5 WWE World Heavyweight Champions You Forgot About

#1 Jack Swagger

Jack Swagger: World Heavyweight Championship run was a flop

Jack Swagger was pegged as the next Kurt Angle when he made his debut for WWE under the ECW brand, wherein he quickly became ECW Champion.

Boasting a background in Football and Amateur Wrestling, Swagger was a strong natural athlete and possessed the height and muscular width, WWE owner, Vince McMahon usually demands from his top stars.

Swagger seemed destined for a long and successful headline career in WWE, which appeared to begin when he won the Money in the Bank briefcase at Wrestlemania 26. Swagger then cashed in the contract to become champion at the March 30 Smackdown taping, defeating Chris Jericho.

Swagger's title credentials seemed to be underlined when he cleanly defeated Randy Orton in a sterling Extreme Rules match at the April pay per view show of the same name.

However, for some reason, WWE lost interest in the Swagger project and he lost the belt to Rey Mysterio in June and failed to regain the strap in a rematch at Money in the Bank in July.

From there, Swagger fell down the card and despite some brief respite in early 2013 when he won an Elimination Chamber match to become the number one contender for Alberto Del Rio's World Heavyweight Championship, never did regain the traction that his early WWE career had.

Swagger became a glorified jobber before he asked for (and received) his release from the company in March 2017.

Swagger was little more than a comedy character for so long, that memories of his brief World title run have almost been completely erased.