The Complete History of the WWE Championship - Part 20

Bray Wyatt (February 12, 2017 - April 2, 2017)

Bray Wyatt: Won the WWE Championship two years too late at Elimination Chamber 2017

When WWE announced the six participants in the 2017 Elimination Chamber, nobody expected Bray Wyatt to walk out of the brutal structure as the new WWE Champion.

The competition was stiff. The defending champion was John Cena, who had only lifted the belt two weeks earlier from AJ Styles at the 2017 Royal Rumble. Also featured in the match were former WWE Champions Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles and The Miz plus rising star, Baron Corbin. Wyatt, in contrast was a star on the decline.

Wyatt, had been one of WWE's breakout stars in 2013, but a damaging feud with Cena, in which he was repeatedly and soundly beaten, was followed up by lacklustre feuds with the likes of Ambrose, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton and Roman Reigns to name a few. Wyatt's earlier career promise had been long extinguished prior to February 2017.

It was a colossal shock then, when Wyatt pinned Styles and Cena to win his first World Championship.

Fan's hopes that this was the beginning of a renewed push were quickly dashed when Wyatt dropped the title less than two months later in a mediocre battle with 2017 Royal Rumble winner, Orton at WrestleMania.

Wyatt's character returned to mid-card hell until he was completely repackaged as The Fiend in spring 2019, wherein his character underwent a startling transformation and finally became a player once again. His push renewed, he became Universal Champion when he downed Seth Rollins at Crown Jewel on October 31, 2019.