Generally speaking, professional wrestling titles change hands when a challenger pins the champion or gets the champion to tap out, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, the belt moves from one man to another without the champion actually losing.
Now, within the script, champions who lose in Triple Threat matches or other such stipulations claim to have never lost, but that could be perceived as a technicality. Here are eight times where WWE belts changed hands when the champion didn’t actually take a loss at all.
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Mr. Perfect takes advantage
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When the Ultimate Warrior toppled Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania 6, it created a conundrum. Due to the rules of the company at that time, no wrestler could hold more than one title at once, so Warrior had to drop his Intercontinental Championship.
That led to a tournament to crown a new Intercontinental Champion, and Mr. Perfect made the best of it. He took down Tito Santana for the belt on an episode of WWF Superstars and held on to it for the next 126 days.
Four is Hart’s magic number
Injuries obviously happen in professional wrestling, and perhaps no one knows that better than Shawn Michaels. He lost a few years of his career to injury, and he also had to forfeit his WWF Championship in 1997 due to a knee injury.
But where one man loses a chance, another man gains one, and that man was Bret Hart. The vacated title was put on the line in a Final Four match at In Your House 13 between Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker and Vader. The match was an over-the-top-rope elimination match, and Hart capitalized on a distraciton from Austin to eliminate Undertaker and bring home his fourth WWF title.
Dangerous Games
During the Attitude Era, the WWE was not afraid of a wacky finish, and that came to fruition in 1998, when a triple threat match for the WWF Championship at Breakdown: In Your House ended in a double pin by Undertaker and Kane on Stone Cold Steve Austin. Then a match between the two brothers ended in a no-contest when Austin got in the way.
That left the vacated belt on the line in a Dangerous Games tournament that wrapped up with a final match between The Rock and Mankind at Survivor Series. The Rock won with help from the McMahons to become Corporate champion, and Austin went off.
McMahon coughs it up
In September 1999, Vince McMahon managed to top Triple H in a Smackdown match officiated by none other than his son, Shane McMahon, to become WWF Champion. Due to rules in place at the time regarding his involvement, he had to vacate the title not long after that.
To determine a new champion, Triple H, Kane, The Rock, Mankind, Big Show and the British Bulldog squared off in a Six-Pack Challenge match at Unforgiven. After a ton of interference and other wacky happenings, Triple H managed to pin British Bulldog for the win thanks to a chair shot from Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Booker T becomes U.S. champ
John Cena has been a top babyface for most of his career, often pandering to the crowd and acting like the ultimate hero. But in 2004, an act of brutality cost him a championship very early in his WWE career after he attacked Kurt Angle and had to vacate the United States title.
Cena was involved in the ensuing eight-way elimination match for the belt on Smackdown, but he was just another challenger since he didn’t actually have the belt anymore. Booker T came out on top to add another championship to a career that saw him win an assortment of titles across multiple major promotions.
Cena wins after Bryan goes down
Daniel Bryan electrified the pro wrestling world when he became the WWE’s top champion at WrestleMania XXX by first knocking off Triple H and then Randy Orton and Batista. That excitement hit a wall within the next few weeks, though, when a neck injury forced Bryan to forfeit his title.
To crown a new champion, the belts – then carried separately as the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight title – were put up in a ladder match between John Cena, Roman Reigns, Alberto Del Rio, Kane, Sheamus, Bray Wyatt, Cesaro and Randy Orton. Cena came out on top for another world title reign.
Bryan’s pain, Ryback’s gain
Unfortunately for Daniel Bryan and his fans, he wasn’t through vacating titles. After taking home the Intercontinental Championship from a ladder match at WrestleMania 31, concussion issues caused him to forfeit the title and eventually retire.
Before that, though, his vacant title was put on the line in an Elimination Chamber match at a pay-per-view by the same name in May 2015. The match involved Ryback, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, Mark Henry, Wade Barrett and R-Truth, and despite rumors that Sheamus was the choice to win the match, Ryback took home the belt for his first reign as Intercontinental Champion.
Reigns’ first reign
Injuries have been a huge issue for the WWE in the last year or so, even taking down World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins in November of 2015. The champ sustained a major knee injury at a live event, which led to the company’s top belt being vacated.
To crown a new champion, 16 wrestlers were booked into a tournament that was contested on Raw, Smackdown and eventually Survivor Series, where Roman Reigns met Dean Ambrose in the championship match. Reigns came out as the champion, but after a confrontation with Triple H, Sheamus cashed in a Money in the Bank contract and took the title away from him.
