A Look at Ten Wrestlers Who Should of Probably Held a World Title

[Travicity]

The goal of being in professional wrestling is to be a World Champion. Although wrestling is obviously a worked business, being a World Champion means that you are (theoretically, at least) recognized as being among the elite in the business and, perhaps more importantly to some, means a lot more money. Unfortunately, there are guys out there who have been great at what they do, have become wildly successful in many ways, and maybe have even headlined PPVs or drawn tons of money, but have never been World Champion.

With that in mind, here is my completely subjective list of ten wrestlers who never won a World Title, but probably should have.

Ted Dibiase

Ted Dibiase was in the main event scene from the moment he walked into the WWF in the late 80s. In fact, one of his first storylines had him trying to buy the WWF World Title, a storyline which would eventually lead to the title being vacated and put on the line in a tournament at Wrestlemania 4. The original plan for the tournament actually had Dibiase going over and winning the WWF Title, but that ended up being changed and Randy Savage was given the title instead for political reasons. Dibiase continued to feud with Savage and Hulk Hogan throughout the summer, but never got close to the WWF Title again. In a way, it's kind of surprising that Dibiase never got to wear the WWF Title, because the Million Dollar Man character was largely based on how Vince McMahon envisioned himself as a wrestler. Vince put a lot of money into Dibiase so he could literally live the gimmick, and he did feud with all the top babyfaces in the company, including Hogan, Savage, Jake Roberts, and the Ultimate Warrior. Dibiase was eventually given a long run with the WWF Tag Team Title late in his WWF career, a run which saw him co-main event Wrestlemania 9, but a World Title run was never to be.

Barry Windham

This one actually depends on what you consider a World Title, because Windham did hold the NWA Title for several months in 1993, but by that point it was treated as a secondary title in WCW, and the NWA as a sanctioning body was more or less defunct. Windham was never truly THE top guy in the company, and it's a shame because he was pegged from the beginning as a surefire, can't miss prospect. He was big, tall, good looking and athletic, but could also move and come off the top rope like a light heavyweight. He was having awesome matches on a regular basis, and had a series of matches with Ric Flair in 1987 that Flair would usually escape by the skin of his teeth, making it seem like Windham would be the champion sooner rather than later. He would go on to hold every single title in WCW: the US, TV, World Tag Team, and NWA Titles, but he never got a chance to be the top dog. Midway through 1993, Windham's knees has deteriorated to the point that he would need to take a significant amount of time away from the business, and that hiatus pretty much marked the end of Windham's career as a serious contender. He would pop up at various times in the WWF and WCW over the next seven or eight years, but his days as a World Title contender were now far behind him.

Rick Rude

Another guy who held a "World Title" that wasn't really a World Title, Rude held the WCW International World Title from late 1993 to mid 1994, but like the NWA Title during Barry Windham's reign, the International Title was really a secondary title at best. Rude was another guy who had all the tools, and it's been said many times that he was way ahead of his time in terms of his look and persona, and it's absolutely true. He had it all: the look, the attitude, and the wrestling ability, and by the early 90s in WCW, he had undeniably elevated his game and was a bonafide main eventer. I have to think that if his career had lasted a few years longer, he probably would have gotten that World Title run but, much like Windham, his career was cut short due to injury when he hurt his neck during a match in Japan in 1994. Rude would have been a perfect fit for the Monday Night Wars, but even though he had returned to the business and was a part of major heel stables in all three companies, he never had the impact he could have had if he were in the ring. He did finally begin training for a comeback in 1999, but unfortunately passed away later that year.

Roddy Piper

Piper never became a World Champion, but the truth is that a big part of that was because he didn't need the title to draw. His feud with Hulk Hogan in the mid 80s drew huge amounts of money for the WWF and both were part of the main event of the first Wrestlemania, and it was this feud that has forever given Piper credibility as being on Hogan's level. In much the same way as Mr. McMahon helped Steve Austin get to a level he may not have attained on his own and helped launch the success of the Attitude Era in the 90s, Roddy Piper was the evil heel that Hulk Hogan needed to become the biggest babyface star of the 80s and lead the WWF to the prosperity it enjoyed in that decade. Piper also showed throughout his career that he could be successful as a babyface as well as a heel, and there were points during his feuds with Hogan and Ric Flair that it could have even made sense if they had decided to give Piper the strap. It never happened, and not being a World Champion is one of the few regrets Piper has said that he has about his career.

Davey Boy Smith

Maybe a bit of a dark horse, but I think Davey Boy could have worked as at least a short term WWF Champion in the mid 90s. In fact, his feud with Diesel in 1995 would have been the perfect time to do it because Diesel was flopping big time as champion, and I think an ideal scenario would have been to have Davey Boy beat Diesel for the title, hold it for 2-3 months, and build to a Davey Boy-Bret Hart rematch from their match at Summerslam 92, three years in the making. Instead they had the Davey Boy-Diesel match go to a DQ finish, had Bret beat Diesel for the title the following month, then do the Bret-Davey Boy match with very little build on a meaningless PPV a month later that was completely forgotten about the next day. The only other time he was even in a serious program for the title was against Shawn Michaels in 1996, and nobody took him seriously as a title threat at that point. I may be in the minority in this, but I think Davey Boy would have made a better World Champion than Owen because I think he would have been more believable beating guys like Diesel, Bret, and Razor Ramon, but in the end neither of them got to show us one way or the other.

The Great Muta

When the Great Muta came to the NWA in 1989, he was unlike anything most American fans had ever seen before. While the Japanese style and high flying moves became much more commonplace about a decade later, nobody was doing moonsaults in 1989, so when Muta started pulling that out he blew people's minds. He was also portrayed as a dangerous martial artist and started steamrolling over everyone in his path, including Sting en route to becoming the TV Champion. Although they're obviously different types of characters, he was a lot like the Undertaker in the way he came in and immediately established himself as somebody who could, and probably would, beat anyone he faced and nobody could stop him. I think if they did an angle where they had Muta slaughter Ric Flair in five minutes and win the NWA World Title, he could have been HUGE as a monster heel champion, and you could have him turn on Terry Funk and destroy him, Ricky Steamboat, and every other top babyface while building to a rematch where Flair battled the odds to regain the title in much the same kind of match as he had with Vader at Starrcade 93. In fact, they probably could have pulled the trigger on Muta as champion at any time for most of the early 90s and made it work, because Muta was still getting solid reactions from the crowd and was having good to great matches whenever he did appear. For the sake of completion, yes, he did end up winning the NWA Title in 1993 but, as we established earlier, the NWA Title meant nothing then.

Jake Roberts

One of several babyfaces in the WWF in the 80s and early 90s that probably would have held the top title in any company that didn't have Hulk Hogan, Jake Roberts was probably at the top of the heap. Forget Ric Flair, Terry Funk, Paul E., Dusty, Hogan, Vince McMahon, Rock, Foley, and whoever else you want to throw at me: there has quite simply never been a better promo in this business than Jake Roberts. Did he have a great physique? No. Was he a workrate machine? Definitely not. But for his shortcomings, he was an expert at telling a story with whatever he did, in his promos, in his matches, in his angles, and was a master at adding all the subtle little touches that made what he did look that much more real. Whether it was the way he sold being sprayed in the face with Arrogance by Rick Martel, his anger over having his neck broken by Ted Dibiase, running out of the back with shampoo in his hair to attack Rick Rude for disrespecting his wife, and any of a few dozen other examples, Jake Roberts understood the art of storytelling like no other. And for as good of a babyface as he portrayed during the early WWF years and for all the sympathy he got while feuding with Martel, Dibiase, the Honky Tonk Man, Rick Rude, and others, he then flipped the switch in 1991 when he feuded with Randy Savage and became one of the most truly despicable and evil heels in the history of the business. For as much as you wanted to get behind him and see him deliver justice to the evil heels when he was a babyface, he absolutely made you hate him by doing truly sick and twisted things like having his cobra bite Savage and, probably above all else, punching Elizabeth in the face, something which was just not done in wrestling at that time. Granted, his personal issues probably would have derailed him sooner or later, but if you take Hogan out of the equation, Jake was every bit as deserving as Savage and Dibiase of holding that World Title.

Dustin Rhodes/Goldust

Go ahead and laugh all you want, but there were a couple of times when Dustin Rhodes, Goldust, or whatever you want to call him, was in that top mix. Pretty much from the moment he came to WCW, he was being talked about as a future World Champion, and he worked his way up through the World Tag Team Title and US Title levels, and by 1994 seemed within a year or so of getting that shot with the World Title before Hulk Hogan came in and all the young guys that WCW had spent years grooming were cast aside in favor of Hogan's buddies from the WWF. A year later, he went to the WWF as Goldust and immediately became a highly controversial and heavily featured and pushed star. The problem with the Goldust run was that it came probably 2-3 years too early, because the WWF was still very cartoony and aimed at children at the time, and a guy coming in with some of the heavily homosexual overtones that the Goldust character portrayed was a major departure for the company. Had they continued to push Goldust instead of hitting the panic button and backing off, I have no doubt that he would have been the top heel in the company because Dustin was a working machine at that point, was working with and going over some of the top guys in the company, and the character was getting a reaction everywhere he went. Instead, they pulled back big time on the outrageousness of the Goldust character, and by late 1996 he was just another face in the crowd.

Christopher Daniels

I consider Daniels to be one of the most commonly, and most unfortunately, overlooked wrestlers of the last 10 years. He was involved in the legendary three way feud with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, a feud which produced many Match Of The Year candidates, but for some reason, while AJ and Joe got their shots in the spotlight as World Champions, Daniels was never given a run with the TNA Title even though I personally consider him the best worker of the three. Daniels has also been a major player in ROH for many years, main eventing their first show, becoming the first top heel in the company, and even being a participant in the match to crown the first ROH World Champion, and is as much an ROH legend as anyone who's ever been through that company, but while Low Ki, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Homicide, and nearly every other "ROH Original" got their turn to hold the ROH Title, Daniels would never get the chance himself. I think it's criminal that Daniels has never gotten the shot, he's one of the best promo guys in the business, he always busts his ass in the ring, he's one of the few wrestlers I can honestly say I've never seen have a bad match, and he's been a major part of top storylines in two of the top three companies in the United States. Why he hasn't gotten a World Title reign at this point is beyond me, and after years of helping all those other guys get over as World Champions, all the amazing matches, and everything else he's given to the business, I frankly consider it disrespectful that he's never been given a World Title reign.

Tully Blanchard

The reason Tully never became the NWA World Champion can be pretty much boiled down to two words: Ric Flair. Tully could do it all: he was a phenomenal heel, could work his ass off with nearly any kind of opponent, was great at both singles and tag teams, and held his own when paired up with main event level wrestlers like Dusty Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat. But as long as Ric Flair was around, nobody else in the Horsemen was in a position to usurp Flair's spot. Tully had plenty of success: he was a multiple time US Champion and TV Champion, was one of the first guys to win both the NWA and WWF World Tag Team Titles, and even participated in one of the most legendary matches of all time, in an I Quit Steel Cage Match with Magnum TA at Starrcade 85. But for all that success, a World Championship was never in the cards for Tully, and any possibility of a post-Horsemen singles run that could have eventually led to a title reign was dashed in late 1989 when a failed drug test left him on the outside looking in at both companies and more or less spelled the end of his full-time career.

* * *

So there you have it. Even if the companies never quite got around to honoring these guys by giving them a run with the World Title, I think they all deserve recognition as people who probably earned it. So here's to all the guys on the list and the day in the sun they never got, even if I think they deserved it.

PWI

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

don't agree with the last 2. More importantly.... where the fuck are Curt Hennig and Scott Hall

[Metalitia]

Interesting read, thanks for posting.

Just as a side note and whilst I don't see it in the WWF/E at the time I think Lance Storm could well have been a heel world champion in ECW or possibly WCW.

[Slayer_X]

nice read for sure