- 8 months ago
All of these memorable title switches blew up in WWE's faces almost instantly.
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00:00The title change could be the most hallowed part of wrestling.
00:03If you're winning a belt, you're going to feel awesome,
00:05and even though it is predetermined sports, losing one hurts.
00:09It's still real to me, damn it.
00:10WWE, given their history, has often gone totally nuts with these two,
00:14right down to hot-potatoing some championships to the point of madness.
00:17And I tell you, my friends, sometimes it's just a mistake.
00:20So who has fallen foul to such errors?
00:22Well, I am Simon Miller, and please do hit that subscribe button.
00:25It'll make you feel warm and fuzzy in your tum-tum.
00:28Let's find out.
00:29Number 15, Vince McMahon makes himself the WWF champion.
00:33Again, simply due to the law of averages, this was always going to happen.
00:36The Attitude Era and the Monday Night War were so insane on both sides,
00:40they were happy to try anything if it popped a rating,
00:42even if it meant their reasons were wrong.
00:45That means they won for a week.
00:46You have no idea how important it was to the WWF and WCW.
00:50So therefore, on the 16th of September 1999 episode of SmackDown,
00:54Vince McMahon, owner and CEO, and not a wrestler,
00:57beat Triple H for the World Wrestling Federation title.
01:00It's kind of incredible.
01:02Of course, Stone Cold Steve Austin was involved, and this was strange in hindsight.
01:05McMahon was a babyface at the time, and while Stone Cold still hated him,
01:09he hated Triple H more.
01:11Therefore, he threw Vince over the game because, lol,
01:13I suppose it was pretty funny, until you realized what it meant.
01:17Of course, McMahon relinquished it a week later because this was really done just for a TV number.
01:22And yep, Triple H won it back during the six-pack challenge back to the Unforgiven pay-per-view.
01:27So we just did it for the sake of doing it, and that's why it backfired.
01:30You can't change a title like this for ratings alone.
01:33Fans don't like it, especially when it's the promoter winning the thing.
01:37It just feels very silly.
01:39It also diminished the title scene a little bit, but hey,
01:42WWF won that game, so I suppose it was fine.
01:45It also wasn't.
01:46I mean, forums weren't as big as they are today, but they still existed,
01:50and much like now, people lost their minds.
01:53I mean, of course they did.
01:54Vince McMahon for seven days was the WWF champion.
01:58Number 14, Apollo Crews is doomed.
02:00Apollo Crews winning the Intercontinental title was wonderful.
02:03If anybody deserved a proper push, it was him.
02:05I mean, say what you want about the guy, but he was never given a proper shot.
02:09You can't sink if you're not allowed to swim first.
02:11So when he won the big belt against Big E at WrestleMania 37, it felt exciting.
02:15The fact that he and Big E could feud over this as well felt promising.
02:19I mean, if they were given enough room, they could have been the Gunther before Gunther,
02:22rehabbing a championship, and finally making it feel good again.
02:26But nope.
02:27Instead, Vince McMahon came up with one of the worst gimmicks of modern times.
02:31It was already difficult, as Apollo had been out with General Aziz
02:34and told us he was now a Nigerian king.
02:37I'm not joking.
02:38That's what we did.
02:39And Crews even had to put on an accent.
02:42In case you don't know, this was 2021.
02:44It was also booked terribly, as the IC title wasn't defended on a pay-per-view for four
02:49months, when Apollo randomly lost it to Shinsuke Nakamura on SmackDown.
02:53So what were we really doing, apart from continuing to marginalize the IC title?
02:57It begged the question why we even bothered.
02:59Poor Apollo Crews couldn't even get his run over either, because we were all scratching
03:03our heads as to what was happening.
03:05Then got even worse too.
03:06Turned out Crews didn't want to do this at all, and it was forced upon him.
03:10So yeah, don't do that.
03:12Ruined it all.
03:13And look, is anybody talking about it today apart from me?
03:16No?
03:16There's a reason for it.
03:18Number 13, Edge and Chris Jericho go for five seconds.
03:21The Bash, which is an awful name for a pay-per-view.
03:24But on the 2009 version, Chris Jericho and Edge won the brand new unified tag team championships.
03:30They were a Canadian super duo.
03:32They beat the clones on Legacy, and given their star power, this felt like WWE was finally
03:36going to go big with the tag division, and it took like 29 years.
03:39Of course, we were wrong, but we're always flipping wrong.
03:43Now, to be fair, this was life getting in the way, because Edge suffered an Achilles injury,
03:47so Jericho then decided he would team with the Big Show.
03:50That's when they called themselves Jerry Show, and they did that thing when they merged their
03:54themes together.
03:55That is something I do not like.
03:57It gives me nightmares.
03:58Now, actually, they were pretty good as a team, but they were fighting an uphill battle.
04:02Fans wanted to see the superstar team of Chris and Edge, and instead, we got that for like
04:06three weeks, when months' worth of plans blew up in WWE's face.
04:11I mean, they only worked a trio of matches, one of which was the title win, and what's
04:14worse, number three in that run was against CM Punk and Jeff Hardy.
04:18That is a massive team as well, and if that was the plan, I tell you, what a shame this
04:23would have ruled.
04:24Number 12, The Unholy Union have a hometown moment.
04:27In hindsight, this is even sadder, because why didn't we just give things a go?
04:31Because the idea was nice.
04:33At Clash of the Castle, two local heroes, Alba Farr and Isla Dorn, won the Women's Tag
04:37Team Championships from Bianca Blair and Shay Cargill, as Shayna Baszler and Zoe Stark
04:42looked on.
04:43Crowd went nuts because of course they did.
04:45Glasgow, Scotland was happy for their brethren.
04:47The issue was WWE did that thing they often do with the Women's Tag Team titles, which
04:52was have them vanish off TV right afterwards.
04:55Isla and Alba didn't get to stamp themselves on these belts at all, and come August, only two
05:00months later, they dropped them back to Bianca and Jade, and in the meantime, honestly, they
05:05did nothing.
05:06They were meant to be witches, so promised to curse any potential challengers, but instead
05:10did their own disappearing act.
05:11But the moment of this night was sullied because it was done just to do it.
05:15I guess that is fine.
05:16It was really cool.
05:17But we could have used this as a proper building block, and we just didn't.
05:21Gonna say those three words again.
05:23It is such a shame.
05:24Number 11, Deborah wins a title by losing.
05:26Good old wrestling, because it can always be relied upon to come up with something bizarre.
05:31We go all the way back to the 10th of May 1999 Raw, when Deborah won the women's title
05:36from Sable.
05:37The issue was, technically she lost.
05:39Given the time frame, this was an evening gown match, and yeah, not good.
05:43If you don't know, the rules are having to strip your opponent down to her underwear,
05:47and even though Sable did that, then Commissioner Shawn Michaels walked out and said, well,
05:52Deborah is the real winner, because we got to see her without her clothes.
05:56This was so bad.
05:58I mean, it was dreadful, to be honest.
05:59It was official, however, and the silly part is that Deborah wasn't even really a wrestler.
06:03Was just thrown into this position, and a month later, she dropped the belt to ivory in a match
06:07that went about two minutes tops.
06:09It sort of summed up how the WWF saw women's wrestling in the late 90s.
06:12It was mad to take the thing off Sable, too, because say what you want, she was a huge draw.
06:17Helped ratings in an era where they were everything.
06:19I mean, somebody should have helped her learn the finer details, but still, over is over.
06:24No one actually looks back on this with glee, though.
06:27It's just bad.
06:28Really, really bad.
06:29Number 10, WWE belts, a 10-year-old kid.
06:32So this one, my friends, did not backfire.
06:35I will fight you on this.
06:36Nicholas becoming one half of the WWE Tag Team Champions at WrestleMania 34 was wonderful.
06:41Proper goofy wrestling for life, and Braun Strowman sold this like he conquered the world.
06:46I loved it.
06:47The whole thing was a farce anyway, because Braun decided he would fight the bar for the
06:50gold by himself, when he was told, no, you dingus, you have to have a partner.
06:54So before the match, he literally went into the crowd and chose a child.
06:59I mean, surely that's a crime.
07:00Sheamus and Cesaro totally understood the assignment, too, and made this even more fun.
07:05And it got better on Raw.
07:06Nick relinquished his title, because he had to go back to school.
07:10And yes, it's stupid, silly even, ridiculous, but life is hard, man.
07:15Give me more of this when the time is right.
07:17Still makes me laugh out loud.
07:18In defense of it, too, the WWE wasn't treating the tag belts as anything serious back then,
07:23anyway.
07:23Vince McMahon clearly wasn't into the division, and while that wasn't good, if you're going
07:27to be entertaining, I'll take it.
07:29Just long-term storytelling, really.
07:31One day, Nick will return for revenge.
07:34He can have a banger against Sheamus.
07:36Number 9, Alberto Del Rio ends the summer of punk.
07:39So this was really bad, and was an early sneak peek that WWE management and the crowd
07:43were not on the same page.
07:45It felt like we were actively booking against what they wanted.
07:48During the summer of 2011, though, CM Punk had dropped his pipe bomb and won the WWE title
07:53against John Cena at Money in the Bank.
07:55The noise was justified, and even though he was brought back way too early, the story
07:59was good.
08:00It also meant punk versus Cena at SummerSlam.
08:02Everybody loved that.
08:04A forever feud.
08:04Punk eventually beat the GOAT, too, when, yes, Alberto Del Rio ran down and
08:09cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase, and he was successful.
08:12Meaning at the end of the night, CM Punk was beltless, and Del Rio wasn't.
08:16Trust me, I tell ya, nobody wanted this.
08:19This was also after the Kevin Nash fiasco, which really did muddy the waters even more.
08:23Still can't believe this is what we chose to do with Punk, and it must tie into why he
08:27got pissed off eventually.
08:29It was like anti-booking.
08:30If he wasn't as over as he was, who knows where it ends?
08:34Go back and try and figure out the CM Triple H Nash story, too.
08:37It's proper 2 plus 2 equals potato stuff.
08:40I would say WWE dropped the ball here.
08:42It should have been so easy, and instead the audience wasn't into any of it.
08:46All you can say is whoops.
08:48Number 8.
08:49Rocky sucks with the IC title.
08:50I mean, knowing what we know now, of course the Rock should have been pushed hard.
08:54Did alright, didn't he?
08:55The problem was, when he was Rocky Maivia in February 1997 winning the Intercontinental
09:00title, well, it was just way too soon.
09:02Fans didn't want this.
09:04They didn't even know who the guy was.
09:06Vince McMahon then made it worse because he told Dwayne Johnson to smile through all
09:09this, and while it may have worked in the 80s, this was no longer that time.
09:13So when he randomly beat Triple H on a Thursday Raw, of all things, for that championship,
09:17yeah, fans felt like he was being pushed down their throats.
09:20It led to the now infamous Die, Rocky Die, and Rocky Sucks chant, so by April he dropped
09:24his title to Owen Hart.
09:26Sounds a little bit terrible to say, but a knee injury Rocky suffered was actually a
09:30benefit, because it meant we had time to think about this, and yep, he was brought back as
09:35a heel, and the rest is history.
09:37At one point McMahon was just going to Roman Reigns this guy because he knew best, and
09:41it's why the Roman thing was so mad to begin with.
09:43Vince had a template 18 years prior, and he just ignored it with the big dog.
09:48Surprise, surprise, when Reigns finally went bad guy, the same thing happened, but yeah.
09:52The crowd did not like Maya Veer being the Intercontinental Champion, although it did
09:56work out long term, he is now one of the biggest celebrities in the world.
10:00Number 7, Charlotte Flair's weird babyface turn.
10:03SummerSlam 2018, Charlotte Flair bested both Becky Lynch and Carmella, and won the old
10:08SmackDown Women's title.
10:10It was meant to underline her big babyface run, but you know what happened.
10:13The fans decided no.
10:15This wasn't anything to do with Flair either, but WWE also used this period to make Becky
10:20Lynch a heel, and nobody bought that.
10:23The foundations of her villainy was that the fans never supported her, and that was so
10:27outlandish nobody took it seriously.
10:30Everybody had always wanted Becky to get more opportunities.
10:32Fans were so annoyed WWE didn't do this, they used this moment to rebel.
10:37You can get Lynch to say whatever you want, but we're going to cheer her and tell her she
10:40rocks.
10:41Whoops.
10:41It all led to Becky becoming the man, and by proxy, Flair had to go heel.
10:45So I don't think there was a mad revolt that Charlotte won the title, but the aftermath
10:48was so ridiculous that, yeah, it backfired badly, it created a chain of events WWE did
10:54not want.
10:55Turns out it was the right place and right time, however, because Lynch knew what to do.
10:59She used all of this to become the biggest star in WWE, and still has that magic today.
11:04Rode the wave and then some, so it goes to show, maybe sometimes you should listen to
11:08the audience, they could just be telling you what you need to know anyway.
11:11Number 6, Kane beat Steve Austin.
11:14So I'm not sure if this one entirely backfired, to be honest, others have told me I'm wrong,
11:18but Kane beating Steve Austin in the first blood match of the 1998 King of the Ring was
11:22done for one reason, ratings.
11:24This period was all about Nitro vs Raw, so Vince McMahon decided a good way to swing the
11:29numbers in his direction for a week was to dethrone Stone Cold at the pay-per-view, and
11:34then do the rematch 24 hours later.
11:36Austin was so damn over he could take it, and yeah, all of this was accurate.
11:40Steve whooped Kane's ass on that night to get his title back, and it caused quite a
11:44stir.
11:44I think the backfired part came with the big red machine himself.
11:48He was so dominant in this period, seeing him lose the WWF Championship within a day, well,
11:53it wasn't great for his allure.
11:55He was fine because of course he went on to have a 20-year run, basically, but there is
11:58a vibe of sacrificing the gimmick in the sake of kicking WCW's butt.
12:02Nowadays, people even forget the title match happened on that pay-per-view, given it was also
12:07the night of the Hell in a Cell contest between The Undertaker and Mankind.
12:10Mick Foley still ran out during that Austin main event too, and man, we should talk about
12:15that more.
12:15It's insane, but what a warrior he was.
12:18I mean, you literally couldn't stop him.
12:20Number 5, Shawn Michaels makes a mistake.
12:22February 1997.
12:24Monday Night Raw happened in Germany, of all places, and it was a mad time for the WWF, but
12:29it did see Owen Hart and the British Bulldog go at it for the new European title.
12:33The match was great, and Davey Boy Smith won, and it was a lovely moment.
12:37Jump forward to September, and WWF were now running pay-per-views in the UK, including
12:41the one-night-only event.
12:43Given the crowd, Bulldog was pitted against Shawn Michaels with the European belt on the
12:47line, and because this was all agreed ahead of time, it was going to be Davey Boy's night.
12:51Therefore, he dedicated the match to his sister, who was dying of cancer.
12:56That's true as well.
12:57Of course, as we'd soon learn, the Heartbreak Kid had gone to Vince McMahon and got the finish
13:01changed.
13:02This was really bad.
13:03He didn't need the title anyway, because he was a superstar by this point, and it was
13:07mostly done to cause a fuss.
13:09I mean, his next defense for this championship was a joke contest with Triple H. That is funny,
13:14but less so when you walk the entire timeline.
13:17This was wrestling politics gone wrong.
13:19It didn't serve anyone.
13:20It hurt Bulldog as well, just because as a babyface, you can't promise things and
13:24then not follow through.
13:25Kids especially get upset.
13:27They believed in you.
13:28It wasn't his fault when the WWF was just letting the inmates run the asylum, but a
13:32bad move is a bad move.
13:34Number 4.
13:35Goldberg KOs KO
13:36This was such an error, and the way it was done.
13:39It was so lame, and I love Bill Goldberg, but bad is bad.
13:43It all kicked off after Billy was involved in the WWE 2K video game, and because the fans
13:47loved it so much, it led to an actual 2016 Survivor Series match against Brock Lesnar.
13:52That ruled, we did everything right.
13:54It also rehabbed Goldberg as his first WWE run was terrible, and Vince McMahon must have
13:59loved it.
14:00Come Fastlane 2017, Goldberg was booked in a world title match with Kevin Owens.
14:05Now the flub, what are we going to get out of this?
14:07Well, as Kevin had just fallen out with best friend Chris Jericho, Jericho returned to
14:11WWE and caused the distraction, allowing Bill to spear Owens, and honestly, it was over
14:16in 22 seconds.
14:1922.
14:19Now I do get it as well, it's Goldberg, but nobody wanted to see Kevin Owens of all
14:24people get murked like this.
14:26It was mostly due to the fact Vince McMahon wanted Brock vs Goldberg 3 at WrestleMania 33,
14:30and yeah, that match ruled, but it would have ruled without a belt too.
14:34Owens and Jericho also got put in the second match, which was not ideal.
14:38So yeah, all of this was bad, and not what the audience wanted at the time.
14:42Nowadays, I think we can all agree Kevin and Chris for a championship at that mania would
14:46have been way better, and helped both of them, instead we sort of left them in no man's
14:50land, and they got blamed by management too.
14:53I mean, no wonder soon after Chris Jericho left.
14:56Number 3, Goldberg squashes the fiend.
14:58For the universal title again, and really, it's a copy and paste job.
15:02I do want to point out I don't blame Goldberg for this.
15:04Unless you're Bryan Danielson, nobody says no to winning in wrestling, but it was just the
15:08same mistake two years later.
15:10And, because, yep, Vince McMahon wanted Bill vs Rome in a mania.
15:15Oops, we did it again.
15:16Britney was right.
15:17Bray Wyatt also deserved a proper title run, especially after the debacle that was Hell
15:21in a Cell a few months before this.
15:23That match was such a disaster, we had to turn Seth Rollins' heel, and while the fiend
15:27championship reign was meant to be a make-good, he then lost it on the 27th of February 2020.
15:33He only won the thing on October 31st.
15:35I suppose you could argue that's a decent amount of time, but what hurt, after ruining
15:39Bray Wyatt Eater of Worlds by never allowing him to have any momentum, we went and did
15:44the same thing with the fiend.
15:46He was meant to be a spooky-wookie magician, and this just ended that.
15:49He was wrecked in short order, before going on to be a strange man as opposed to a threat.
15:54Fans didn't like it either, which again was the main issue.
15:58Only one human wanted this, and pushing Wyatt aside for the 56th time was frustrating.
16:02This also came a year after the Goldberg-Undertaker match, which did not help.
16:06It was a bad time for WWE.
16:09Number two, Jinder Mahal wins the WWE title.
16:12We could talk about this for days because it was a misstep, but not for the obvious reason.
16:16Jinder Mahal could have won the WWE title.
16:19Why the flub not?
16:20Wrestling never ends, so doing new things here and there is really important.
16:24The clue is right there, though.
16:26It's a forever sport that has weekly television, so you don't need to rush.
16:29Somebody forgot that with Jinder, and he went from an opening match dude to the champion
16:34in three weeks.
16:35It was incredible to see.
16:36This ties into the backfire part because the audience just did not accept it.
16:41Nobody could get their head around Mahal being thrown into this spot from nowhere, even more
16:45so as a story could have easily been worked in that would have served all masters.
16:49He only held it for 170 days, and the whole time people were talking about how bizarre this
16:53was, even though Mahal did update his presentation and do a lot of fun work with the Bollywood
16:58Boys.
16:59Shinsuke Nakamura feud was also tiptoeing into offensive territory, and eventually Vince
17:04McMahon just gave up.
17:06The rumor was he did this to try and make inroads with the Indian market, but there's
17:09far better ways than this.
17:11Namely, why don't you allow Mahal to become a bigger star in the first place?
17:14It would have been more than fine.
17:16He also lost the belt from nowhere, which did not help.
17:19It was like we didn't actually want this to work at all.
17:21Number one, Sergeant Slaughter is not the guy.
17:24Anyway, at this time, when he was the All-American Army dude, there was certainly room to make
17:28him the champion, but in 1991, sheesh, the WWF went crazy and made him a Gulf War sympathizer
17:35in the middle of the Gulf War.
17:37I still can't get over this.
17:39Wrestling is meant to be a distraction.
17:40He was also the guy to defeat the Ultimate Warrior who has been crowned as the new face
17:43of WWE following WrestleMania 6.
17:46Yeah, that wasn't working either.
17:48It's why we did all of the above so at Mania 7 we could get the title back on Hulk Hogan,
17:53but seeing Sarge lean into an actual conflict was just distasteful.
17:57Fans didn't like it either, which is why the pay-per-view moved from the LA Memorial
18:00Coliseum to a sports center down the road.
18:03The WWF just could not generate interest in this.
18:06It made no sense either as Slaughter was less over than Warrior at this point, because the
18:10audience couldn't believe this was a path we'd chosen to take.
18:13It all felt like a massive reset, as opposed to Vince McMahon believing in his new vision,
18:17something he'd do again at WrestleMania 9.
18:20We all know what happened then.
18:21Even if we tried to find another face to run the place, I think that would have been way
18:25preferred.
18:26This was not good, and no wonder Sarge didn't want to do this.
18:30If you sum it all up, it was a terrible idea.
18:33Know of any other title changes that instantly backfired?
18:35Maybe you're numerous people.
18:36Let us know in the comments below.
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18:42as much as you can.
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18:46life, but otherwise, my friends, take care of yourself, and I will talk to you again on
18:50the next one.
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