5 Greatest World Heavyweight Championship Reigns In WWE history

#3 Chris Jericho (2008)

This was sneaky heel Jericho at his best.

At seven weeks, this reign is the shortest on this list. However, Chris Jericho in 2008 was out of this world. His sublime character work has bumped this relatively short world title run in the top 3. Jericho was utterly destroyed in his Unsanctioned Match against Shawn Michaels at Unforgiven, seemingly ending this vicious feud. However, later in the night, World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk got attacked by Randy Orton and was deemed unable to compete in the main event Scramble match for the world title. This led to a battered and limping Chris Jericho taking Punk's place.

He would steal the victory in the final seconds of this match and somehow got hold of the World Heavyweight title. The main reason why this reign was so good was the legendary Ladder Match at No Mercy 2008 between Jericho and Michaels, a truly classic match. The future New Japan star would end up dropping the belt to Batista at Cyber Sunday, but not before he had a memorable few weeks with the belt. He would hold the World Heavyweight Championship two other times, but none stood out like this one.

This was arguably Jericho's best world title reign in WWE.