Worst incidents of a midcarder being elevated to World champion?

[Super Strudel]

Jericho's initial reign may have not been the stuff of fighting legends, but it made him. And he played it up to its full effect, to headlining Wrestlemania against HHH. It could have been quite easy to take the belt off him on a Raw or Smackdown before WM18. The company was content enough to keep it on him.

Khali obviously was a terrible decision. Sometimes you see someone who is good on the mike, but terrible in the ring as world champion. Sometimes, the reverse applies. But to have someone who is terrible as both as your world champion, tends to make you want to high five an iron.

My vote goes to Mysterio. Obviously there are a few, well flogged reasons. He's too small. He only won because of Eddie. It was a sentimental win.
But what makes his win truly horrible was the aftermath, and how he was booked. He was a champion, an underdog champion, who had arguably the lowest winning percentage of any champion ever. He was losing every week on Smackdown. I remember he beat JBL at a PPV, but apart from that he was getting dismantled every week.

Being a fighting champion is ok. Being a fighting champion who loses every 4 out of 5 times, while making Mikey Whipwreck look like Tatanka is not a good title run by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Chris Jericho, WWF Undisputed title: This was a great way for Jericho to get to the next level and start to be taken seriously.

Rick Rude, WCW International World title: Rude deserves a title.

Jerry Lawler AWA World heavyweight title: Lawler may be a shit wrestler, but he was great for that promotion at that time

Jeff Jarrett WCW World heavyweight title: Jarrett is better than what people thought, And at that point russo was trying new things, cant knock him for at least this move.

Scott Steiner WCW World heavyweight title: Steiner was a vet, not a great wrestler, but his character and charisma was decent, and in 2000, he was one of the only threatening looking wrestlers of WCW 2000

Ron Simmons (Faarooq) WCW World heavyweight title:This was a ballsy move, and I thought Wcw was awesome for this.

Great Khali World heavyweight title (WWE) Though Khali is a horrid wrestler, Having a big man being champion isn't a shock, he sucks, but it wasnt surprising.

Steve Corino ECW World heavyweight title : THIS was a big mistake, as corino sucks. But not as big as the one I picked.

Jerry Lynn ECW World heavyweight title: Lynn embodied alot of what was great in ecw in the latter days.

Sgt. Slaughter WWF World heavyweight title: They needed a anti american against Hogan, that was they're shtick, it worked, not well, but not as worst as the one I picked.

Larry Zbyszko AWA World heavyweight title: The living legend....Enough said

Justin Credible ECW World heavyweight title: THIS IS MY PICK, I hated Credible, and always have. He is the one that shouldnt and couldnt have held the title or company

Chris Jericho, WWF Undisputed title: This really shouldn't even be on the list... WWE knew they had to change it up, how meaningless today would it have been for the first Unified belt to go to Rock or Austin? Both would still have been retired by now...and would have been "just another reign" By giving it to Jericho, making it a shock and someone's "first time" it meant that it would instantly elevate that younger star AND be something people would talk about for years to come...a platform for that person to become a solid main event draw... Indeed, Jericho still uses it today and no one can still call him a mid carder... He fills in there when needed but for years now they have had a reliable main event player...on balance if he hasn't "drawn" as much as others its cos WWE has failed to capitalise on him in terms of merchandise etc rather than anything he has done badly. Its telling he is only getting his DVD now...

Rick Rude: Rude was promised the World title when he joined WCW... he left the WWF cos he was dogged by both Hogan and Warrior... Rude was booked as a main eventer from the day he joined... his US title run was a main event feud with Sting, he was the top wrestler in the Dangerous Alliance and it was only Flair's somewhat unexpected return that scuppered a proper run with the WCW belt... The NWA belt was there, he got that and despite them having to rename it a month or so later, it was the same belt that Thesz and others had... Rude was never a midcard talent, he was just a victim of selfish topliners in the WWF and his injuries in WCW.

Jerry Lawler AWA World heavyweight title: By the time this happened the AWA title was far from what it was... I don't even class this as a World title run... Did Lawler deserve the belt instead of Backlund in 94 for Vince... Absolutely... I feel that Diesel would have taken off far more had Jerry lost in 8 seconds...

Jeff Jarrett WCW World heavyweight title: A close 2nd for me, he was never past mid card, much less upper mid or main event level... and holding your boss up for money to drop a title should bar you from EVER getting another...no matter how good you, your daddy and your buddy think you are...

Scott Steiner: Another guy who shouldn't really be on the list... Steiner was a main eventer in the tag team days for both WCW and WWE... Vince wanted to make him the heel to Bret in the mid 90's but money got in the way... Steiner was unique in that he forced his way into contention, the radical image change helped, but he lost what made him marketable to begin with, the athleticism... he simply traded one marketable gimmick for another... but he was always used in main event matches from day one...

Ron Simmons (Faarooq) WCW World heavyweight title: This was a Bill Watts gamble that would have paid off had he had the sense to switch 2 matches around... Halloween Havoc should have been Sting v Barbarian and Jake Roberts v Ron Simmons... Ron would have benefitted from working with Jake on the stick and Sting the "rub" of beating a much bigger man. I for one am glad it was Ron Simmons, not a Butch Reed, Ahmed Johnson or Rock who got the first World Champion tag... Simmons was someone whose background almost made it perfect... If you are booked badly as a champion tho, you can never go back... Just ask Swagger...

Great Khali World heavyweight title (WWE) : Unbelivably horrid and no doubt the worst World Champion ever... David Arquette at least looked excited to win the title... That Khali got a "proper reign" and Andre didn't will make me sick to the day I die...


Sgt. Slaughter WWF World heavyweight title: Slaughter WAS the WWF in the pre Hogan days...Backlund had the belt but Slaughter was the franchise... Wrestlers didn't get much in the way of mainstream publicity, much less a GI Joe figure! He then became the franchise of the AWA...When he returned he was again used as a main eventer off the bat, the heel turn, while morally questionable was justified... Booking 101 says put your most hated heel as champion at Wrestlemania... Slaughter was able to be heel enough to make Vince change the venue in case someone shot him... or to be able to make that story stick well enough to cover the poor ticket sales cos Hulkamania was losing its appeal

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I can definitely see the logic in most of those choices. I wanna try and be a little bit different here and go really old school on this one. My pick for the worst incident of a mid-carder being elevated to World Champion is Ron Garvin's NWA World Heavyweight Championship run.

Ron Garvin was a respected veteran when he won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Ric Flair on September 25, 1987. He'd been a big star in a lot of various territories throughout his career but Ron Garvin was someone that NEVER should have been NWA World Heavyweight Champion. By the time Garvin's reign took place, he was well into his 40s, well past his physical prime and had already been wrestling for more than 25 years. After he won the title from Ric Flair, viewership of Mid-Atlantic wrestling programs on television plummeted. They really just went down the tubes and went down the tubes fast. Some have even gone so far as to say that Garvin winning the NWA Championship was the beginning of the end for Crockett Promotions. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration personally, though not by a huge degree.

Garvin was respected by a lot of people, including Jim Crockett, Jr. and Jr. had a headlock on the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at that time. Basically, he could give the title to whomever he wanted to. Garvin's title reign lasted until November 26, 1987 where he lost the title back to Ric Flair at Starrcade. Even though I was only about 7 and a half at the time, I just felt like he'd gotten the title because he was just liked and respected rather than being able to draw. He'd never really been a big draw, the best days of his career were behind him, he was on the verge of just kind of fading away as a lot of older wrestlers did after leaving big companies and there just really wasn't any point to his win at all.

 

[Jeff]

Like other people said Jericho shouldn't be on this list. First off it wasn't like Jericho was a nobody at this time. He was having a feuds with main event wrestlers like Austin, HHH, etc. He actually won the WCW Championship off The Rock. Granted it was a huge surprise when he won the Undisputed Title since everyone assumed it would go to either The Rock or Austin but that is what was good about it. Nobody was going, "Jericho sucks he shouldn't be a main event superstar." The guy was talented (still is duh). People were shocked and that makes good wrestling.

 

[HBKevin]

Great Khali. The guy can barely move and doesn't even deserve the diva's title. Swagger's was bad too, but the fact that Khali is a former world champ is just sad. They'd be better off removing that one from the official record.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

I don't get the hate for Khali. He wasn't the greatest but he was certainly a serviceable champ. He had two good matches with Cena before winning the title and it was merely a way to transition from Edge to Batista with him in between.

I'll say Eddie Guerrero's was bad for the simple fact that he just seemingly came out of nowhere especially winning the Smackdown rumble after beating Chavo at the Royal Rumble. I understand that most of the top superstars were injured but I would have much rather had Angle win it and have Guerrero be built up more after a couple of months. That probably would have affected JBL's reign as well. I thought Guerrero wasn't a good champion and JBL really helped him out with his heel turn.

 

[The Raven's Epitaph]

I'm sure many other people have said this in the thread, and it's quite obvious that everybody more or less feels the same way as me just by looking at the poll results.

The Great Khali being elevated to World Championship status almost upon debuting was just a terrible move. Where has it gotten him really? He's no better off now than when he first debuted, minus actually being World Champion of course.

His reign was awful and he had no potential of becoming anything better. I really don't see why he was made Champion. Was Vince Russo booking for one night only or something? Yeah, Khali may have been in a Championship match against Triple H a few years back, but it was single handedly an absolute insult to Summerslam's heritage. People are going to look back on that match and think, wow, what a terrible match.

It's just that simple. I really wouldn't be surprised if The Great Khali was released within the next few months. I hope they don't keep him on television and let him be the Punjabi Playboy again, that was a horrible angle aswell. It was pushing Katie Vick if you ask me...wait, I take that back. Nothing is as bad as the Katie Vick saga.

 

[Stopford11]

Putting the title on Khali was to boost buy rates in India. It was a political move and a clever marketing by WWE to do it.

To be fair to Khali he IS frecking scary looking and huge. Quite the sight in person.

 

[The Raven's Epitaph]

Putting the title on Khali was to boost buy rates in India. It was a political move and a clever marketing by WWE to do it.

To be fair to Khali he IS frecking scary looking and huge. Quite the sight in person.

I suppose you could argue that aswell, I didn't think of how it would improve buy rates by doing that. Very perceptive. I like how you think, Stopford.

If this were an old film with subtitles or a detective film, then I'd want to be your sidekick.

I still wouldn't be surprised if Khali was eventually released.. he is basically just a filler and an attraction. I legitemately think that that's the reason WWE have actually kept him this long, because he's an attraction. He's like a billboard. Billboard, I say, Billboard!