Worst booked title reign ever?

[Epic Reine 0]

There have been lots.

 

Jericho undisputed title reign, Disco Inferno's TV title reigns, Both of Psyshosis's cruiserweight title reigns...

 

What was the worst one?

[Guest jm29195]

Jericho's undisputed title reign (no clean wins, made to look like Steph's bitch), Albert's intercontental title reign (shouldn't have won it in the first place, did nothing with it, lost it with no fanfare)Chyna's women's title reign and X Pacs lightheavyweight title reign(both thought belt was beneath them, rarely defended belt)....

[Guest Loss]

The worst booking I've ever seen for a world champion is either Chris Jericho from December 2001-March 2002 or Kurt Angle from October 2000-February 2001. The way they were used was astonishing, considering they were supposed to represent the very best the company had to offer. They were trying to make both of them weak-style Flair champs, but that weakness is the reason Hogan was in a different league than Flair as a draw, considering that he beat everyone he wrestled cleanly.

 

For an undercard champion, it's hard to say, since I don't think the IC belt has meant a thing since '98 when Rock and HHH were feuding over it.

[Nighthawk 0]

Steve Blackman's time with the hardcore title was good. I mention it because that was about the only time it was. So everybody else who had that, that was bad.

[Guest jm29195]

I thougt RVD's hardcore reign from July 01-December 01 and Crash Holly's antics were pretty well booked title reigns, Holly's was just entertaining and RVD's brought respect back to the belt (briefly).......

[Guest Fook_Theta]

Going out on a limb here without all the details, and saying Big Daddy Cool Diesel.

 

I remember them playing off the "one year reign" quite a bit, but that is pretty much the only thing I remember from his 8+ month title reign. If holding the belt for that long and no one mentions any other match or feud from that era except I think the Michaels angle, something was horribly booked.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

In terms of money squandered, Goldberg's WCW Title reign ranks up there. Instead of facing off against all the top guys in PPV main events, he was kept in the semi-final position while the 'real stars' main evented. From winning the WCW Title in July to losing it to Big Lazy, there were 6 PPV's, and the WCW World Champion was in only 2 main events, at Havoc and 'Cade.

 

The rest were:

 

A semi-final squash match at BATB against Curt Hennig, who, quite frankly, wasn't even worthy of a Nitro title shot.

 

The Battle Royal at Road Wild, where he destroyed almost every PPV level challenger, thereby making a PPV title match mean virtually nothing, and where they gave away the big spot of him giving the Giant the Jackhammer in a match where it meant nothing

 

And he didn't even wrestle at Fall Brawl or World War III.

 

Not to mention the numerous Nitro matches/defences against nobodies and zeroes, which again made the WCW Title seem like a joke. Sure, he had a few big Nitro matches, but almost none of them meant anything, and he was typically treated as secondary to whatever other issue was being pushed, which usually involved Hogan or Nash.

[Guest Phenom]

I win.

[Nighthawk 0]

Arquette's heel turn wasn't too bad, considering it was Arquette. He himself, is clearly the worst champion, but not entirely due to the booking.

[Guest Dale Earnhardt]

In terms of money squandered, Goldberg's WCW Title reign ranks up there. Instead of facing off against all the top guys in PPV main events, he was kept in the semi-final position while the 'real stars' main evented. From winning the WCW Title in July to losing it to Big Lazy, there were 6 PPV's, and the WCW World Champion was in only 2 main events, at Havoc and 'Cade.

 

The rest were:

 

A semi-final squash match at BATB against Curt Hennig, who, quite frankly, wasn't even worthy of a Nitro title shot.

 

The Battle Royal at Road Wild, where he destroyed almost every PPV level challenger, thereby making a PPV title match mean virtually nothing, and where they gave away the big spot of him giving the Giant the Jackhammer in a match where it meant nothing

 

And he didn't even wrestle at Fall Brawl or World War III.

 

Not to mention the numerous Nitro matches/defences against nobodies and zeroes, which again made the WCW Title seem like a joke. Sure, he had a few big Nitro matches, but almost none of them meant anything, and he was typically treated as secondary to whatever other issue was being pushed, which usually involved Hogan or Nash.

I agree with HTQ here,

 

Goldberg was booked very horribly as champion. His reign started off in a terrible fashion as well. Eric Bischoff was so hungry for a ratings victory that he threw a sure fire PPV main event on Nitro just to top RAW. It worked temporarily. While WCW could had slowburned a Goldberg reign, they hot shotted it for a ratings victory. There's strike #1: He won the title with a short buildup on Nitro. Let's keep going, you all may (or may not) know that Hulk Hogan only agreed to job the belt to Goldberg on the promise that Hogan would be the one to end the streak so from the start, WCW knew that the belt was going back to Hogan and it was going to. Two things met and stopped that, #1 was Hogan leaving in late 1998 and the other was Kevin Nash's egocentric booking. Nash went on to defeat Goldberg at Starrcade 1998 to become WCW World Champion with the help of Scott Hall and a cattle prod. Next up is the FINGERPOKE OF DOOM AND ETERNAL DESTRUCTION~! that gave the Hollywood Hulkster back the championship. From the start, WCW wasn't planning a long title reign and didn't book accordingly. Eric Bischoff also fell into the same trap that Vince McMahon fell into with Hogan. Bischoff had no other uppercard heels ready to feud with Goldberg. The only other top heels were in the nWo and subordinates to Hogan. Goldberg vs. Hulk Hogan could had easily main evented Starrcade and given WCW time to build up some lowercard heels to main event status for Goldberg. WCW was too lazy and corrupt to take the effort to actually book Goldberg as champion as it was coming back to Hogan regardless.

 

 

O yeah, Phenom. David Arquette successfully defended the championship against Tank Abbott and actually participated in the very first three tier cage match at Slamboree 2000. Far, from being badly booked. If we are talking bad WRESTLING champions then David Arquette would be there but not as a badly BOOKED champion.

[strummer 0]

Maybe a stretch, but the Bulldogs run with the tag titles in 86 was far from spectacular. They were made to look incredibly weak against Studd and Bundy on Superstars, proving they couldn't compete with the big guys on top. Plus, they lost the titles in the most embarrassing of fashions. The Harts had a much better reign.

 

 

The Hardys short run with the belts in summer of 99. They needed Michael Hayes of all people to even "compete" against the Acolytes.

 

 

Bret's transitional title reign for Shawn from Nov. 95 to March 96 was the beginning of the end for Bret as a top face. No face could look that bad and expect to be a strong champion

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Maybe a stretch, but the Bulldogs run with the tag titles in 86 was far from spectacular. They were made to look incredibly weak against Studd and Bundy on Superstars, proving they couldn't compete with the big guys on top. Plus, they lost the titles in the most embarrassing of fashions. The Harts had a much better reign.

 

The WWF rarely let little guys have much offense against big men in those days. Just the way the psychology worked. They had a program going with the Funks before Terry went and jumped ship. Their reign doubtlessly would have been longer, but Dynamite fucked his back in January, and the WWF needed a quick title switch. Their bad reign was more a product of bad circumstances than anything else.

[strummer 0]

Even as a 7 year old, I had high expectations for the Bulldogs as champs, and it was SO disappointing. It was a mixture of incredibly bad luck and some pretty ineffective booking(although it was primarily the fault of the product at the time). I've heard that Vince didn't get behind the Bulldogs as champs, because they spent too much time in Japan, thus the weak reign for Davey and Dynamite.

[Guest Loss]

There's also Ric Flair's not-even-a-month-long title reign in March-April of 1999. The bookers were purposely trying to kill Flair off, and they put the belt on him and booked him horribly so they'd have an excuse to take him out of top storylines. He had exactly one televised title defense against Rey Misterio Jr. They positioned him against Rey instead of a bigger name so they could use the ratings as justification for burying ol' Ric. The whole thing sort of made the belt a joke, and right after he dropped the title, they booked him to go insane and be put in a mental hospital in one of the worst booking decision ever.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Shane Douglas's IC Title reign. He gets the title handed to him, and then loses it ten minutes later. They could have at least have him hold until the December IYH, and then put it on Razor then.

[Zetterberg is God 0]

Shane Douglas's IC Title reign. He gets the title handed to him, and then loses it ten minutes later. They could have at least have him hold until the December IYH, and then put it on Razor then.

That's backstage politics for you.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Shane Douglas's IC Title reign.  He gets the title handed to him, and then loses it ten minutes later.  They could have at least have him hold until the December IYH, and then put it on Razor then.

That's backstage politics for you.

It completely killed his character and he was off TV in two months.

[JST 0]

Are we talking about badly booked?

 

 

I win.

[Precious Roy 0]

and right after he dropped the title, they booked him to go insane and be put in a mental hospital in one of the worst booking decision ever.

 

It was meant to bury Flair, sure, but he made it work and it was easily the most entertaining thing on WCW TV at the time. Those vignettes in the mental hospital were hilarious.

[Guest FromBeyondTheGrave]

Funaki's current Cruiserweight title reign sucks. I mean he's done nothing since he won it at Armaggedon. He defeated Spike, Nunzio, Akio, and Chavo on Smackdown episodes in matches which (although were okay/good matches) didn't mean anything or have lead to anything. I was happy to see him win the title, and that interview where he interviewed himself was hilarious, but since then...nothing. I want some crazy backstage antics with Smackdown's No.1 Announcer, not him going over guys like Chavo GUERRERO.

[spman 0]

Funaki's current Cruiserweight title reign sucks. I mean he's done nothing since he won it at Armaggedon. He defeated Spike, Nunzio, Akio, and Chavo on Smackdown episodes in matches which (although  were okay/good matches) didn't mean anything or have lead to anything. I was happy to see him win the title, and that interview where he interviewed himself was hilarious, but since then...nothing. I want some crazy backstage antics with Smackdown's No.1 Announcer, not him going over guys like Chavo GUERRERO.

 

It's clear that the WWE has no intent on EVER having any legitimate cruiserweight matches, let alone a legit division. They simply don't want to take the spotlight off the main eventers. If Vince lets Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero go out there and do whatever for 20 minutes, it would probobly be exciting, and the crowd would probobly get into it, but then when it's time for the main event, that same crowd would likely shit all over JBL vs Big Show or whatever. If you don't expose the crowd to good wrestling, they're less likely to notice the bad wrestling. A good example of this is WM 3. All reports said that Hogan was furious at Savage and Steamboat for stealing the show, and he used his clout to pretty much bury both guys for the next year afterwards.

[Guest Loss]

and right after he dropped the title, they booked him to go insane and be put in a mental hospital in one of the worst booking decision ever.

 

It was meant to bury Flair, sure, but he made it work and it was easily the most entertaining thing on WCW TV at the time. Those vignettes in the mental hospital were hilarious.

Flair is a fucking cockroach, for better or worse. He's incapable of being buried and incapable of death or injury. He'll be wrestling until he's 400 years old.

[Guest FromBeyondTheGrave]

Funaki's current Cruiserweight title reign sucks. I mean he's done nothing since he won it at Armaggedon. He defeated Spike, Nunzio, Akio, and Chavo on Smackdown episodes in matches which (although  were okay/good matches) didn't mean anything or have lead to anything. I was happy to see him win the title, and that interview where he interviewed himself was hilarious, but since then...nothing. I want some crazy backstage antics with Smackdown's No.1 Announcer, not him going over guys like Chavo GUERRERO.

 

It's clear that the WWE has no intent on EVER having any legitimate cruiserweight matches, let alone a legit division. They simply don't want to take the spotlight off the main eventers. If Vince lets Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero go out there and do whatever for 20 minutes, it would probobly be exciting, and the crowd would probobly get into it, but then when it's time for the main event, that same crowd would likely shit all over JBL vs Big Show or whatever. If you don't expose the crowd to good wrestling, they're less likely to notice the bad wrestling. A good example of this is WM 3. All reports said that Hogan was furious at Savage and Steamboat for stealing the show, and he used his clout to pretty much bury both guys for the next year afterwards.

Oh, I know all of that. I fine with that. But when Funaki won the title, I expected some funny skits, some hilarious promos about being a great champion. I don't even care if Funaki never wrestled a match. I was just expecting some hilarious situations from him being a champion. Kinda like a live Japanese sitcom. I got nothing.

[Guest Stunt Granny]

Gillberg's lightweight title reign. Wins it from Christian, disappears for 2 years, comes back and loses it to Essa Rios.

[yankovic fan 0]

Bob Backlund 94.

 

 

Winning it was good.

 

Build up to winning it was good.

 

 

Actual reign sucked balls.

[brighty 0]

Shane Douglas's IC Title reign. He gets the title handed to him, and then loses it ten minutes later. They could have at least have him hold until the December IYH, and then put it on Razor then.

going along that score, gotta mention Steve Austin's US Title reign.

 

Fall Brawl 94 - wins it from Ricky Steamboat who vacates the title due to career-ending injury. steals the show during that retirement speech with his fake tears and mocking, a brilliant segment. until - Commissioner Whoever-it-was comes out and forces him to defend the title against Hacksaw Jim Duggan, who beats him in 27 seconds.

[Youth N Asia 0]

Big Show's first reign was pretty bad. Just beat up Bossman and job the title back to HHH, I don't think anyone was shocked.

[Black Lushus 0]

I was incredibly bored with all of UT's title reigns...

[Epic Reine 0]

I wasn't a fan of Big Show's US title reign, he rarely defended the belt and always wrestled in non title matches. He lost quite a few bouts when he held it too.

[what 0]

Benoit's recent title reign was booked horribly toward the end of it.