The 411 Wrestling Top 5 10.14.09: Week 44 - Worst Choices For World Champion

Posted by Michael Bauer on 10.14.2009

From Rob Van Dam, Kane and Vince Russo to Vince McMahon, David Arquette and even Rey Misterio, the 411 wrestling staff feels that these are men that should never have been the world champion! Check out the full article to see who made the list and why!

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling's Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. At the end, based on where all these matches rank on people's list, we will create the 411 Wrestling Top 5 list. (This is provided enough votes are cast and are not different enough to cause no clear Top 5.) The scoring is very similar to the Wrestler of the Week as it looks like this:

#1 Choice – 5 points
#2 Choice – 4 points
#3 choice – 3 points
#4 Choice – 2 points
#5 Choice – 1 point
Honorable Mentions will break ties, but get no points.

Also, in the case of a tie, the most votes win, regardless of where it is listed in the individual Top 5. I will also use this rule in the event that one item is mentioned more often, but is one point behind. For example, one second place vote and two Honorable Mentions will defeat simply one first place vote.


So, on to this week's topic…

THE TOP 5 WRESTLERS WHO SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN WORLD CHAMP

Like a few weeks ago when we did Wrestlers to Never Be World Champ, the criteria of World Champion was up to each individual staff member.

So what did our group of writers select? Let's find out…



Michael Bauer

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Vince Russo, David Arquette , and Vince McMahon - I am lumping these three together as my honorable mention, because as many will state below, these guys are not wrestlers. And they need no explanation.

5.Tommy Dreamer - I'm sorry, but Tommy Dreamer was ECW Champion twice. Once, he lost the title on the same day. The other time, it was an unevntful month and a half reign that was nothing more than a token title reign to keep Tommy Dreamer employed more than anything and nearly klilled Christian's momentum. Not my choice for a champion.

4.Andre the Giant - He shouldn't even count as a WWF Champion, but alas, he is listed in the history books as defeating Hulk Hogan for the gold. The whole story was that him and the referee were paid off to beat Hogan for the belt and hand it to the Million Dollar Man. Some idea for someone who didn't even fight for himself.

3.Abyss - Wow, talk about a disaster of a championship reign. Winning the title via DQ… yeah, that's pretty bad. Not even being the hottest feud in the compnay or the second hottest feud in the company while champion… yeah, that's pretty bad. Abyss was behind Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe, which wa sthe biggest feud EVER in TNA. You would think that keeping the belt on Sting would have helped instead, but of course, Abyss got a belt he should have never had.

2.The Great Khali - Oh, here's an idea. Give the title to a guy who moves worse than Giant Gonzalez with nothing more than a yell for his vocals. At least his title reign lasted for some length of time, unlike some people…

1.Kane - His WWE Title run was about as eventful as a bad hangover and lasted just as long. He won the title in a First Blood match, thanks to his brother, and then proceeded to lose it back to Austin the next night. Nobody bought Kane as a World Champion then and I didn't buy him as the representative of ECW last year either, when he won the title in eight seconds. Cleaely, the worst choice of a champion ever.





Aaron Hubbard

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Vince McMahon - Unlike most of the people on this list, Vince can claim to have been a legitimate draw and the top heel during one of WWE's hottest periods, so his short reign was less insulting.

Rob Van Dam - In hindsight, RVD never should have been given the WWE Championship, because he embarrassed the company and killed the current incarnation of the ECW Title before it had a chance to get going. But he's an honorable mention because he should have been champion in ECW.

The Great Khali - I'm not going to jump on the Khali hate wagon; I enjoy him in (very small) doses. But I personally felt that Kane deserved the brief run with a World Title before dropping it to Batista.

5.Stan Stasiak -I know that babyface vs. babyface matches were generally avoided in the 1970's, but I think it's ludicrous to think that Pedro Morales vs. Bruno Sammartino wouldn't have drawn. In my opinion, they should have eliminated the middleman and just had that match. This could have been one of the true dream matches of the age, and Morales would not have suffered from losing to Sammartino. Instead, Morales lost to a pretender who only held the title for a week, being the consummate transitional champion.

4.Sid - This man had nothing to offer besides a monster look. He was horrible on the mic, worse in the ring, and had so little interest in the business that he decided to play SOFTBALL every year. Despite this, Sid was instantly thrust into the main event scene in whatever company he was in and won world titles in WCW and WWE. Why they ever put the title on this "Mind's man" is beyond me.

3.Xavier - Ring of Honor's first real booking fart. Xavier was a young, semi-talented but very green wrestler when he won the ROH Title, defeating Low Ki and becoming the second champion in the company. Universally panned by nearly every critic, Xavier was a total flop as a champion. His failure was made worse because he played second fiddle to Christopher Daniels, who was the top heel in the company, a much better worker and talker, and a man who could have carried the company. When you look at ROH's World Title Holders, you have CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Jamie Noble, Low Ki and Nigel McGuinness who are all signed by the WWE. You have Samoa Joe and Homicide who are in TNA, and Austin Aries who could have been a star in TNA had it not been for his attitude. You also have Jerry Lynn, who has been in ECW, WWE, WCW and TNA, and Takeshi Morishima, who has been a world champion in Japan. And then there's Xavier, tarnishing the belt's legacy.

2.David Arquette - An actor who was in an awful movie called Ready to Rumble. An actor who comes in for a guest appearance to plug his movie. An actor who doesn't want to be a World Champion because he know that it's a horrible idea that the fans will hate. Hey, let's make him our Champion! He's PERFECT!

1.Vince Russo - Yes, I really do believe this was worse than Arquette. Russo tried to one-up WWE having McMahon as champion by giving himself a short reign. Here's a few problems: 1) WCW was dying a slow painful death. 2) The booking team had already devalued the title to where it meant nothing. 3) Russo has never drawn a DIME, unlike Vince McMahon. And unlike Arquette, Russo actually thought it was a good idea for him to be champion! The dumbest decision Russo ever made and one he will never live down.



Jasper Gerretsen

A small note on my criteria: I'm not considering Vince Russo, David Arquette or Vince McMahon because I don't consider them to be wrestlers. They'd be an instant top 3 if the subject was "Top 5 People Who Should Have Never been World Champ", but it's not, so they're not.

5.Homicide - Ok, I realize I'm going to catch some flak for this, but hear me out. Homicide's road to the ROH world title lasted over six months, starting with the Cage of Death match where he saved the company from the CZW invaders and became the top babyface in the company. Over the next six months he'd have to work his way through Jim Cornette and his cronies before finally winning the title in dramatic fashion at Final Battle 2006. Unfortunately his actual reign would only last two months, with his only major title defence being against Samoa Joe, before he was pretty much dismantled by Takeshi Morishima. I have no doubt that his TNA commitments played a huge role in this, but I still think it was a bad idea to give him a title when the build would last three times as long as the actual reign.

4.Rob Van Dam - I know WWE fans had been waiting for an RVD world title run since he became the defacto top babyface of The Alliance during the Invasion angle, but when he was finally given the WWE title he screwed it up royally. While I actually support many of RVD's views on marijuana use, the arrest was just stupid. It was a minor offense, and I certainly applaud the way RVD continues to take responsibility for it during interviews without holding any kind of real grudge against the way WWE handled his arrest, which is more than most wrestlers can say, but he basically killed all momentum the revived ECW brand had. That alone is reason enough to put him on the list.

3.Kane - This is a classic example of booking yourself into a corner. Austin was on his first reign as WWF champion after beating Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XIV, when, at the 1998 King of the Ring PPV, he was to defend his title against Kane in a first blood match. As an added stipulation, Kane promised to set himself on fire if he didn't win the title here. They could have pulled a bait and switch with that, but this was the middle of the Monday Night Wars and they simply couldn't afford pissing off their fans just as the momentum was swinging back their way (mostly thanks to Austin's title reign), so they put the title on Kane here only to put it right back on Austin one night later.

2.Xavier - The history of the ROH world title is a long list of the very best of the independent scene... and Xavier. He held the title as part of the major heel stable in the early days of ROH, but I can't for the life of me imagine why they didn't give the title to Christopher Daniels in stead. There's no clear consensus of who the best ROH champion in history is, but I think most ROH fans can agree on the worst. His Prophecy stablemate Daniels completely outperformed him both on the mic and in the ring. I guess it helps that he helped usher in the era of Joe, but this is still a very easy pic for worst ROH champion in the company's history.

1.Sid - When the only truly memorable match of your career involves you horribly injuring yourself by doing a move you had no business doing, you know you have a problem. There is literally nothing that makes Sid special beyond his size. He was hopeless on the mic and in the ring, yet somehow he managed to hold the world title multiple times in both the WWF and WCW. His promos are pretty much an extended series of botchmania moments, and his matches aren't much better. He gets the top spot not just because he sucks, but because he sucks and yet was given the top title in both the WWF and WCW multiple times.



Chris Lansdell

5. Rey Misterio - The only real wrestler to make my list. Kane, Khali and other short-lived monster heel champions had to hold the belt to remain viable as threats after finishing their programs with the champ. The tag "former world champion" means a lot to the casual fan 2 or 3 years later when they forget the length of the reign. Ask Undertaker how his first reign went. ANYWAY, Rey-Rey had a HORRIBLE title reign, one that he only got because of the loss of Eddie Guerrero. That title win was supposed to go to Latino Heat, and instead of giving it to Chavo WWE decided to reward their non-Cena cash cow. Then they decided to ruin him forever as a title contender by letting everyone destroy him.

4. Vince McMahon - Yeah, only at number 4. Why? Because he at least was BUILT like a wrestler, has spent all his life in wrestling and has forgotten more about the business than 99% of the wrestlers, pundits and pretty much anyone will ever know. It was still a dumb idea. Even the excuse of doing it to take the belt off HHH doesn't hold water...guess who won the belt when Vince vacated it?



3. "Vacant" - Yeah, this is cheating. I don't care. The WCW title was vacated 8 TIMES from October 1999 to October 2000. Some of these were due to injury, some to Russology. Vacating a belt every now and then is not a bad thing, and nobody is a bigger fan of tournaments than I am. 8 times though? No wonder WCW failed. And yes, the next two picks also come from that period.

2. Vince Russo - Very few people are as unfairly reviled in professional wrestling as Vince Russo. People tend to focus on his (many) shortcomings and not enough on the fact that he is responsible for some of the greatest ideas in wrestling. Read this if you don't believe me. However much he may be unjustly hated, there is absolutely no reason he should have booked himself as world champion. Now you can talk all you want about how the match ended in a fluke, and how he vacated the title right away...but just look at how long Booker stalls. It's ridiculous. What could WCW possibly do to make their title look even less important?

1. David Arquette - Oh. Right. Give it to a scrawny actor dude who is best known for being Mr Courtney Cox. This guy is going to be near the top of almost everyone's list, and you've all heard the gripes about him before, so I'll spare you the invective. This sucked.



Shawn S. Lealos

I'm going to eliminate Vince Russo, Vince McMahan and David Arquette because they are just too obvious.

5. Black Bart, WCCW World Champion - When Fritz Von Erich's promotion decided to go big time they chose to put their World Championship on one of their homegrown superstars, Gentleman Chris Adams. This was a great idea except for the fact Adams was developing an addiction to alcohol and started to get in trouble with the law, causing him to leave WCCW in the midst of various legal problems and resurface in the UWF. So what is a federation trying to become a major force in professional wrestling to do? They put the title on a wrestler named Black Bart, someone more fit to be a brass knuckles champion than a world champion. And they explained the title change by a fictional match that supposedly took place in far away Los Angeles. This is the act of a small time scrub federation, not a federation that wants to be recognized worldwide. Bart dropped the title a month later to Kevin Von Erich and defected to the UWF as well. It's no wonder WCCW closed its doors following a joke of a match with Kerry Von Erich and Jerry Lawler three years later.

4. Rey Mysterio, WWE World Champion - I like Rey but I feel winning the big belt was the worst thing that happened in his career. He was the plucky underdog and finally climbed the mountain and won the title he always dreamed about holding. That was awesome. Then the WWE dropped the ball. They had no clue how to book a little man as a champion (I guess they forgot how they booked Shawn Michaels in the nineties). He started winning by disqualification, scored fluke pinfalls and never looked like a credible champion one time after winning the title. The feel good story of 2006 ended up making Rey Rey look like the biggest joke in wrestling. It might have been better to let him fall short then to cut his legs out from under him after he won the belt.

3. Mikey Whipwreck, ECW World Champion - Mikey Whipwreck was someone the fans could cheer for because the guy was a nothing, a ring boy, who got the chance to be a wrestler. The vignettes with Mick Foley were always funny and I loved their tag team title reign because of they were polar opposites. However, in a federation where the champions are hardcore legends like Terry Funk, Sabu, Taz, Shane Douglas and Raven, one name stands out as just wrong. Mikey should never have held the World Championship. Give him the TV Title or Tag belts but giving him the World strap devalued the title. I don't care how over he was as an underdog.

2. Xavier, ROH World Champion - It isn't just the fact that Xavier, a void of talent and personality, won the title off the extremely popular Low Ki to become the second ROH Champion. It is the fact that Xavier somehow held the belt for 182 days before losing it to Samoa Joe. This guy should have never won the belt and the fans shit all over him every time he defended it. Joe brought some dignity back to the title but Xavier was bad enough to almost destroy the title's momentum before it even got started.

1. Ronnie Garvin, NWA World Champion - This is the true definition of a transitional champion. Ric Flair feuded with a number of men that the fans wanted to see beat him for the title. From Magnum TA to Nikita Koloff to former champion Dusty Rhodes, there was a number of "over" wrestlers that would have had a huge moment if they won the belt. Well, Crockett wanted to counteract the WWF scheduling The Survivor Series on the same day as Starrcade by having Flair win the belt at the event, so that meant taking the belt off Flair until that card. Fans were cheering Ronnie Garvin as he chased Flair for the title but when he won the belt, it was a different story. Garvin was a good guy you didn't mind seeing challenge for the belt but he was just about the worst choice to hold the title. This was a TV Title guy at best. Fans turned on him in an instant and started cheering Flair. It was the worst possible decision.



Ryan Byers

Note: I'm with Jasper on this one. McMahon, Arquette, and Russo are too easy. I'm only looking at actual pro wrestlers here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Kane - Kane's one world title reign (WWE-ECW doesn't count) lasted twenty-four hours. Barring some kind of horrific accident that requires a transitional champ, there is no need to have a one day title reign. All it does is devalue the belt.

Stan Hansen - Hansen wasn't a bad pick for AWA Champion on paper, but, with hindsight being 20/20, anybody who quits your promotion while champion, takes the belt to Japan and "defends" it without authorization, and then backs it over with his pickup truck several times before returning it can't be considered a good champion.

Justin Credible - Some people claim that Credible just got the original ECW Title because there was nobody left in the company. However, those close to Paul Heyman claim that Paul E. actually saw something in the guy. What he saw, I'll never know . . . and, based on his crowd reactions, I'm not alone.

5.Takeshi Morishima - I couldn't stand Takeshi Morishima's ROH Title reign. The company basically allowed itself to become Pro Wrestling NOAH's version of Ohio Valley Wrestling by agreeing to babysit Morishima for a year, and I think that more harm than good was done to Ring of Honor while he held the championship. The time that Morishima was put on top of the company and put over most of the roster wound up being a cruical time for ROH. Within a calendar year, the company lost numerous top stars for a variety of reasons, including Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries, and Homicide, all a-list ROH performers. This was a time during which the promotion needed to focus on building new stars and building them quickly. Instead of building those stars, virtually every wrestler who had the potential to become a championship-level player for ROH (including Brent Albright, Claudio Castagnoli, Erick Stevens and Roderick Strong) had to do the J-O-B to Morishima, in some cases multiple times. The result was great for Mori, because he had an opportunity to learn how to work championship matches before going back to Japan. The result was not so great for ROH, as most of their up and coming stars were neutered, which is one of the factors that lead to the product's significant decline in quality in 2008, from which they are still attempting to recover. Morishima would go on to win a second world heavyweight title in the form of Pro Wrestling NOAH's GHC Heavyweight Championship, but attendance was so poor for the shows that he headlined that the belt was almost immediately switched off of him.

4.Abyss - Yes, Abyss is a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Given that he was nothing mroe than a midcard wrestler in TNA prior to that time and has been nothing more than a midcard wrestler in TNA since that time, it is difficult for me to remember Abyss' reign . . . but, when it does cross my mind, the memories are not particularly pleasant. First of all, Abyss won the championship in the most idiotic manner possible. You see, the big crazy fellow won the title when he was wrestling Sting and Sting was DISQUALIFIED. I used to like the fact that TNA's rules stated that championships could change hands on a DQ. It was a subtle way to communicate fans that they weren't going to cheat them out of decisive finishes in key matches . . . or at least that's what I thought it was supposed to be. Ultimately, they DID change their main title via disqualification, which is a ridiculous idea because it defeats the concept of a World Title. A World Champion is supposed to be the absolute best wrestler in the promotion, and, if a guy wins a championship just because his opponent couldn't follow the rules, he hardly looks like the best wrestler in the promotion. At worst he looks like a clown, and at best he looks like a chicken. Some of that damage could have been rectified if Abyss was given a strong reign after the fluke title change, but that was not the case, as he was done as champion only three months after he won it, with the title throughout his reign playing second fiddle to the Kurt Angle-Samoa Joe feud that was ongoing at the time.

3.John Bradshaw Layfield - I'll probably catch some flack for this, so let me try to diffuse it a little bit of that up front: My putting JBL on this list does NOT mean that I do not think that he was a great promo or a great character during the time that he was holding the title. In fact, he regularly cut some of the most entertaining interviews in all of professional wrestling during his nearly year long WWE Title reign. However, there's a difference between being an entertaining mic worker and being the guy who should hold the top championship in his promotion. WWE and JBL created a great character when the Acolytes' Bradshaw went from beer-swilling brawler to wealthy stock market mastermind. The problem was that they went all out with the new character too soon after he was introduced. Bradshaw had basically been a midcard wrestler (at best) for eight solid years. Once his character changed, he went from midcarder to World Champion in less than a month. Because they had seen him portrayed as being nowhere near the level of a world champion for close to a decade, fans didn't buy it. WWE business indicators, including television ratings, pay per view event buys, and live event ticket sales all slipped during JBL's title reign, which is the exact opposite of what is supposed to happen when you switch your championship to a new character. On top of that, after being a professional wrestler for over a decade, Bradshaw's body had broken down significantly, meaning that, throughout his entire title reign, he was also one of the single worst in-ring performers in the company. Ultimately, as I mentioned earlier, the JBL character did become one of the most entertaining in recent memory, but his physical limitations still prevented him from being a world title caliber wrestler.

2."Rugged" Ron Garvin - The story that I have always heard surrounding Ron Garvin's World Title reign is this: The 1987 edition of the annual Starrcade supercard was just a few months away, and the National Wrestling Alliance and Jim Crockett wanted a title change in the main event. However, they wanted to stick with Ric Flair as their champion for the long term. Thus, a plan was devised under which Flair would lose the title to a wrestler roughly two months before Starrcade and then win it back solely for the purpose of having the title change on what was the company's first event widely distributed on pay per view. (Prior supercards had been aired through closed circuit television in theaters and arenas, but there was no PPV proper aside from test runs in a few markets.) There was one small problem with the plan for quickie title changes, though: Very few people on the roster who were considered for the role of Flair's opponent wanted it. Though most wrestlers want to be world champ at some point in their careers, many of the wrestlers who were approached about participating in this angle thought that, if they won the belt and then lost it back to the former champion in a matter of weeks, they would be viewed as a fluke and have their careers irreparably damaged, similar to what became of "Wildfire" Tommy Rich. The first guy that the bookers found who did not feel this way was Ron Garvin. Thus, Garvin won the title, and the rest, as they say, was history. Though the man's title reign was far from long, fans still had plenty of time in which to completely turn on him, causing live event ticket sales to drop off quite a bit while the man with the "Hands of Stone" held the title. Long before the days of David Arquette, Ron Garvin was the guy that wrestling fans pointed to as a lame duck champion, and it's not difficult to see why.

1.Kevin Nash - Yes, I think that he's funny. Yes, I think that he was a key part of the nWo angle that revolutionized professional wrestling. However, I cannot think of a wrestler who has done less with more World Title reigns than Kevin Nash. His first such reign came as Diesel the WWF in late 1994, which saw him holding the title for just a few weeks shy of a full year. During that time, Nash was a financial flop, developing a track record that would put him neck-and-neck with Sid Vicious in the category "Worst Drawing WWF Champions of All Time." Part of that was due to the cavalcade of lame opponents that he was given (Mabel, anybody?) but even going up against legends like Shawn Michaels, Nash was hardly setting the world on fire. In fact, less than a year after Nash's title reign came to an end, the WWF was having significant financial difficulties to the point that the company closing its doors or at least filing for bankruptcy was a very real possiblity had stars like Steve Austin not taken off. Though Nash certainly cannot be shouldered with all of the blame for those problems, the man was the focal company for the preceding year, and, during that year, the financial issues the Fed was facing became significantly worse, not better. Despite the fact that he was by no means a great champion for the WWF, he would move on to WCW, where he held their version of the World Title FIVE TIMES. The first reign was particularly pitful, as it began with the ill-advised move of Nash ending Bill Goldberg's undefeated streak and ended with the infamous "fingerpoke of doom." Yes, that's right, Nash's first WCW title reign encompassed two of the events given major credit for leading to the death of the company. After a non-descript reign in 1999, Nash would close out his WCW career by having three title reigns in 2000, the first of which began when he was on-camera commissioner and awarded himself the belt. The second ended with the title being awarded, as Nash handed the championship to Ric Flair for no readily apparent reason. The third and final 2000 reign saw Big Kev beat Booker T. for the title, only to lose it again to him three weeks later. Though certainly an influential character in professional wrestling history, Nash could have done everything that he did in the "sport" without being a world champion, and it was apparently advisable that he not hold such titles because, every time that he did, more harm that good was done.



Julian Bond

My criteria for this includes wrestlers and non-wrestlers alike....honestly mainly because I had to include the two most infamous ones from WCW because my wrestling conscience won't let me forget about it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Kane - I've always loved Kane's in-ring work and crazy gimmick since day one and always thought that he would make a great World Champ, BUT I do wish that his two existing World Title reigns with the WWE Title and the ECW World Title never existed. Both reigns were both extremely weak and I personally wish that he was instead the one to have "never won the World Title" so he could look like an actual killer bad-ass with it if he won it today, instead of being known for beating Chavo Guerrero in 30 seconds for one title and losing to Stone Cold for another in less than 24 hours.

5.Ken Shamrock - Like with Kane above, I've always been a fan of Ken Shamrock while he was in the WWE. While he wasn't the greatest talent in the ring, he brought something different to the table with his UFC/MMA style moves and his very "unique" rageaholic gimmick going on with breaking people's ankles left and right (before Angle started doing it on a regular basis). But when TNA first started back a good long time ago and they made him their 1st ever World Champ, I always thought that it was a big mistake. I know that the company needed a good, "big" known name to help start they off in the right decisions, but Shamrock shouldn't have been it. Besides having the trademark psycho look on his face, Shamrock really didn't have too many big accomplishments while in the WWE. Sure an Intercontiental Title reign, a Tag Team Title reign, a past King of The Ring winner, and a small handful of pretty good matches but nothing really "World Title" worthly. Instead of remembering someone like Jeff Jarrett or Raven for being the inaugural champ, TNA will always have the ex-UFC fighter that honestly some wrestling fans don't even really remember in Shamrock.

4.Ron Killings - Ron Killings aka the current "R-Truth" has always been cool in my book. I liked him in his first WWE stint as "K-Kwik", his current stint now, and even in TNA. But when going through the history of TNA World Champs, his name (next to Shamrock's) always sticks out to me with the question "Why?!?". While it's pretty cool (especially as a black guy myself) to read that Killings was the first African American to win the NWA-TNA championship...but besides this fact, why was he given the belt in the first place? While he was pretty solid in the ring and had an unique gimmick with his dancing moves, he wasn't no "AJ Styles" and "Raven". And I definitely couldn't really imagine anyone paying money solely to see "the World Champ....Ron 'The Truth' Killings!!!!". I honestly felt that with his two World Title reigns (with one of them being TOTALLY forgettable...$1 to anyone who can name when it was on top of their head), Killings really got the luck of the draw in receiving them...with no offense to his in-ring skills. If anyone around the time who should have gotten a brief World Title reign is with D-Lo Brown. Yep...D'Lo. The man wasn't exactly "World Title" material either, but he would have deserved one back then after putting on some great matches in his feud over the TNA Title against AJ Styles. Sorry Killings...definitely shouldn't have been champ.

3.Xavier - Xavier was one of the main reasons why I unintentionally never watched Ring of Honor for the longest time. I didn't start watching ROH until a few years ago in 2005-2006, but was turned off from initially watching the company due to the top billing of their World Champion, Xavier. I read that great, awesome wrestlers like Styles, Daniels, Paul London, and Low-Ki were all wrestling for the company and got my interest to maybe check it out. But I swear...when I kept reading around late 2002 that their top champion was a no-name guy called Xavier, it made me believe that the company wasn't as great as I thought it to be. Now reading the list of champs...CM Punk....Austin Aries....Brian Danielson....Nigel McGuinness...it's kind of messed up that a dude named Xavier (who I honest to goodness still really don't know who is really is nor really care) was amongst their almost perfect history of World Title holders. Only near perfect....cause of a guy named Xavier....spelled with a "X".

2.Vince Russo - For the record, I don't think that Vince McMahon should be at the top of this list (or even on my own list) for being one to should have never won the title due to a main difference between him and Russo here. When McMahon won the title, he was in a horribly-heated, long-drawn out major storyline with feuding with then-champ Triple H that was pretty good and fun at the time (in my opinion). So when McMahon won the title, while it was a horrible fluke and in turn pissed a lot of folks off...it made SENSE storyline-wise, plus McMahon wrestled a good number of times before then and was semi-believable that the crazy-owner would one day find a way to take control of his own company's belt himself. Plus on top of this, McMahon IMMEDIATELY gave up the belt and as a result set-up a pretty cool "Six-Pack Challenge" match at that Sunday's PPV to determine the new winner. Now to the point...Vince Russo should have never won the title in comparison because...his on-air persona plainly sucked (New Jersey accent vs McMahon's cocky swagger)...he was just a booker and not the owner (McMahon shouldn't have won, but at least he was the owner of the belt's company)....and mainly because his storyline at the time with Booker T truly and horribly sucked ass, didn't draw people in, and the stituation was made even worse when Russo randomly won the WCW Title, the same title which was slowly being booked to its grave every single dying day of WCW. Period.

1.David Arquette - Arquette's an actor. Not a wrestling booker. Not a wrestling owner. Not a wrestler. And not even a long-standing on-air WCW talent. To push his wrestling-related movie at the time and to "help" market WCW, the company could have done so many things with Arquette... made him a regular manager with the then-World Champ....made him a special guest referee for a main event PPV match...and even given him a significant role in interferring in one's major match-up [maybe with costing someone the World Title...which he actually did...kind of]. But making this guy your company's actual World Champion in the long rich history of people involved with it is totally unforgivable. At least Russo was the actual wrestling booker and at least McMahon was a wrestling company owner.



Scott Rutherford

I'm leaving out the Russo/McMahon/Arquette trilogy as that's WAY too easy as a top three.


5.Justin Credible - Lame. It boggles the mind that Heyman put his title on Credible and never put it on RVD who was a marketable performer and a favourite of the rabid ECW fanbase. Uncle Paul always had the knack of putting titles on odd choices and having it pay dividends but I remember watching the a Credible title defense and it being dead silent through out. No one cared. No one watched. No one noticed when he left for the WWF. People cared about him even less after that.

4.Kane - I'm not really a Kane hater but this 24-hour reign was a joke. I could understand it if the WWF wanted Steve Austin to lose the title and have The Undertaker hold the belt but not have the two actually have the match and using Kane to help hotshot the title. That at least has logic. Instead we have Steve Austin lose a Fist Blood match to someone who had all-of-his skin covered bar one arm only to get the title back the next night. It made next-to-no sense and considering Vince Russo was the booker at the time I should not be surprised.

3.Sgt. Slaughter - This reads like the Ronnie Garvin/NWA Title mess except it's me talking, not some "official" rumour. I could never figure out why Vince would cost himself a MASSIVE rematch like Hogan/Warrior in favour of Hogan and…Slaughter? The only thing this had going for it was the American, turncoat Iraqi sympathizer getting his ass handed to him on the WM stage. If that was the case then JIM FUCKING DUGGAN could have done that. I can't see why Warrior would have refused to job back to Hogan when he was happy to job to Slaughter so I'm guessing Vince had some ulterior reason. Anyway, Slaughter as champ was strange and just doesn't belong.



2.Otto Wanz - People talk about undeserving world champions and this man NEVER gets mentioned…until now. If I had a dollar for every person reading this who actually knows Wanz was an AWA World Champion I wouldn't have enough to buy a bottle of coke. So what makes Wanz worse than any other pick? This man paid Verne Gagne money to get a championship reign. Verne didn't have great vision in the 1980's so I shouldn't come as much surprise to anyone that he took a reported $20,000 pay-off to give his friend a quickie 2-month run. People talk about the Hogan fiasco being the eventual reason that the AWA went under but I will always maintain that Gagne had shitty business sense well before then and this is my proof.

1.Tommy Rich - The thing that troubles me about Tommy Rich winning the title was the fact he probably DID deserve to be champ but just not in the way that it happened. Rich was a HUGE babyface star for the Georgia territory in the early 80's and his popularity was growing into other states. Unbeknown to him, he got caught up in a power play of promoter Jim Barnett and was hotshotted the title for 4 days. Much controversy surrounded the switch as it later came to light that a deliberate fast count was employed to secure the title for Rich and his status as a world champion would lead to better live gates which in turn sured up Barnett's position on the NWA title committee. The problem was Rich was seen as a fluke champion when forced to lose the title 4 days later to who I assume was a PISSED OFF Harley Race and was forever tainted in the fans eyes as not being a deserving champion and his stock dwindle FAST. I would bet dollars to donuts that if Rich was given a legit run at the time (even for 3 months), his star would have risen even more and wouldn't have had the stench of being a fluke champion over his head. Fun fact – Rich was the first fuck for legendary ring rat Missy Hyatte.