Over the course of time, there have not been many superstars fortunate enough to have battled their way all the way to the very top of the industry and become a WWE Champion. That title is reserved for the absolute best, the pinnacle of the wrestling elite. Some have been fortunate enough to hold the title on multiple occasions, whilst many others only ever held belt once.
Regardless, what is absolutely clear is that whilst every single man to have held the WWE title at some stage has earned it, there have been some names that surprised us more than others. People such as Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold and John Cena were always expected to be holding the belt, and it came as a great shock to a large proportion of the audience when other, lesser names came through to win it.
Whether it's the WWE title, Universal title or the now defunct World Heavyweight Championship, each of those titles has been held by somebody who nobody expected to do so.
#10 The Miz
The Miz was, once upon a time, seen as a joke by a large portion of the WWE Universe. Making his name on reality TV, back in the early 00’s, a large number of wrestlers in the locker room refused to accept The Miz, perceiving him as somebody who didn’t care about the business and was just along for the ride.
Eventually, he slowly began to win more and more people over, displaying glimpses of the talent we now routinely see on display. But in 2010, although he had already progressed a long way, nobody would have ever expected Miz to become the WWE Champion.
After walking around for a period of time holding both the United States Championship and the Money In The Bank briefcase, The Miz lost his US title to Daniel Bryan a couple of months before he finally became WWE Champion during a November 2010 episode of RAW, cashing in on a vulnerable Randy Orton.
At the time, The Miz was not seen as being on the level he’s at presently, and his title reign sadly suffered because of this. He defended his title successfully against the likes of Orton and Jerry Lawler on the road to WrestleMania 27, which he main evented against John Cena.
Not only that, he actually retained his title and defeated Cena, albeit due to interference from The Rock. His title reign fizzled out shortly afterwards, however, and he's never sniffed the top prize again.
#9 JBL
Once upon a time, the character of JBL did not exist, and in its place was Bradshaw. Bradshaw was a beer swigging, badass, big guy who fought alongside Ron Simmons in the APA and was generally regarded as a mid-carder at best. Then, for some unknown reason, Bradshaw became JBL and ascended to the top of Smackdown in stunningly quick fashion.
Quickly becoming Number 1 contender to Eddie Guerrero’s WWE Championship, he unsuccessfully challenged for the belt at Judgment Day, despite winning the match via DQ. He challenged Guerrero again at The Great American Bash, in a Texas Bull Rope Match, and defeated “Latino Heat” to kickstart a run as WWE Champion which would last an astounding 280 days.
That was his only run with the WWE title; it was a hugely surprising one, but one that without question transformed John Layfield from an also-ran to a figure that may well go down as a legend of the industry, in some quarters.
The title reign came to an end when he put over John Cena at WrestleMania 21, allowing Cena to begin his own ascent to mega-stardom and leaving JBL to transition into a short-term feud with The Blue Meanie after their incident at ECW’s One Night Stand.
#8 Daniel Bryan
When Daniel Bryan entered the WWE, he was a favourite of the independent scene, regarded as an excellent wrestler in the ring but unable to really achieve much success in the big leagues of Vince McMahon’s corporation. How wrong everybody turned out to be as Bryan totally flipped the script on its head to win the World Heavyweight Championship from Big Show, under two years after his WWE debut.
Another Money In The Bank winner, his title victory was a popular and surprising one and whilst this did vault him up the card to a significant degree, Bryan would have to wait another year and a half before experiencing his most unexpected title win.
This came at Summerslam 2013, as John Cena personally selected Daniel Bryan as the Number 1 contender to his WWE title. In the months preceding Summerslam, Bryan had built up a huge amount of momentum, to the point where he was then the undisputed most popular guy in the company. Everybody knew this, but everybody also knew that it was the second biggest event of the year.
Surely, Daniel Bryan couldn’t possibly go over Cena for the title, on such a huge show, right? Wrong.
WWE and Daniel Bryan shocked the world that night, as Bryan debuted his Running Knee finisher to score a massive victory and become WWE Champion for the first time. The jubilant celebratory scenes that followed made for heart warming viewing, setting the stage for Randy Orton to unexpectedly ruin the party with his Money In The Bank briefcase.
#7 Kevin Owens
Kevin Owens has always looked like a star in WWE. He won the NXT Title, two months to the day after making his debut, and quickly won the Intercontinental Title upon his graduation to the main roster, but it’s reasonable to suggest that his Universal Championship reign was totally unexpected.
To remind those who forget the context, a Fatal 4 Way match was declared on RAW involving Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Big Cass with the Universal Championship up for grabs.
Rollins and Reigns were the clear favourites, Big Cass was the wrestler with an outside chance, and Owens was the man who nobody was particularly giving much thought about. To cut a long story short and get to the point, Triple H returned during the match to attack Reigns before shockingly turning on his protege Seth Rollins, hitting him with a Pedigree and enabling KO to sneak in and steal the victory.
The crowd were in utter disbelief at what they were seeing, and it wasn’t all negative reaction. Some people were ecstatic to see Owens finally reach the top of the WWE mountain, something made all the more unlikely due to a large portion of his career that was spent so far away from the company, let alone its top prize.
He followed up his shock title reign by holding the belt all the way through to Fastlane, where he was defeated by Goldberg.
#6 Jeff Hardy
Jeff Hardy will always be remembered as one of the most popular babyfaces of all time, regardless of whether he won titles or not. Thankfully, Jeff managed to amass many championship reigns in WWE, but it was never expected that he’d go on to win the WWE Championship.
He did so after returning to WWE in 2006 and slowly began to climb the ladder until it was undeniable that he was the hottest star in the company. At Armageddon 2008, Jeff Hardy did the unthinkable by defeating Triple H and Edge in a Triple Threat Match to finally win the WWE title, something which many people perceived that he would never accomplish.
On top of this, he would go on to hold the World Heavyweight Championship on two separate occasions during 2009, during his critically acclaimed summer feud with CM Punk. Their issues were kicked off when Hardy, having just defeated Edge to win the World Heavyweight title in a gruelling Ladder Match, found himself forced to defend his title instantly due to Punk cashing in Money In The Bank.
Punk won the title, and their issues continued on TV and on many PPV events until Jeff exited the company again, in August 2009.
#5 CM Punk
With the benefit of hindsight, it would be very easy to claim that CM Punk always looked like a star and that his multiple World Heavyweight title and WWE title reigns were predictable from the very beginning. However, this simply wasn’t the case.
When Punk arrived, the office genuinely saw nothing in him and was very reluctant to give him any sort of push. Indeed, it is claimed that the only reason Punk was even able to win the ECW title in 2007 was that during the steroids scandal that was developing at the time, it was good PR to have a straight edge champion. He was simply in the right place, at the right time. Chris Benoit was originally supposed to win the ECW title against CM Punk at Vengence 2007, but we all know what happened on that fateful day.
Somewhere down the line, however, WWE started to change their minds. He initially won the World Heavyweight Championship in exciting fashion, back in the days when the novelty of Money In The Bank hadn’t fully worn off yet, cashing in on Edge to the absolute delight of the RAW crowd.
He repeated the feat in the following year, winning MITB for the second consecutive year and proceeding into the aforementioned programme with Jeff Hardy. He took a step up even further in the years that followed, engaging in two more WWE Championship runs that cemented his legacy as the “Best In The World”.
#4 Jinder Mahal
Taking absolutely nothing away from Mahal’s momentous achievement, it is fair to say that Jinder resides on a rostrum alongside the most unexpected WWE Champions of all time. Just a few short months ago, “The Modern Day Maharaja” was languishing at the bottom of the card over on Monday Night RAW.
Suddenly, after the Superstar Shake Up took effect and transferred Mahal to Smackdown Live, his stock began to skyrocket. Becoming the Number 1 contender in surprising fashion after pinning Sami Zayn during a 6-Pack Challenge, he followed this up with a short feud with Randy Orton during which he emerged victorious at Backlash to claim his first WWE title of any description.
The addition of The Singh Brothers (formerly The Bollywood Boyz) to Mahal’s act have made him appear more of a big deal, as their appearances only serve to cast fans minds back to Seth Rollins’ lengthy first WWE Title reign, during which he also had two, undersized guys to deploy as security.
Whatever becomes of Jinder’s reign, he will forever be remembered as once of the most shocking WWE Champions in history.
Also read: 10 unexpected number one contenders for the WWE Championship
#3 Eddie Guerrero
When it comes to shock WWE Championship victories, look no further than Eddie Guerrero. His incredible ascent to finally hold the WWE title came in January 2004, when he won a 15-Man Battle Royale to cement himself as the Number 1 contender.
Brock Lesnar was the man holding the title at the time, and he was every bit as much of the beast he is now, back then. Guerrero was the absolute rank outsider, but in one of the biggest upsets of all time, he shockingly defeated Lesnar at No Way Out to find himself as the WWE Champion heading into WrestleMania 20.
Guerrero pinned Lesnar after delivering a DDT to Lesnar onto the title belt, and then a Frog Splash to send the crowd into a state of pure electricity. The reaction as the ref’s hand striked the mat for the third time was incredible.
That particular event stokes up some highly charged emotions for many, as Guerrero retained his title against Kurt Angle before closing out the show in the ring, celebrating with Chris Benoit, after Benoit had indulged in his own stunning performance to win his first World Heavyweight Championship.
The fact that the image of these two great champions celebrating together in the ring is one that WWE attempts to erase from history, is one that is tragic as much as it is understandable. What can never be erased, however, is the massive impact that Eddie Guerrero had on the wrestling industry, and his against-all-odds WWE Title victory will go a long way towards defining his legacy.
#2 Rey Mysterio
Frequently referred to as “The Biggest Little Man” in the history of WWE, which in itself should tell you all you need to know, regarding how unlikely it was that Rey Mysterio would ever hold a heavyweight title in WWE. Not only did he achieve this, but he did so three times, twice becoming World Heavyweight Champion and winning the WWE title once.
His first run as champion came at WrestleMania 22, after pinning Randy Orton in a Triple Threat Match for the World Heavyweight Championship that also contained Kurt Angle.
This title run, however, whilst somewhat surprising, was somewhat foreshadowed by WWE turning Mysterio and Orton’s feud into a way to transfer fan sympathies over the recent and tragic demise of Eddie Guerrero, onto Mysterio.
A more surprising example of Mysterio holding the top prize in WWE came in 2011, shortly after CM Punk had left the company and taken the title with him. WWE decided to ignore Punk’s claim to the WWE title and simply crown their own champion, and so a tournament was devised.
At a later stage of his career, Rey exceeded expectations by defeating The Miz in the final to win the WWE title. He inexplicably then put his title on the line against John Cena later in the night and was predictably defeated. He never really recovered after this point, with a spate of injuries and suspensions blighting the remainder of his time in WWE.
#1 Vince McMahon
Once more, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Given that we now know the full extent of how large Vince McMahon’s ego is, it would have been foolish for anybody not to believe that he would eventually find a way to put the WWE title on himself. But, at the time, it just was not expected at all.
McMahon defeated Triple H for the WWE title on an episode of Smackdown in 1999, in a move that has gradually come to be seen as indicative of his general nature. He then vacated the title on the next episode of RAW, denying every member of the roster the opportunity to benefit from the rub that would come from defeating Vince McMahon for the WWE Title.
Some people argue that Vince went a step further by placing the ECW title around his waist in 2006. Whilst never technically a top tier WWE title, as the ECW strap was always treated as a lower tier title, it nonetheless was incredibly surprising that McMahon actually had the guts to book himself to hold the same championship that the bloodthirsty likes of Tommy Dreamer, Sandman and Sabu have held.
Not many people would have ever imagined that McMahon would hold either one of the WWE or ECW titles, and he ended up holding both.
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