Who's The Most Undeserving WWE/World Heavyweight Champion?

[PlayTheGame]

This includes anyone who's ever won the WWE Championship or the WWE's version of the WHW Championship since its 2002 inception.

So, who, in your opinion, was the WWE's most undeserving champion(s)? You can define "undeserving" in wrestling/superstar ability, what they did while champion, the purpose of their reign, etc etc.

IMO, the most undeserving WWE Champions were Stan Stasiak, the first-ever "transitional" champion who only held the belt for a few days and had little no impact on the WWE overall, and JBL, especially considering what he's become today AND how long he held the title (around a year; can you imagine him holding the WWE Championship for another year today?!?). I would almost give honorable mention (or would it be dishonorable mention) to Mick Foley. Yes, Foley loved the business, and had some memorable feuds... but winning the belt 3 times? I know it was during the Attitude Era during a hot feud with the Rock, but still, it was a little much.

IMO, the most undeserving World Heavyweight Champion was definitely The Great Khali. Do I really need to explain why?

Who are your pick(s)?

 

[klunderbunker]

Vince McMahon.

People forget his I believe 4 days as champion. What is the reasoning behind putting the title on him, other than to say the boss is champion? I believe he surrendered the title after beating HHH for it on Smackdown. This was a waste of a title change and was simply done to save a big match for HHH and a big face. Vince was the WWE Champion. That has to be it.

 

[Hulkster4Life]

I'd have to say Eddie Guerrero or Rey Mysterio, r u kidding me, these 2 were in WCW and were cruiserweights and never would of had a chance against the big boys, they bring them to WWE and all the sudden there heavyweights and can compete wit the best? There great wrestlers and all but come on, they didn't diserve to win the World Title!!! Especially at the biggest stage of all, WRESTLEMANIA!!! Compare Hogan vs Warrior to Mysterio and Guererro.. R u kidding me lol

 

[butsecks]

haha. i have to agree on vince mcmahon aswell. he's no wrestler. hes the boss. that belt is for pro wrestlers only and it worsens the belt's ranking if someone like vince wins it. and WWE has the nerve to criticize WCW for throwing the belt to David Arquette.

 

[rowdy ruben]

4 guys come to mind. eddie and jbl. that was an awful feud. what happen to feuds like triple h and the rock, hogan and savage, michaels and bret. in the summer of 2004 we got jbl and eddie come on.

next booker t and rey. this was another feud that should have never happen. if it was for the u.s. tittle then mayb but for the worl tittle those 2 did not deserve it and were not big stars to main event a ppv

 

[Michael Miracle]

While I quite agree Khali was the worst (I would have much rather had Vince than Khali as champion, at least Andre the Giant could put on a show.), I disagree that JBL was an undeserving champion. Looking back, the decision to keep the title belt oon him as long as they did may have not been the smartest one, but, with JBL holding the title, they did a few things...

1. New opprotunities for the faces on Smackdown- Eddie Guerrero, Undertaker, John Cena, Booker T, Kurt Angle, The Big Show, and others had the opprotunity to face somebody new, create fresh storylines.

2. JBL does one thing well every time he comes down to the ring. He gains tons of heat from the crowd, and basicly anybody who squares off against him is given a pop. Using JBL and his gimmick can really work well for some of the other wrestlers on the roster (Hiring big men to defeat Rey multiple times back in 06 when Rey was World Champ, the recent angle with HBK, etc...)

3. Honestly, without JBL, I don't know if Cena would have grown to the level he was as fast as he did. Because if JBL wouldn't have been champ around WrestleMania back in 07, it would have been somebody like Kurt Angle or The Undertaker would have been champ, and I can't say Cena would have walked out champion...

 

[klunderbunker]

Booker T and Rey weren't big stars? What are you talking about?

They may not be A+ main eventers but it's not like you're seeing Santino against Funaki for the belt. They both had relatively short reigns. Booker was one of the bigger names in the company. That win made him a 6 time champion. Sure the 5 before were in WCW but they were legit wins. Giving him the belt made sense. He had been around in WWE for 5 years at that point and was at worst in the upper mid card. Why not give him the belt?

Putting he and Rey together didn't fail because they weren't big enough stars. It failed because they had zero chemistry together. Rey was a big enough name and by far a big enough star. He had already won the world title at Mania so what more does he need to cement his main event status? Both were more than worthy champions.


As for most unworthy WHC, I'll say Goldberg. His WWE run was terrible to say the least and his title reign was worse. Does anyone remember him being WHC? I barely do. Why should I care? He was an attempt to make what worked in WCW work in WWE and it was a miserable failure.

 

[Mr. TM]

First off, Santino will be a great Champion one day

As for the matter at hand, The most underserving champion is probably Vince McMahon. But the most undeserving title reign I would say was Triple H's from the beginning of No Mercy, until the end of No Mercy.

So he would be the most undeserving champion at that moment. The only thing it really did was make Randy Orton look like a joke for the night, as well as giving Triple H another reign. Not the least deserving person ever, but the least deserving person at that moment.

 

[gateway425]

haha. i have to agree on vince mcmahon aswell. he's no wrestler. hes the boss. that belt is for pro wrestlers only and it worsens the belt's ranking if someone like vince wins it. and WWE has the nerve to criticize WCW for throwing the belt to David Arquette.

David arquette winning the belt was a complete joke. At least vince had wrestled before and not just in a movie.

Khali- no explanation needed.

HHH- while he is a good wrestler I don't think he is deserving of all the reigns he has had. He's at 13 now and will catch flair by 2011 at this rate.

Bob Backlund- if I was bret hart I woulda left WWE after they made me lose to this guy. He wasn't over with the fans and was way past his prime

Hogan- yea he sparked the boom period in wrestling but after that he never should have won anything else. Him beating Yokozuna at wrestlemania made no sense at all. I guess WCW needed him to win it when he came there but it just wasn't great.

Cena- his win over jericho was complete bull shit. He was gone for 3 months, has a few promos about his return and then wins a belt. He didn't even have a qualifying match which really killed it for me.

I went a different route here but I think I have a valid point with all my pics

 

[crapamaniac]

what everybodys posts to the original question highlight is just how many poor champions there have been recently but one that always sticks in my mind is sgt slaughter i know it was ages ago but it still gets to me now

 

[gateway425]

Batista's last reign when he beat jericho and held it for like a week. Actually any Batista title reign. I think he is just so zero dimensional and just doesn't have a good character at all. He can't work the mic and his ring skills are below average. I was so happy when it came out he was getting surgery because he did not deserve a title match at wrestlemania.

 

[Tastycles]

what everybodys posts to the original question highlight is just how many poor champions there have been recently but one that always sticks in my mind is sgt slaughter i know it was ages ago but it still gets to me now

Why? Slaughter was hugely over as a heel Iraqi sympathiser and his reign made Hogan getting the title back a massive American pride triumph. The beginning of his reign also set up Savage's retirement match against Warrior. So as well as being an over heel champion, Slaughter's reign set up the biggest matches at Wrestlemania VII, both directly and indirectly.

As for most undeserving, I think everyone is too quick to tar Vince. Sure, he wasn't a wrestler, but he was certainly the most over heel in 1999. His title reign was ultimately pointless, but having been the catalyst for the success of the WWF in 1999 (and I obviously mean on screen with Austin, and not his actual ownership of the country), and if a wrestler had done what he did, and been as hated as he was, you'd wonder why he wasn't champion. Plenty of God-awful workers have held the belt.

As for most undeserving, I'm probably going to go with Punk. I like Punk, but look at it this way. Within kayfabe he had lost the majority of his matches going into MITB, and then again going into his reign. Outside of kayfabe he had done iterally nothing to suggest that the crowd were behind him enough to put him in the driving seat.

 

[HHHDiedForOurSins]

It's between JBL & Khali, but at least Khali didn't hold it long and only won it because of an injury to Edge, so I'll go with JBL, his reign was awful.

Normally I watch wrestling to see a good match, I don't really care who wins and loses, but when JBL was champ I prayed for him to lose the title in every one of his defences, and not because he was a great heel and I wanted to see him get his comeuppance, but because he was so damn boring. He is a great heel and is good on the mic but when it comes time for the payoff, the match in the ring, it's a letdown, because he's a poor wrestler.

Look at all his big matches when he was champion:

Great American Bash v Eddie - Boring match, the crowd was pissed when he won the title, and I honestly believe it wasn't heel heat, I think they really didn't want him to be champion because he sucked. Also WWE had so little faith in him that his title win wasn't important enough to main event the show, they had Undertaker v the Dudleys main event show, which was basically a mid card match.

Summerslam v Undertaker - Match was so bad the crowd turned on both men and couldn't care less.

No Mercy v Taker - Really bad match, not worthy of main eventing Smackdown, let alone a PPV.

Survivor Series v Booker T - Another boring match where the crowd was dead, he sucks the life out of the crowd so much with his performances in the ring that they don't even get behind the babyfaces.

Armageddon v Taker, Eddie & Booker - Decent match, not surprisingly his best match so far because it wasn't one on one, so his ring time was limited.

Royal Rumble v Kurt Angle & Big Show - Disappointing match, even Angle couldn't get an above average match out of him.

No Way Out v Big Show - Why they wasted the barb wire cage match gimmick on these 2, I have no idea, the match was bad.

Wrestlemania v John Cena - One of the worst title matches ever at Mania, and Cena's first title win, which should have been a big deal, was so anticlimactic, the crowd was silent throughout the match, and history shows that was probably due to JBL and not Cena.


So, he held the belt for almost a year, and didn't have a single memorable match/moment from his reign, I really do think he was the most undeserving WWF/WWE champion of all time.

 

[richardleaf20]

In terms of how he got to the top (and I know I'll get some heat for saying this).....Edge. I know he was well on his way to getting to the main event scene but when he had that very personal feud with Matt Hardy, that really did it in for me. Now don't get me wrong I think Edge is great in the role he plays, but the way he was booked after the Hardy feud kind of made he think that he got rewarded for sleeping with Lita and Matt was damned to mid card status on SmackDown for defending himself. I'm just saying.

 

[Compton]

In my opinion I think the most undeserving WWE Champion that springs to mind in recent memory I'd say was JBL. It may be because I just don't like him, but having him hold the belt for nearly a year made me sick. They could have had Kurt Angle or someone with a lot more credibility as Champion. Don't get me wrong he's WWE veteran and has worked hard but I don't think at the time or now that he is deserving of a World Title reign.

For the World Heavyweight Championship the most undeserving Champion, hands down is The Great Khali. He's just an awful wrestler and lets face it no one likes him as a face or heel. The Khali Kiss Cam makes me throw up in my mouth a bit each time (Not to mention the Khali Kiss Cam from Armageddon 2008. *shudders*). But he didn't deserve the belt one bit.

 

[Compton]

Wrestlemania v John Cena - One of the worst title matches ever at Mania, and Cena's first title win, which should have been a big deal, was so anticlimactic, the crowd was silent throughout the match, and history shows that was probably due to JBL and not Cena.

This I completely agree with. The match was horrible to watch and unsurprisingly Cena wins the match with his 5 moves of doom. Horrible Main Event match for Mania. They could have had something so much better.

 

[Johnny_B.Lv]

The worst wrestler to ever hold a world title has to be Dave Batista. This man has absolutely no athletic ability what so ever other than a front slam and a spine buster. He can't even land the sit down powerbomb he calls the Batista Bomb !!! Give me a break. His title reigns have been nothing other than boring, his matches on raw and smackdown quite frankly are horrible, and you expect him to turn it up a notch at pay per views !?!?!? Get real, this guy can't even sell. Worst wrestler ever, and yes i've seen Dennis Rodman wrestle Carl Malone, atleast that was entertaining !!! some what.

 

[HHHDiedForOurSins]

The worst wrestler to ever hold a world title has to be Dave Batista. This man has absolutely no athletic ability what so ever other than a front slam and a spine buster. He can't even land the sit down powerbomb he calls the Batista Bomb !!! Give me a break. His title reigns have been nothing other than boring, his matches on raw and smackdown quite frankly are horrible, and you expect him to turn it up a notch at pay per views !?!?!? Get real, this guy can't even sell. Worst wrestler ever, and yes i've seen Dennis Rodman wrestle Carl Malone, atleast that was entertaining !!! some what.

I completely disagree, Batista has had many good or very good matches as champion:

Hell in a Cell v HHH at Vengeance 2005
v Undertaker at Wrestlemania 2007
v Undertaker at Cyber Sunday 2007
Hell in a Cell v Undertaker at Survivor Series 07

Also his matches with Edge, Cena & Orton were all good, and he's over with the fans, unlike JBL, who wasn't over as champion and didn't have a single good match during his reign.

 

[Milkyway!]

Most undeserving champion that I can recall. Would have to be Rey Mystero. He got hot shotted into the title scene when Eddie died due to being his best friend. It was a horrible reign. I dont recall any good matches. His fued with Booker didn't draw nor was it any good. Rey only got this reign, because of being eddie's bestfriend. Why they didn't give it beniot, god only knows. But this was the worst reign in recent memory for me.

 

[Johnny_B.Lv]

I might of been a little harsh on Batista earlier, it's just that I can't stand the guy. He just can't sell, or WRESTLE ! ENOUGH, now I must admit while JBL might have deserved a title reign, did it have to be for soooooo long. He never even won a match cleanly ! Which was the whole point ! But wow did his match with CENA at wrestlemania 21 suck terribly. Now though JBL will never EVVEEER get another world title...hopefully

 

[Y2 Punk]

Ok.
I registered just for this response and its likely I will not ever post here again.

I avidly read responses to these topics I see on the side of the wrestlezone home page. The responses are often interesting.

Then I see this topic and names like Booker T , Rey, and Eddie dropped.

For the love of me I can not beging to grasp your ideaology behind your thinking when said names were dropped there reasons are "IMO compare that to savage and yack tack yack"

Ok so maybe that a bit off what they said.

Can any body tell me what or why those names make sense for undeserving.

Booker T- OUR generations black wrestler. I see now was his big problem his charisma or his solid in ring work. No maybe it was his nice mike work. No that could not be it maybe its that during his tenure he was over face or heel.
Hmmmmmmmmm?

Rey- They guy whos run was shit because they booked it as shit?I get it. Its the fact that he to this day can out perform 80% of the WWE roster. Maybe its the fact he is extremley over. or maybe that hes the wwes biggest hispanic demographic pull in a long time besides........

Eddie- Honestly? Are you slow. The guy is the Hispanic Mr. Perfect. He was terrific in the ring. Great on the Mic. EXTRMLEY charismatic. A role model in his latter life. I mean I could go further but saying his name is enough for me to say this man deserved it.

So maybe you disagree but honestly when stuff like that is said I am perplexed.

Mcmahon, Arquette....and you choose greats?

 

[ZAPX4V1]

HHH (Didn't deserve ANY of his title reigns)

JBL (He isn't a great heel, he is a useless sack of shit that gets booed because he sucks)

RVD (Money in the Bank was wasted on him)

CM Punk (Why does he even have a job? His matches are boring and he isn't a believable main eventer, or even a midcarder)

Khali (This is obvious of course)

Booker (Only got the title because Shelton Benjamin has backstage heat and they wanted to push a black wrestler)

Jericho (He was used properly in WCW and never deserved the push he got in WWE)

 

[Johnny_B.Lv]

WOW the wrestling knowledge in this forum is really amazing ! Maybe the wwe should hire some of you guys for creative purposes ! Bravo, simple, Bravo !
How could you people actually start by naming wrestlers. What about all the non-wrestlers who won the world title. How about, David Arquette, Vince McMahon for starters.

Now let's get to the wrestlers shall we. Or maybe I should say the kind of wrestlers.
1) Batista (everything was based on his look, none of it on his talent, if he even has some)
2) Khali (no passion for the business, no talent)
3) JBL (a f*cking year come on, I stopped watching smackdown for that one, lack or will to improve his in ring skills, doesn't really have much in ring talent anyways)

But how can you guys mention names like Booker T, Jericho, CM Punk, RVD, HHH
Say what you will about any of these guys, they all work(ed) very, very hard for the passion and sake of the business. They all put over guys they shouldn't have, and try their damndest to put on good matches. Respect is earned through a hard career.

 

[DeadmanInc.]

I completely disagree, Batista has had many good or very good matches as champion:

Hell in a Cell v HHH at Vengeance 2005
v Undertaker at Wrestlemania 2007
v Undertaker at Cyber Sunday 2007
Hell in a Cell v Undertaker at Survivor Series 07

Also his matches with Edge, Cena & Orton were all good, and he's over with the fans, unlike JBL, who wasn't over as champion and didn't have a single good match during his reign.

While this is true, notice who Batista's opponent's were? HHH, Taker, Edge, Orton, and Cena are some of the best workers in WWE. This clearly shows how good booking can make a bland wrestler look credible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Batista hater or anything but this ties perfectly into my next point.

A lot of people stated Rey Mysterio as one of the worst champions. While I do think Rey Mysterio was only given the belt as a pity reign due to Eddie's death, you can't really blame him for his crappy reign since he was booked horribly. He lost more times as champion than without. Rey is one of the most entertaining superstars in the ring. The only thing that takes away from his credibility is his small size. He looks small against just about anyone but when he is facing opponents around Edge's size he can put on a great match. Heck, he even had a few good matches with Kane.


My pick for the most undeserving reign would be Jericho's first reign as Undisputed Champion. I think Jericho is amazing and definitely one of the best today but he was not ready to be champion at that time. Furthermore, I don't think he deserved the honor of being called the first ever Undisputed Champion. I felt Stone Cold was the most deserving since he essentially saved WWF from going under to WCW. If not Austin, at least The Rock should have gotten it.

I mentioned good booking earlier with helping Batista get over, but how does Jericho (a man who was put over by The Rock and Stone Cold multiple times) flop as a champion? I simply think he wasn't ready for it.

 

[Pbenglish]

The two names that immediately came to my mind were the Ultimate Warrior and Kane.

Now I think Warrior is more a sign of the times he wrestled in, but really, he did nothing during his reign and once it ended he was thrown in an idiotic angle with Papa Shango (anyone remember that? The green puke and the shaking? Awesome moment for sure

The championship reign of Kane's is more annoying though. I mean Kane was a great big man! Scary as hell, unstoppable and not one dimensional like most big men, but his championship reign was a joke! One day and then given back to Austin. If that wasn't bad enough, Kane hasn't had another run since then. I don't get it.
Kane himself is NOT undeserving, but that reign certainly was.