To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man, but in this instance “the man” isn’t exactly up there with the Shawn Michaels and Ric Flairs of the world. After bringing the Big Gold Belt design over to WWE in 2003, the company decided to bill the World Heavyweight Championship as the premier title in the company – even above the WWE Championship.
For a long time, it stayed that way, with the likes of Triple H, The Undertaker and Batista taking the strap to unprecedented heights of success and popularity. Unfortunately as the years went on, things started to go progressively downhill and before you could even say “title change” the belt was merged together with the WWE Title and eventually retired.
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So what was the catalyst behind the Universal Championship’s predecessor fading into the distance? In truth a lot of things, with one of them being that there wasn’t really any need to have two World Titles in the company anymore. Then again, another big reason could also be because some of the champions that held the belt towards the end of its run didn’t really make too much of an impact.
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With that being said, here are the five world World Heavyweight Champions in WWE history.
#5 Alberto Del Rio
It was his destiny to win the World Heavyweight Championship, and perhaps if he’d captured it during his feud with Edge in 2011 then he wouldn’t be on this list. Unfortunately, WWE decided to wait before pulling the trigger on making Del Rio SmackDown’s top star, and because of that his credibility as champion seriously suffered.
Plus, it didn’t help that during his championship reign he was involved in feuds that were so unbelievably dull that it’s almost unfathomable to think that they were allowed to air. It’s no coincidence that Alberto was the last long-term holder of the belt, and within a few months of him dropping it to Cena, the strap was eventually retired.
Onto a man Alberto knows quite well...
#4 Jack Swagger
On his day Jack Swagger was an extremely capable wrestler who could put on some fairly solid matches. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to being a World Heavyweight Champion than that, which is something that WWE didn’t take into consideration when they thrust ‘The Real American’ into that position just a few nights removed from WrestleMania 26.
Swagger was dull, lethargic and never really proved himself to be a dominant champion. He ended up dropping the belt to none other than Rey Mysterio, closing the book on a pretty diabolical chapter in the title’s history. Who knows, perhaps if he’d have stayed off the marijuana in 2013 he could have re-written his story.
#3 Dolph Ziggler
When Dolph Ziggler cashed in his Money in the Bank contract the night after WrestleMania 29, it was a moment unlike any other. ‘The Show Off’ had finally reached the mountain top after years of struggling to get there, and he seemed destined to take the WHC forward into a successful new era.
Alas, that didn’t occur, as Dolph suffered a bad concussion not long after winning the title. Then, after returning to face Del Rio for the belt, he lost it in what was an extremely one-sided affair. And that one hour reign with the title when it was handed to him by Vickie Guerrero just doesn’t count whatsoever. Got it?
#2 The Great Khali
When The Great Khali first stepped foot in a WWE ring, many fans thought that we were seeing the birth of professional wrestling’s next great monster heel. Unfortunately, we’d soon find out that the seven-foot giant had quite the flaw in his persona, and that was that he couldn’t actually wrestle very well whatsoever.
So naturally, they made him World Heavyweight Champion, following which he went on to have dull match after dull match with the likes of Batista before losing the belt back to The Animal a few months later.
To call the run disappointing would be an understatement, with Khali eventually going on to become The Punjabi Playboy. Great stuff.
How can you not love this man?
#1 Rey Mysterio
For all the injuries and doubters that surrounded him, Rey Mysterio actually ended up having an incredibly successful career with WWE. He was Intercontinental Champion, WWE Champion for a night and even had two reigns with the World Heavyweight Championship. Yup, you heard it right, little Rey Mysterio was the World HEAVYWEIGHT Champion.
It seemed like a run that was destined to fail despite how enjoyable his build to the victory was, with Mysterio being booked to look weaker than any World Champion in the history of the company.
He’d lose to a big guy after big guy before barely holding onto the title, eventually losing the belt to none other than King Booker.
