What Is The Single Worst WWF/E Title Run Of All Time?

[Calderownz]

There have been a few that come to mind.

One being the Kane 24 hour run. However, the story made perfect sense and it drew. So, you can't call it a failure. Just seemed unfair to Kane.

Another that comes to mind is having Vince McMahon winning the championship on a Smackdown! Well, any time would have been a bad time. He also won the ECW title, but that's for another thread.

A lot of people forget that The Rock also held the title for a week or so at one point. This happened a few months after the Kane incident.

The Big Shows first title reign was pretty non-noteworthy. He had very little big matches and ended up losing it back to the man he took it from. Then again, you can't blame him, considering the Stone Cold/Triple H/Rikishi storyline going on at the time.

Anyway, any other suggestions? Any other ideas?

 

[Mustang Sally]

One being the Kane 24 hour run. However, the story made perfect sense and it drew. So, you can't call it a failure. Just seemed unfair to Kane.

The same applies to Bob Backlund in 1994. At 44, he re-established himself in WWE and won a disputed victory over Bret Hart to take the championship in a 35 minute match. Problem was, he lost it 3 days later to Diesel.

What a gyp. I really thought Backlund had earned the right to a decent title reign. As it turned out, though, WWE wanted only to get the belt on Diesel, but didn't want him to beat a face (Bret) to do it.

I never understood WWE's dealings with Backlund. Some time later, he was right in the middle of a "tough love" managerial program with Kurt Angle......along with a run for President of the United States.......and the next week, he was gone from the company.

 

[Calderownz]

Backlund could work, was old school and then turned around and became a character that could still wrestle your ears off. Somehow, WWE hated this. Made very little sense to me.

He did everything they wanted him to do and then some. I forgot about that title run. That reign was also pretty sad, though not due to Backlund obviously.

 

[deadtaker]

The Funny thing with The Rock and his Championship runs. He is an 8 or 9 time wwf/e Champion and the total time with the belt is only 9 months total. Geez JBL had a longer run and he only had the belt once.

What about the Undertaker's 5 or 7 day first title run. He had help from Ric Flair beating Hulk Hogan then dropped the belt less than a week later.

I think The Rock and Mick Foley traded the title 4 or 5 different times in a 3 month span from November 1998 to February 1999.

 

[LSN80]

Kanes 24 hour title run. He only won the title due to interference from the Undertaker, where if Kane lost his title match, he would be set on fire, which in storyline Undertaker didn't want to see happen. He then proceded to drop the title right back to Austin the following night on Raw.

His championship win was made to look like a fluke, as he was masked and covered from head to toe in his wrestling gear and mask, and it was a First Blood match. Instead of being put over as the dominant monster he supposedly was, he looked weak in still needing helping from the Undertaker to win the match, despite the stipulation heavily favoring him. He then dropped the title right back to Austin the next night on Raw.

Because of the character he portrayed, where at the time he was taken seriously as a "monster", this was the single worst title run I can recall.

 

[Isaac Kaye]

Well I can't recall too many title runs that had me cringing beyond belief but the Great Khali's was absolutely horrendous. I think that was a time Vince went a bit crazy with the whole big man thing. It was an instant switcg off for me and it was obvious Cena would win it back in the end.

 

[LionTamer]

I know a lot of people are going to say the worst run of all time was Kane's first run. I can agree with that a little because he had been a solid worker for years and finally gets a title only to lose it 24 hours later. I don't think that was the single worst run of all time though because it really helped push the storyline going on at the time and I can say that I definitely marked out when Austin hit the stunner on Kane to get the belt back!

I'm going to go with a similar situation though with SummerSlam 99 when Mankind won the title from Austin in a Triple Threat match. Foley wins his 3rd World Title only to lose it to Triple H the next night on Raw. Apparently there were rumors of Austin not wanting to job to Triple H which if are true, makes Foley's last WWE world title kind of cheap. I remember buying the show and thinking that the ending was really anti-climactic seeing as how the real feud was between Austin and Triple H. The Mankind character was always entertaining around this time, but he deserved a little better than this.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

None was more awful than The Ultimate Warrior in 1990... Who exactly did he feud with to get the belt over? The IC Champ Mr. Perfect? and a short feud with Rick Rude, which was nullified by the worst cage match ever... Warrior was badly used but also not up to the job and the highlight of his reign was his match with...Phil Collins in a pop video... shudders...

Don't believe me? you were warned...

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs0pyWCNEIY[/YOUTUBE]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs0pyWCNEIY

 

[Docwhitley]

Anytime Hardy had the belt... Sorry I just hat that guy!!!!! http://forums.wrestlezone.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=2495712In Ring is good but walking to the ring grabbing his back for every match is just so irritating to me.

Andre winning the title and giving it to Dibiasi.... Andre deserved to have a reign

 

[Midnite Express 2009]

First of all, let's understand what the difference is between a title run and a title win. Nowadays no one has a title run, they're just wins over the previous champion. In the 1970s and 80s those were title RUNS. No one just won the title for the sake of winning the title. Hell, even Ronnie Garvin's win over Ric Flair was to serve a purpose. It was meant to close the decade with Flair on top, in the prime of his career and show he could beat any and everyone that was placed in front of him. It did less for Garvin than it did for Ric Flair, yet the point was made and Ronnie's "win" was a lesser form of a "run".

A title run means the person who wins the title had ample build up to the actual win. It meant that the crowd bought into the feud, invested their time, energy and money as well as interest into the outcome of the final match between champion and challenger, thus setting up a title "run" where the eventual new champion would defeat the person they were feuding with and start new feuds with new contenders without losing their stride as well as the title in only a few short weeks or months. Sadly, in today's era where they're a PPV every 3rd or so week, a champion only "wins" the title with nothing else coming of it due to frequent title changes, watered down feuds and unreliable and sometimes confusing storylines.

The last great title run in the WWE IMO was when John Bradshaw won the SmackDown!'s version of the title over Eddie Gurrerro and held the title for almost a year. The thing is that Bradshaw fought ALL the top contenders of SmackDown!, not just the usual rundown like say, John Cena did and still does when he's champion. I know this isn't asking who had the best run, but it needs to be stated what the difference is.

With that said, the person who had the worst WWE title run was Ric Flair's second WWE title run.

First of all, Flair should have never wrestled Randy Savage at WrestleMania VIII, instead he should have fought Hulk Hogan, who should have came into the event as WWE Champion, which means that Hogan by default should have won the Royal Rumble, thus eliminating Ric Flair's first WWE title run. If booked properly, Flair would have came within inches of winning the title at the Royal Rumble and during his interview, he would have vowed to win the title OR retire (besides, this same storyline was done in WCW in 1994).

Everyone would have went crazy for Hogan knowing Flair couldn't beat the unbeatable Hogan at his own event, persay. Flair would have then beat Hogan, starting his first regin, carrying the belt to say, Survior Series where he drops it to whomever (insert Savage if you want or even Bret Hart), eliminating Flair's second and far less memorable title reign.

Last, if you want further proof that Flair's second title reign was a bust, he lost it to Bret Hart on a non-televised edition of Superstars. The title switch was pre-tapped and shown about a week later. The match was good, but far from the 5 star classics of the NWA. Hope someone agrees...

 

[Ben G]

the worst WWE title run i can think of was triple h's at no mercy 07, where orton was awarded the title, triple h won it from him and then lost it back to orton in the same night.. he didnt even have the title for more then 3 hours!

 

[brighamosity]

You guys are forgetting a reign shorter than any of these. Yokozuna won the title from Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 9, only to lose it about a minute later to Hulk Hogan in an impromptu 10 second match.

I guess that would be the 90's equivalency to a money in the bank cash-in...

 

[Mr. Artistic guy]

Randy orton's run now is honestly not great. A lot of people were saying it was too soon, a viable complaint I think. You see it's odd because he's face and face champions usually have the upper hand before a PPV and lose after, or take a beating before but come out on top on the night. Orton comes out and RKO's everyone abut five times, scares the ginger of sheamus and then at the PPV he wins as well?? It almost makes you feel like sheamus never had a chance of winning. I'm sure barrett title shot will be quite different with cena there (he most likely still will be). But it's almost insulting to have a guy dominate and make it seem like there is no real competition to him, not even cena! (I deduce that from the fact that he has RKO'd him a good couple of times recently), it makes the belt seem a little owrthless if your clearly the best so I feela bit sorry for orton in that respect.

I'd pick Bob Backlund's 1994 reign as quite bad. He had to endure Bret Hart...... BRET HART and then comes up against diesel and loses in seconds...........I want to knowwho's bright idea that was, obviously they wanted to get diesel over but they made Bret and Backlund look mega weak and subsequently eliminated him from any chance of top flight wrestling, bad way to go out is all I gotta say.

But in general I'd classify any reign as bad when you don't really look like you have to try hard enough to gain/regain/retain the title. Take taker over the last couple of years, takes a holiday after WM, comes back and at the next PPV regains the title (thankfully different this year though. That's just unentertaining. Another classic recent example is RVD in TNA, please don't get me started on how badly his balls got caressed by hogan and bischoff after being there what two/three weeks? Or as someone said above me, when Hogan beat Yokozuna also pretty bad. It is a competitive sport, and if you don't find yourself having to compete, rather just swooping in and landing a top prize in your company, well next time you see your writer give them a smack

P.S. I'd just like to say this does not include MITB, that is a legit and unique way of winning the belt and I wouldn't change it, it supplys a great way to take a guy to the top, e.g. Miz

 

[Tattooed Jesus]

Just some recent ones that I thought were bad:

1) Randy Ortons first World Title reign was just awful. He is horrible trying to play face and at that point he was just not ready to be the man.

2) CM Punks first World title reign was just as bad because they never let him do anything and then he never even really lost the title. His winning the belt was exciting because he beat Edge at his own game but then after that everything went down hill. He never had a single dominate win and then got beat up back stage and had to forfeit the belt, very lame booking.

3) Randy Ortons current run with the WWE is boring as hell because Orton is horrible at being a face. If he were heel right now this would be a better reign but I hate they way it is going right now.

 

[jobber]

i gotta go with rey mysterio's 2 pathetic reigns, in his 1st he was like the cowardly face underdog who needed help from chavo his whole first reign which makes no sense, then his second reign lasted what a month? and throughout that whole time he was getting his ass kicked by swagger, and im pretty sure he cried one time when swagger put on the ankle lock and held it for a good while, i mean who cries as a champion? plus hes way too unbelievable as champ, i fukin hate the underdog with a big heart gimmick hes had going his whole career, just way too boring and it definately showed through both of his championshit reigns

 

[TheCultClassic]

Rey Mysterio's second trasistional title reign. I am not a fan, but it was a bust to give him the title then have him lose that quickly.

 

[MarysesPantiesInMyMouth]

I say it was Paul Wights first run as WWF champ. It was when the title had absolutely no meaning and they just put it on anyone. If i remmeber correctly, Wight feuded with the Big Boss Man for the title during that run, and then lost it to HHH. I guess that was the definition of a 'transitional champion'. He won it just to further another storyline and then lose it to someone else.

 

[ilapierre]

THTRobTaylor Warrior feuded with Randy Savage in the autumn of 90 and winter of 91 as world champ. Mr. Perfect and Ric Rude were two of the greatest to never win the world title. Those were three pretty awesome feuds for the Warrior. He feuded with a lot of better guys in 9 months than Hulk Hogan did perhaps in his entire first 4 year run!!

I would have to say that the worst WWE title reign in history would have to be any time Triple H held the World Title after 2001. He won the title 11 times too many!!

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

Is this thread just for the WWE championship? because if it is, I don't know why people are talking about Rey Mysterio's reigns..

Anyway, i think it would have to be one of the worsts, Bob Backlund, he had a great match with Bret Hart and then loses it to Nash in the quickest title match ever!!
--------
Big show's both reigns, the one in later 99 and 2002, both were just bullshit IMO, Batista's first run in 2009, when he had to vacate it, john cena winning it at EC only to have it taken away from him by Batista!

 

[Dimice121976]

There have been a few that come to mind.

One being the Kane 24 hour run. However, the story made perfect sense and it drew. So, you can't call it a failure. Just seemed unfair to Kane.

Another that comes to mind is having Vince McMahon winning the championship on a Smackdown! Well, any time would have been a bad time. He also won the ECW title, but that's for another thread.

A lot of people forget that The Rock also held the title for a week or so at one point. This happened a few months after the Kane incident.

The Big Shows first title reign was pretty non-noteworthy. He had very little big matches and ended up losing it back to the man he took it from. Then again, you can't blame him, considering the Stone Cold/Triple H/Rikishi storyline going on at the time.

Anyway, any other suggestions? Any other ideas?

First off you are wrong on 2 accounts;
1)The Rock never had a week long reign after Kane, him and Foley exchanged the belt a few times over a 2 month period in 99.

2)Big Show lost the belt back to HHH, HHH/Austin/Rikishi didn't happen until later 2000. But dont let the facts get in the way of a good post lol. Also remember, Show's reign was meant to be secondary to the HHH/Vince feud that was set up for Armageddon.

Now as far as worst WWE/World title runs,
Im gonna go with The Great Khali in 2007. Its the Great Khali, need I say more lol. This run was horrible. It was made up of winning a battle royal cause Edge got injured, and then we were subject to 3 horrible PPV matches with Batista until big Dave put us all out of our misery at Unforgiven that year.

However if you want 2 real terrible title runs which actually weren't in WWE, I'll give you Rhino's 4 day run as TNA Champ in 05, and Sting's 4 day run in '07. Both made no sense and were scared and raped by the quick turn over back to the original title holders.

 

[CM11]

Well I can't recall too many title runs that had me cringing beyond belief but the Great Khali's was absolutely horrendous. I think that was a time Vince went a bit crazy with the whole big man thing. It was an instant switcg off for me and it was obvious Cena would win it back in the end.

batista took it off Kali in a triple threat match with him mysterio and Kali, You should watch wrestling and it wasnt a terrible title run as at the time Kali had got over by the undertaker and was dominanting smackdown, although not a great wrestler at the time it made perfect sense to have the title round him after edge got injured.

 

[CM11]

The worst title run of all time is Kane, I am a huge Kane fan who is finally getting the recognition as a world champion now he shoulda had ten years ago. At the stage he won the title I was a huge fan and when he won it the way he did and lost it the next night he didnt seem like the big red machine anymore and nobody was scared of him. The reason it is the worst run as it went on to basically ruin the kane charactor. Kane should of always been put over in that match and went on to be a great champion and always a main eventer unfortunately it hasn happened until now and after he loses this title it shouldn be his last or his time up at top level.

 

[Sportsman939]

Well I can't recall too many title runs that had me cringing beyond belief but the Great Khali's was absolutely horrendous. I think that was a time Vince went a bit crazy with the whole big man thing. It was an instant switcg off for me and it was obvious Cena would win it back in the end.

I dont see how cena would have got the title back in that situation as they were on opposite shows at the time. I believe it was Edge who dropped the title due to injury and bautista won it a couple months later.

 

[LSN80]

Well I can't recall too many title runs that had me cringing beyond belief but the Great Khali's was absolutely horrendous. I think that was a time Vince went a bit crazy with the whole big man thing. It was an instant switcg off for me and it was obvious Cena would win it back in the end.

Khali won the title on smackdown in a battle royal after edge vacated it due to injury. Khali never took the title from Cena, Cena actually beat him twice, which actually killed the aura of Khali being "invincible" that The Undertaker of all people had first established. Anyway, it was Batista who ended his title reign at Unforgiven 07. It was still an awful title reign, I agree there.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

First of all, let's understand what the difference is between a title run and a title win. Nowadays no one has a title run, they're just wins over the previous champion. In the 1970s and 80s those were title RUNS. No one just won the title for the sake of winning the title. Hell, even Ronnie Garvin's win over Ric Flair was to serve a purpose. It was meant to close the decade with Flair on top, in the prime of his career and show he could beat any and everyone that was placed in front of him. It did less for Garvin than it did for Ric Flair, yet the point was made and Ronnie's "win" was a lesser form of a "run".

A title run means the person who wins the title had ample build up to the actual win. It meant that the crowd bought into the feud, invested their time, energy and money as well as interest into the outcome of the final match between champion and challenger, thus setting up a title "run" where the eventual new champion would defeat the person they were feuding with and start new feuds with new contenders without losing their stride as well as the title in only a few short weeks or months. Sadly, in today's era where they're a PPV every 3rd or so week, a champion only "wins" the title with nothing else coming of it due to frequent title changes, watered down feuds and unreliable and sometimes confusing storylines.

The last great title run in the WWE IMO was when John Bradshaw won the SmackDown!'s version of the title over Eddie Gurrerro and held the title for almost a year. The thing is that Bradshaw fought ALL the top contenders of SmackDown!, not just the usual rundown like say, John Cena did and still does when he's champion. I know this isn't asking who had the best run, but it needs to be stated what the difference is.

With that said, the person who had the worst WWE title run was Ric Flair's second WWE title run.

First of all, Flair should have never wrestled Randy Savage at WrestleMania VIII, instead he should have fought Hulk Hogan, who should have came into the event as WWE Champion, which means that Hogan by default should have won the Royal Rumble, thus eliminating Ric Flair's first WWE title run. If booked properly, Flair would have came within inches of winning the title at the Royal Rumble and during his interview, he would have vowed to win the title OR retire (besides, this same storyline was done in WCW in 1994).

Everyone would have went crazy for Hogan knowing Flair couldn't beat the unbeatable Hogan at his own event, persay. Flair would have then beat Hogan, starting his first regin, carrying the belt to say, Survior Series where he drops it to whomever (insert Savage if you want or even Bret Hart), eliminating Flair's second and far less memorable title reign.

Last, if you want further proof that Flair's second title reign was a bust, he lost it to Bret Hart on a non-televised edition of Superstars. The title switch was pre-tapped and shown about a week later. The match was good, but far from the 5 star classics of the NWA. Hope someone agrees...

Well done.

Worst Title Run
When Goldberg wanted the title in 2003, everyone knew he was going to get it. We just didn't know how. The main event of Summerslam in 2003 should have been Goldberg and HHH but instead we got a lackluster Elimination Chamber in which Goldberg dominated and HHH hit him with the sledgehammer and it was over. Goldberg would win the title at Unforgiven match in a Title vs. Career stipulation that I thought was unnecessary. The buildup was poorly executed which was the MO of 2003.

Worst Title Reign
Big Show in 2002 and not even close in my opinion. He made Kane's 24 hour reign look like Cena's year-long one. He was probably at the worst point of his WWE career and that's saying a lot. He injures Brock Lesnar because he was too fat yet gets the title at Survivor Series and then loses it to Angle at Armageddon. I don't remember him doing anything during that reign.