Who Was The Worst Money-Drawing WWE/F Champion Of All Time?

[nbda1997]

Who, in your opinion was the worst drawing WWF/WWE champion of all time?

Ground rules:
1. Must be a WORLD champion (WWF/WWE or World Heavyweight)
2. You have to explain why they didn't draw, not just why you didn't like them.

For me it was Sheamus - It wasn't entirely his fault; he was relatively new to the business and still pretty green. He has a great look and moves well for a big man, but doesn't have the personality factor to get people motivated to love or hate him. His character seemed to be straight from the FCW assembly line. The storylines that creative placed him in were very uninteresting as well. I'm sure, being as new as he was, that he didn't have too many friends that matter backstage, so nobody was going out of their way to make him look good.

Who do you think it was?

 

[Kane-a-Roonie]

For near enough the same reasons i would have to say Jack Swagger. Except with Sheamus, he beat Cena the biggest name in the company and in a some what clean fashion which gave him some attention. With Swagger they gave him the MITB wich made me think they would build his character and establish him as a top contender, but instead he cashes it in 5 days later and holds the title for nearly the same time. That one really left me scratching my head. Even after he took the title from jericho people where more intrested in the jericho edge fued with their match even getting a higher time slot at the following PPV. Even now when the commentators describe him as a former world champ my first thought is 'The ECW Championship?' Until i remember.

 

[XXJJ]

Yeah Jack Swagger is a great choice. I like Swagger but boy was that rushed. They even gave him a clean win over Orton at a ppv. It still didn't amount to much. I think WWE learned from that and they are taking their time with guys like Del Rio and DB, and not rushing to cash in the briefcase.

I think Miz said it best about Swagger. When he said something like "your a former champion but if nobody remembers... were you really a champion?"

 

[jmh1971nyr]

Rey on last nights RAW was the worst angle for a Champ of all time! WTF?? He held it for less than 2 hours. Might as well have done the fingerpoke of doom! That was such an insult to Rey and the intelligence for WWE fans. When it was announced he would face CENA I'm sure 90% of the wrestling world knew Cena was walking away champ. They should have just buried Miz and let him come back with vengeance not REY.

Worst drawing of all time would be Swagger easily! He will end up being a Did you know trivia question on RAW one day!

 

[Freddy4190]

Wait, Swagger was champ? Aha, I kid. Yeah. I gotta go with Jack Swagger on this one as well. He didn't have a remotely good title run at all. It was all very rushed. I forgot he even won Money in the Bank. They should have let him build up to it more. Well, I actually don't think Swagger is world champ material, to be fair. It just didn't seem right with him holding the championship. Swagger didn't draw because frankly, not alot of people cared. They were just like ..Oh, Okay. So when's Randy Orton taking the title from him? Poor guy.

 

[fenfool]

Has to be Diesel. His run was completely unremarkable, I guess except for his 8-second win over Bob Backlund for the title. This was before his jump to WCW, during a down period for the business, and his run as champ did not pick the company up at all. He hadn't really developed into the nwo Kevin Nash, he was just playing a big guy who was HBK's former bodyguard...his character was just not very memorable.

 

[gd]

I'll have to agree and go with Jack Swagger. Word is he didn't even know his way around a coloring book, much less a blank canvas. He was deprived of art materials as a kid apparently. Those are the things you have to look at before you give someone a title, if their artistic ability to produce beautiful pictures is not up to par, than what is the point really?

 

[WRESTLING_GENIUS]

Hands down worst title reign is DOLPH ZIGGLER.. Worst drawing champion is Yokozunas WWF Championship run both of them he had the belt for 5 minutes and lost it then when he regained it back at KING OF THE RING 93 the WWE had its worst ratings and finacial year after that seeing that HOGAN and Savage Left for WCW the following year... Dont get me wrong i liked Yokozuna and the WWF at this time but numbers do not lie.....

 

[peter_midnight]

WTF??? Yokozuna was not the worst drawing champion, not even of his era. It's pretty much common knowledge that Kevin Nash as Diesel was the worst drawing champion of his WWF generation. I'd say Nash since now the champion doesn't really draw, the company does.

Cena does draw though, other than him, nobody draws.

 

[The Perfect Max]

Has to be Diesel. Why the fuck was he WWE Champion? The storyline building up to WrestleMania XI against Michaels wasn't really about the Championship, but more about the dissolution of there friendship.

Didn't he win the title in something stupid like 8 seconds? Anyway, if you ask most people, how do most remember Diesel, they would answer nWo. See? If you can't remember him being WWE Champion, there is no point.

That's why people like Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler, even Rey Mysterio becoming World Champion for either less than 24 hours or is irrelevent because it has got them
nowhere in the company. Think of the people who missed Raw last night. If they don't listen to commentary or go on wwe.com, they would never know Rey was WWE Champion.

So, yeah, Diesel sucked as WWE Champion. So did The Great Khali. So did... wait! Getting into it too much. Basically, WWE put titles on people just to make it look good when people have a look at superstars stats.

 

[Mercer the Ruthless]

Uh, shouldn't Khali get this almost automatically? Around this time people were still dumb founded by how large of a guy he was but I think it started settle in (like two nanoseconds after he actually won the title) how much of a horrible idea it is to have him as a champion. It was like propelling Giant Gonzalez into the top spot after his match with Taker. He can't do much ergo, bad champion, no money draw.

 

[Jackie Hon]

I may get flamed but hear me out. I'm not going to go with the consensus and say Swagger, khali, or any other transitional champion. I'm gonna go with the WWE's back-up plan.

Randy Orton

It's been noted very well that Randy Orton title reigns cause significant ratings drops. I don't have exact numbers but i know his reign last year on Raw spiked some very low numbers. I believe they were down to around 2.7 at points.

Take for example his run on SD right now. Randy has fallen back into (IMO) that stale, monotone, uninteresting individual. This tends to happen every time he gets the World/WWE Title. The ratings reflect that as well. While Orton had the title the ratings dropped weekly. The last week he had the title they were down to a 1.7 roughly and after Christians WHC win the ratings went to 1.89. Now i know this is a small sample and some of that may have been due to how RAW ended. I do believe though that Christian winning is also partially responsible for the spike. Maybe the SD rating this weekw ill support this, We'll see.

I like Orton, as a chaser that is. He is a poor champion and has never been a ratings draw as the top of the brand. Sadly, I don't think he ever will be.

 

[Heartachetonight926]

Uh, shouldn't Khali get this almost automatically? Around this time people were still dumb founded by how large of a guy he was but I think it started settle in (like two nanoseconds after he actually won the title) how much of a horrible idea it is to have him as a champion. It was propelling Giant Gonzalez into the top spot after his match with Taker. He can't do much ergo, bad champion, no money draw.

Even though Khali was a shitty champion from a technical standpoint, he is one of the most famous athletes to ever come out of Inidia, and I'm sure a lot of indian people were shelling out a lot of money to see him perform. Therefore, he did draw money.

 

[Rampage Bentley]

I don't understand what's going on here... the question asked is "Who was the worst drawing WWE Champion" yet everyone here is debating based on who they dislike...

To unbiasedly answer that question you have to look at what was the lowest rated (viewers and PPV buys) era, which was post "New Generation" pre "Attitude" After Bret left, but before Stone Cold and the major champions in that era were Shawn Michaels, Sid, Undertaker, and Diesel... of those four I'm going to say Sid was the weakest link.

 

[theHeadliner]

I'm pretty sure it was Diesel. There was a story that Diesel made a remark that he was the lowest paid champ in WWF history when he was backstage later on in life, and one of the agents said "that's cus you were the worst drawing champ ever." Also, Kevin said he saw the payroll sheets one night while he was champ, and apparently Bret was getting paid more per night than Kevin, and Kevin was the champ.

 

[californiachef84]

The Miz... I know that there are a LOT of Miz marks on this site, but that still doesn't change anything. You HAVE to look at this purely from a business point of view... Ratings and ppv buyrates have NEVER been lower than when the Miz was the WWE champion. On top of that, his title reign was totally forgettable. He was outshined by everyone he worked with (Rock, Cena, Orton), and ratings and ppv buyrates actually dropped while he was the champ.

 

[AmerikanWolves619]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the worst drawing WWE Champion is RVD. He was not a sustainable champion for even a month til his drug bust which caused him to drop the title to Edge. So he really didn't give much build as a champion or help with the return of ECW back on TV with his personal issue that was publicized.

 

[JSpaz]

When you talk draw, you talk PPV buys, Ratings, and merchandise sales, just to name a few. So many came to mind. But to despite the India theory It has got to be Khali..

The one advantage the WWE has today, by having 2 champions, is that they can test the waters with a up and comer or a total failure as champ while a main event superstar can hold the other title. This is why guys like Sheamus, Swagger, and Khali got their shot. And the WWE can still have guys like Cena and Orton in the main event at PPV's.

 

[dperez2006_24]

everyone is forgetting david arquette...just because of the movie ready to rumble he gets a match in WCW for the title and wins......if we are talking about WWE how about when the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase paid Andre the Giant to win the title just to turn it over to him, then WWE made the title vacant. Khali is up there he won the world title in a freaking battle royal.

 

[mdj2010]

Hands down Jack Swagger. I fail to believe for a second that anyone ever bought a ticket to an event to watch the All-American American come down the aisle with the world title in his possession.

Say what you want about Khali. People will pay to see him. Sure he can;t wrestle, but he is an oddity and would draw through that alone (otherwise he never would have been in the company in the first place)

 

[gunnascott]

It had to be either Kevin Nash or Shawn Michaels 1996 run. Ratings were in the toilet and no one wanting to watch WWF and see SM vs Vader when Nwo was running over everyone

 

[QbnMissile]

Hmmm, what about HHH? Before HHH was champ the ratings were through the roof with Austin and the Rock holding the titles and that's when the WWE was in competition and the audience was split. All of sudden no more competition no more split audience HHH is the champ and the ratings just dropped and still haven't recovered. People just stopped watching. Wouldn't that be a sign of a poor drawing Champ?

 

[kalosjuice]

i think kane's first title run was a joke. he lost it 24 hours later and yea rey mysterio's title reign lasted less than 2 hours but he was a former world champion before. the fact that kane had to wait 13 years for another world title run is just a joke. the wwe failed to make him champion for a long time while he was the big red machine and i would prefer for him to be the wwe champion back in the attitude era cause now this kane sucks.

 

[LongHessa]

Can't believe (wait i can believe) the Shawn's terrible run of 1996 hasn't been mentioned. Everything was in the toilet then, everything. I know HBK's lover's will be quick to point out the NWO but facts are facts and Shawns reign was atrocious from a business standpoint. It looks as though the WWE's (Triple H's and Co.) constant attempt's the last decade to glorify Shawn's legacy and turn a blind eye to his mistakes and downfalls has been openly accepted by foolish fans with no desire to know real history.

 

[EastCoastFan]

That's really not a fair question. WWE ping-pongs the titles around so much now that many of the guys who get the big belt don't have enough time to really show if they can draw. Not to mention that ever since Vince took over the WWF/E, he always had the company name on the marquee, to build up the brand more than the individuals.

Sheamus and Jack Swagger both became champ too soon in their careers and weren't established enough. They probably shouldn't have gotten the titles.

Guys like Ivan Koloff, Stan Stasiak and the Iron Sheik were purely transitional and were just placeholders. They weren't meant to be draws. Other guys like Antonio Inoki and Greg Valentine weren't even acknowledged as having been champion until much later.

When Bob Backlund got the title in 1978, fans couldn't take him seriously and kept calling him "Howdy Doody" whenever he showed his face in the arena, to the point where Vince Senior had to keep him off TV for the first year of his run. He eventually won over the crowds and in 1984, he was often used to main-event shows that didn't have Hulk Hogan on them.

Bret Hart got his first title at a time when the business itself was in a downturn with the steroid scandal and all, leading many to believe that Bret couldn't draw.

Triple H is considered by some to be the downfall of WWE in the early 2000's. Even though he's got the total package (good look, promos and ringwork), ratings and buyrates began to decline from 2002 on and some blame it on WWE pushing him as an unstoppable uber-heel that fans got sick of ALWAYS seeing in the main event. His relationship with Stephanie McMahon (the boss' daughter AND the head of creative) probably didn't help his standing with fans back then.