The Ultimate Title Chase

[Ferbian]

There's been a lot of various wrestlers who have been featured in storylines or longer feuds where they've been chasing after one specific belt. Not just the world titles, perhaps the tag team championships, the Intercontinental championship, the X-Division championship. It really doesn't matter which championship.

Some have been great, some have been horrendous, some has even been just in the middle. All depending on the length, as well as how much momentum and how much excitement the title chase could garner form the crowd. Hell, there can even be some title chases that doesn't last for very long yet still manages to have the crowd popping like crazy (Benoit for example, like J.R went "BENOIT IS CHAMPION!")

For example, Jeff Hardy's hunt at regaining the World title after loosing it to Edge at the Royal Rumble in 2009. Or some of the numerous John Cena title reigns etc.

However, there can only be one "ultimate" title chase. So I ask, which one is your ultimate, or if you will, favorite title chase?

 

[Trill Co$by]

It may be recent, but I think Roderick Strong's title chase was done really well for the ROH World title. The guy may not be the best in ROH (not even close) but the way ROH booked his quest to the title, it made a lot of sense to put the belt on him. The guy had it in his head that he was getting screwed night in and night out and when he finally won the belt, he felt that the hardships were over. And since becoming ROH champion, the guy's been doing really well at keeping me glued to the television and the ROH DVDs.


If that's too indy, then I'll have to give the cake AJ's chase to the title last year. It took him damn near five years to get his fourth World title reign, and the build up to that moment was just amazing. From the split from Team Angle to the Formation of the Frontline to the night he finally stepped up as the TNA World Champion. To me, that has to be one of the most heart felt climbs known to man.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

My favorite would have to be Ric Flair defeating Harley Race for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a steel cage match at Starrcade 1983: A Flair For The Gold. The build for this match was great. Flair "retired" after suffering a neck injury. This injury was caused by Dick Slater and Bob Orton. Of course Flair returned, and he managed to get his revenge on Slater and Orton. Also, Race's promo where put the $25,000 bounty on Flair is one of my favorites promos ever. You could just feel his frustration with Flair. Flair managed to put the icing on the cake by defeating Race for the title.

Flair VS Race at Starrcade '83 is one of my all time favorite matches. Flair's celebration after the match was one of those feel good moments. It was cool to see him be carried around the ring as he was covered in blood. I also enjoyed Flair's emotional victory speech after the match. Flair's journey to the NWA World Title was something to admire. He had to fight to dethrone Race. You really wanted to root for him, and this particular title win happened at the first ever Starrcade.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I will go with Austin's chase for the title after he lost it at Breakdown 1998. Vince was determined to get the title off Austin and once he managed to do that by allowing both Undertaker and Kane to pin him, it looked like he would never let Austin get his hands on the title again.

What was so great about Austin's chase was that he was not just against some champion who was desperate to keep his title. He was up against a guy who despised him and would support just about anybody who was against Austin. Also it was not as if the focus was on Austin the entire time. He was always a looming presence on the title but it was not as if he roadblocked the path of other guys who wanted to main event. A major part of Austin's chase involved the feud between Rock and Foley.

Also interesting is the fact that Austin was not shown as vulnerble or weak even for a moment. If Mcmahon did something to him, he countered. Often we see that when the babyface is chasing the title he is made to look a bit weak in order to build sympathy for the guy. However that was not the case here as Austin was made to look like a tough guy who was up against someone with infinite resources. It was a bit like Austin having an answer to everything Mcmahon threw at him but Mcmahon changed the questions at the last moment.

It was surely a bit different thaan most title chases and that is what makes it great.

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

A personal favourite is Kurt Angle's pursuit of the WWF Championship in 2001.

In 2001, the Invasion occurred and at the very fore front of it was Kurt Angle vs. 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin for the WWF Championship. Both Angle & Austin were vying for Vince McMahon's affections prior to the invasion, with Austin being Vince's champion, Angle attempted to force his way into the relationship and become #1 contender. Angle was still very much a heel. However when Austin turned on the WWF, Angle became the leader of the WWF.

Angle became #1 contender of the WWF Championship after completely and utterly snapping and destroying pretty much everyone in the Alliance. Angle was red hot heading into SummerSlam and he had an outstanding match with Austin. The match ended via disqualification. This lead to Austin hosting his own 'Austin Appreciation Night', where Angle, mimicking the infamous Beer Truck Bath of 1999, drove out a milk truck and sprayed Austin and the rest of the Alliance with milk.

Austin retaliated by stealing Angle's Gold Medals, throwing them off of a bridge. Angle responded by kidnapping Austin, threatening to throw him off of another bridge, unless Austin agreed to a rematch at Unforgiven, which just so happened to be held in Kurt's home town of Pittsburgh. Austin, feeling humiliated assaulted Angle multiple times, culminating in a vicious piledriver onto the concrete arena floor. This lead to Kurt's best promo of all time (which for the life of me I cannot find).

This video here pretty much explains the build-up in whole:

[YOUTUBE]uBJdqeeQRYk[/YOUTUBE]​

On top of the fact that it was in Kurt's home town, 9/11 had also just occurred. Angle was/is of course the American hero, and of course, that made the title win even more spectacular. You could see the emotion on Angle’s face when he captured the gold.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I really like Raven's quest for the NWA World Heavyweight Title in TNA, which culminated in him winning the belt at Slammiversary 2005 in the King Of The Mountain match, finally achieving his "destiny" which had been fighting to since the beginning of TNA.

Raven fought the every member of Father James Mitchell's "New Church", Shane Douglas, and had numerous scraps with Jeff Jarrett but was never quite able to get the job done. It was a great moment to see Scotty become a world champion again, even if it was only for a couple of months. Jarrett had dominated the world title scene since TNA began and Raven should have been given the belt about a year earlier in my opinion.

[YOUTUBE]WhKXv0OTMZs[/YOUTUBE]

 

[IrishCanadian25]

Does the title chase have to end in victory for the chaser?

I bring up Lex Luger chasing Yokozuna for the WWF Title in 1993-94. Yokozuna was the last truly great anti-American heel (Muhammed Hassan could have been, but was derailed by controversy) and was on what seemed to be a tear. He ended Hulkamania in the WWF for quite some time at King of the Ring. He put Hacksaw Jim Duggan in the hospital after Duggan became the first man to knock Yoko off his feet in a singles match. He bench pressed Randy Savage over the top rope to win his first Royal Rumble.

When dozens of men tried and failed at slamming him on board the Intrepid on the 4th of July, Luger made one of the most under rated face turns in history, being helicoptered in and slamming the big sumo. It was a patriotic moment.

Luger spent the following months on a cross-country bus tour, meeting fans and renewing a sense of good will and patriotism. He won his SummerSlam match via DQ, but not the title. As a co-winner of the following Royal Rumble, he was given another shot against Yoko at Wrestlemania 10, screwed by a returning Mr. Perfect.

The storyline went nowhere, really, and Luger was relegated to the mid-card feud with Tatanka and a few others before showing up in WCW. Before it came to a halt, it was a hell of a chase.

Speaking of WCW, you have to mention Sting's chase of Hollywood Hogan in 1997-98. The nWo ruled wrestling, and the year-long build of Sting as the protagonist to Hogan was massive. Above all else, it was patient. Once again, the whole deal lacked the big payoff, thanks to back stage bullshit, but while it was happening, it was amazing.