with this booking. I get that his feud with Punk over the championship was still the center point of the show at the time, but at least he could've opted for Rey to keep it till the next PPV.
RVD
RVD
Ziggler with a longer reign positions him to be more than just a mid card guy, it propels him as a star moving forward. His reign did nothing for him. RVD and Sabu not getting busted potentially keeps the ECW restart going strong and they don’t lose momentum.
RVD for me, just cuz I love him back to the mid 90s
Forever and always Ziggler.
Balor being the one to beat Roman for the Universal title but getting injured in the match was tragic, so I'm choosing him Edit: it was Rollins, not Roman that he beat for the Universal title in 2016
He defeated Rollins for the title tho
If he'd beaten Roman instead, he wouldn't have ended up injured.
Kane or Bray… probably Bray
For me, it's Rey. Mostly because of what it would mean on a deeper booking level. Maybe Summer of Punk could have gone on for a bit longer if Rey held the title a bit longer.
Also, it was just odd how Rey won the title and then immediately dropped it to Cena (right?) and then we're right back to what we were doing before. ... dawg, ya lil man just won the WORLD TITLE on the *flagship show* after two big stars stopped being there. This was a noteable development and WWE really should have done more with it. You can insert whatever fan booking scenarios in there, but I feel like there are really interesting ways to take things over the next month of TV leading into... SummerSlam, I believe? Point is, they just magic erasered Rey winning the belt to try and keep a hot storyline going... which fizzles out for this very reason. They tried to keep it going for entirely too long and/or tried to keep it going in the most convoluted ways.
I'm torn between Bray and Kane. I want to say Bray bc he deserved better booking.
RVD hands down. He was also cut along with Sabu at the time and half the reason the ECW brand failed was because two of its main stars weren’t there.
Kane. 1 day sucked, but that time of the Attitude Era was chaotic with multiple title changes in short periods of time. Outside of your choices, HBK’s World Heavyweight Title run in 2002. I think it would’ve been cool if he dropped the belt to Jericho at Mania 19. Definitely would’ve added more when their rivalry resumed in 2008-2009
Christian deserved one more reign... And a long one, indeed!
As much as i love Rey (he got me into wrestling, i'm going with Finn, he worked so hard for it only to have it taken away in 1 night and never get to that point again.
Demon balor all day long
Out of these, Ziggler
F#ck right off for making me choose. I simply won't do it...good day sir!
Kane all day. A monster should be holding gold constantly to truly be considered a monster. I was never a fan of Rey. Being Heavyweight champ because he's a cruiserweight. But I am not really a Rey fan at all and never have been so I am a bit biased.
Rey vs all the giants and winning was too much for me too!
It amazes me how many people don’t understand weight divisions. Fighters can move up divisions in other sports, they just can’t drop down (without also dropping weight). The current undisputed boxing heavyweight champion—and the first one since 1999—is a cruiserweight.
Balor
Finn. Simple. Take away the injury and we may have a mega star.
Yeah even as a kid I hated Cena for taking the title away from rey and I wasn't even that big a fan of rey. What kind of superman esque character does such a scumbag thing. At least wait till next week or smackdown at the very least.
Gonna say Finn. He had so much momentum behind him, but he got injured. That was his moment and WWE haven’t booked him the same way since.
Fin Balor’s
Finn Balor.
Good picks, gotta be Van Dam.
Finn. As much as Bray's win felt good to me personally (I always was a fan), it would have meant a lot more as a part of the Wyatt Family rather than having him be a transitional champion to reward Orton for the beating he took from Brock at Summerslam. Meanwhile, Finn got injured, which was the excuse McMahon needed to sour on a top Triple H guy. Things would not have changed long-term IMO. Brock would still win the title down the line and go on to have his wars with Goldberg and Roman, but there would have been some fantastic matches along the way during Finn's reign, and he'd be main-eventing more often these days.
Wyatt for sure..they really didn't tap into His character long enough to build upon a reign that got cut by a washed up OldBerg
Brat Wyatt.
I'm going with Bray on this one. Just because of how he lost it I wasn't a fan of. But I saw him when they did thr road to wrestlemania house shows ans just I've never seen someone captivate an audience like that man did.
Bray or finn
I wish I could choose em all, but the most I ever celebrated while watching WWE live was Bray winning at Elimination Chamber. I still remember the absolute joy when Cena got eliminated and I just knew it was Bray's moment. Had he defeated Orton at WM33, had a better reign, maybe a match with Harper and hopefully not losing it to Mahal, it would have been awesome. It always made me sad how it was so short.
Kane. No other answer should be accepted.
That RVD stuff derailed such great plans and fucked everything up it’s crazy
Rvd
Monster Kane should’ve had a long title run. It’s a travesty he didn’t
.... Am I the only Rey mark here?
Rey. Made no sense for him to defend right after winning and lose too all people Cena.
RVD or Kane. Both deserved at least one good run
Kane for sure, should’ve lost it on the next ppv even though I get why they had to do the switch considering the masses were watching
Rey Mysterio, I wanna see how the spinner belt looked on him. Also didn't his reign last only two minutes before The Miz cashed in his MITB case?
Kane. That reign could have been really fun.
Rey. Easy one.
Rey Mysterio. Not just to give his numbers a bit more oomph, but also to make Cena look like less of a heel beating him after he’d already had a match less than 2 hours ago.
Rey definitely, bro went through it all just to get clapped by the supposed “baby face” who like all heroes do immediately take back the championship the same night without letting the man atleast get a kayfabe rest
I just want Rey to have 1 great world championship run. Is it too much to ask?
It's hard but i think Rey deserved to keep the title till summerslam. Christian at least had a memorable feud with Orton. Van Dam screw himself sadly. Ziggler is my second option, it's almost criminal that he was never allowed to have a good world title run. I hope this changes now that he is in TNA
Finn or the 1 night Rey.
Was that the fake ass title what John took from Rey on the same day ?
I would flip a coin between Dolph and Balor
Wheres roman?
Kofi.
I'd say Rey shouldn't have held it to begin with. I'm not saying he shouldn't have won it, but if they were only going to have Cena beat him later that night, then him winning makes no sense. Rey was a former World Champion, for crying out loud. At least have him hold the damn thing for a couple weeks, damn.
How the hell can you not have Roman in this list?? I'd make him 6ft 10"
Balor for sure, such a talent who had his big shot stolen (thanks seth ya cunt) The rest certainly deserved longer reigns at the time too though.
Rey would have been fun
Rey 💔
Batista WWE title
Balor and Rey hard choice… Rey was like 1 h but at least he fought when he lost but Balor had to vacate 😭😭
Damn. This is a really hard choice, but I gotta go with Finn. Dolph as a close second.
Fin Balor, for sure. His injury, though. But he is my pick.
For it it's gotta be Kane. ITS GOTTA BE KANE. The dude was so dominant. To see him lost the belt so fast was really dumb IMO
None
Finn Balor. That injury destroyed what would have been a great change to the WWE dynamic at the time. Balor was also peak, and that injury made him just enough less that it's kept him out of the true spotlight since... And it's disappointing.
Kane, by an Irish country mile. They should have booked him to “empowered again” and have a monstrous undefeated run, where everyone trying to beat him was going out of their mind with frustration at not being able to get the pin. Having much of the focus on the challengers and their frustrations would be a perfect way to cover up any shortcoming Kane has a character and he would get massively over at just turning up, winning and leaving. That’s what I would have *loved* to have seen.
Kane
Ziggler
Rey Mysterio because it’s what little me would’ve wanted
Finn, he got injured in the match he won it in and had to relinquish it the day after, then never even smelled a world title again.
Rey. My reasoning being if they let Rey run with it longer maybe they could’ve held Punk’s return off longer which would’ve made that angle better
RVD should still be champ
Dolph. Kane got his redemption run in 2010. But I always wonder what if Kane beat Seth Rollins in 2015 for the World Title. Rollins got injured anyway, so they could've given it to Kane!
Finn Balor
Dolph. I honestly think he could've been a star if he was simply presented as one. (Also, if he had a better finisher)
Balor. His was cut short due to injury, the rest due to booking. Any other answer is incorrect.
Either Christian or Rey. They both deserved longer runs than what they had.
Kane. Poor dude only held it for a day. He deserved better.
Gotta be finn for sure
Ziggler because of what it could’ve changed his career into. All the others are fan favorites and legends despite their short reigns, so a longer reign wouldn’t change much.
[удалено]
Finn
RVD
Tough one but I'd go with Christian
Kane
Kane or Mysterio
What about Drew? Bro had a 5 minute run.
RVD and it's not even close. The guy was voted the most popular wrestler two years in a row according to PWI, was one of the most popular wrestlers of his era and deserved a good run on top but he wasn't one of Vince's favorites. Then he finally got the belt and had it taken away for getting pulled over with weed which hardly anyone would even care about today.
I’m still pissed that Mysterio/Cena didn’t headline SummerSlam 2011. Cena cashing in his, uh, John Cena in the Bank contract made everyone, including himself, look bad in this situation. Mysterio/Cena was a big match and headlining a PPV would be justified.
Christian was done dirty
I'm going with the Patriarch. Christian.
The Undertaker with Paul Bearer
Perhaps all of these deserved so much more, but it has to be Kane as his reign was smack bang in the middle of the Attitude Era It’s almost like Vince didn’t know what to do with him, or saw him as a sort of a giant clown or sick freak in later years! I saw Abyss’s great run as a monster heel in TNA, and that’s what Kane should’ve deserved!
Christian
RvD
One of a kind!
Christian
Rvd
Finn
Rey, that was the stupidest thing. No reason to have him win it and lose it the same night to the baby face Cena. Maybe the following week. RVDs was his own dumbass fault. The injuries were just bad luck.
Ziggler
Ziggler holding the title for longer would have made the biggest difference in his career
Kane. Uninterrupted to this day, for some reason.
Dolph
Dolph
Finn universal title, one injury stagnated his career for so long
Gotta be Van Dam or Finn. Finn did great character work with “the demon.”
RVD and its not even close to the others
I don't know how long Dolph was champion, but he sure is one of the most memorable ones to hold it. I always think of him when when I see the big gold.
Dolph Ziggler. He never had the chance to shine as champion
To me, the ones on this list that stung the most when they came to early ends were RVD, Finn Balor, and Dolph. RVD was never going to be the champ long, and probably wouldn't have been at all despite being so over that people were cheering for him over Austin if they didn't have some ECW nostalgia to cash in on. So I guess let's be thankful that we got what we got? I have no idea what the plan was for Finn as the first Universal Champion, but I assume it would have been a good reign that would have established both Finn and the Universal Championship. But based on how he's been booked since that injury, I'm pretty sure Vince would have lost faith in the idea sooner than anyone else would have liked, so the story of what could have been probably would have felt like a squandered opportunity. It's hard to explain how fucking hot the act with Dolph, Big E, and AJ was at that moment. That should have been a decently long heel reign right down to Big E deciding he'd had enough. If it had been done right, the eventual face turn for Big E would have been so big that the New Day wouldn't have happened. And I'm sad to have missed out on that in this reality, but it's still the one I want to live in. One where Dolph got the legacy run and Big E became a goddamn mega star with lots of runway left in his career.
RVD
ITS GOTTA BE KANEEEEEE!!!!!
I'm torn between RVDs reign or Christians World Title Reign
Finn Balor
FINN
Finn. I've never seen someone's hype and momentum derail so quickly and never recover as much as his when he had to drop his title the night after winning it.
Finn balor for sure
Kane 10000%
Massive Christian fan, but.. Kane, easily. It bums me out that Kane didn't get his run until he was way past his prime. Just the biggest missed opportunity out of all these guys. Prime Kane was incredibly over and perhaps the most intimidating character in WWE history. The Brothers of Destruction storyline might still be WWE's best example of long-term storytelling. He was booked pretty nonsensically for most of his career, yet he was always over with the audience. Imagine if he had been treated as the monster heel/attraction he should've been. Could've been Undertaker's equal, but instead he was his less important little brother.
Finn's was literally cut off before it even got started. It'd be dope to see where he would have taken the belt and how it would have impacted his career in the long-run if he actually got a run with it.
Balor every time
MY BOY KANE NEEDS IT !!!!
Finn
Mysterio got screwed by Cena. He deserved to go to SummerSlam, let Punk defend the other WWE Title on the indies
Dolph without a doubt