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The 411 Wrestling Top 5 06.22.11: Week 131 – Most Important World Title Changes
Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. Most of our topics will be based on recent events in the Wrestling World, looking at those events that make us think of times past.
So, on to this week’s topic…
Any recognized world title in wrestling.
So what did our group of writers select? Let’s find out…
Greg DeMarco
5. Chris Jericho wins the WWF and World (WCW) Championships, December 9, 2001 – chris Jericho will always go down in history as the man who unified the WWF and WCW championships, even if the WCW name was gone from the title by that time. Jericho defeated both The Rock and Steve Austin in two successive matches. This unification is still part of the current WWE Championship lineage, and represented the final nail in the coffin for the history of WCW. Ironically, that final nail was a match between Jericho & Austin, two men that Eric Bischoff felt couldn’t draw as world champions.
4. CM Punk wins the ROH World Championship, June 18, 2005 – CM Punk signed with the WWE in early 2005, and June 18 was to be his final night with Ring of Honor. He would presumably challenge then champion Austin Aries, lose, and head to OVW for his developmental stint. Except something crazy (yet planned, of course) happened—he won. This sparked The Summer of Punk, which lasted all of two months but gained ROH a tremendous amount of publicity in the wrestling world, leading then to their first profitable year (2005) and finally pulling the company out of the hole it was thrown into when original owner Rob Feinstein was nabbed in a sting operation. Not only was it a brilliant booking move, it likely saved a company that may not have survived the year.
3. Jim Herd strips Ric Flair of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, July 1, 1991 – WCW was a corporate entity owned by Ted Turner dating back to 1988, but their championships were always branded as NWA Championships. When Flair left for the WWF, he took the “big gold belt” with him, and WCW introduced a new belt, which also served as the first ever WCW World Heavyweight Championship. For the next two years the WCW World Heavyweight Championship existed separately from the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship. In 1993, this entire fiasco ended when WCW pulled out of the NWA and the WCW World and International World Heavyweight Championships were unified at Clash of the Champions XXVII in Charleston, SC when Flair (WHC) pinned Sting (IWHC). Everything was now right with the world, except for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship…
2. Shane Douglas declares the Extreme Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship, August 27, 1994 – This is, of course, the night that Shane Douglas defeated 2 Cold Scorpio in the finals of a tournament to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. In an angle that only three people knew would occur (Douglas, Tod Gordon & Paul Heyman), Douglas threw down (literally) the NWA belt and declared himself the first ECW World Heavyweight Champion, turning Eastern Championship Wrestling into Extreme Championship Wrestling and launching one of the most storied promotions in wrestling history. Many would say that the NWA World Heavyweight Championship was never the same after this night.
1. Hulk Hogan wins the WWF Championship in Madison Square Garden, January 23, 1984 – Hulk Hogan, mere weeks after returning to the WWF, was tapped by Vince McMahon to lead the WWF into a national expansion. Step 1 was to defeat The Iron Sheik to win the WWF Championship. The rest is history (although there are many versions of it).
Thomas Hall
HM: Ultimate Warrior b. Hulk Hogan – WM 6 – Hogan loses for the title at Wrestlemania. This flat out did not happen before this and would have been unthinkable other than to Andre.
HM: Fingerpoke of Doom – How this managed to make air still stuns me. Might be the final push over the edge for WCW.
HM: Shawn Michaels b. Bret Hart – WM 12 – This was the culmination of Shawn growing up in his eyes and it still works.
5. Flair b. Race – Starrcade 1983 – This is the definition of the term “passing the torch”. Race was at the end of his main event career and he made Flair the next superstar by having a great title match in a cage in the first supershow in modern wrestling. Great match in a great way to send Flair up to the top of the mountain.
4. Mankind b. The Rock – Raw – January 4, 1999 – Here’s a prime example of how WCW couldn’t get out of their own way. They had a strong audience and then told everyone that something was coming and the people went to look at it. If WCW doesn’t run their mouths here, they could get a win in the night or at least not look like idiots because of the aforementioned Fingerpoke of Doom. Another shaking your head moment if there’s ever been one.
3. Steve Austin b. Shawn Michaels – WM 14 – This is one of those things you call a layup. Austin had to become champion. Period. There was no other option here as Austin was the undisputed hottest thing in the world and would take over for the next few years and single handedly take the company on his back and carry it to victory in the Monday Night Wars. None of that happens if Austin doesn’t win the title here and that’s exactly what they did.
2. Sting b. Hulk Hogan – Starrcade 97 – I’ve long since believed that this is the moment that mortally wounded WCW and allowed WWF to survive. This should have been nothing short of a squash and Hogan more or less dominated the whole match, doing the entirely wrong thing and having Hogan look all cocky after running scared for the last year or so from Sting. Very historical but for all the wrong reasons.
1. Hogan b. Iron Sheik – This is as much of a slam-dunk as you can possibly get. Hogan winning the world title changes everything about wrestling and formed modern wrestling in one match. Everything changed at once with this one six or so minute long match and the rest is history. It changed the entire sport all at once and is easily the #1 moment in wrestling history because without this, there is no modern wrestling.
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Aaron Frame
5. Bob Backlund def. Billy Graham – This is significant in that it was the end of the WWWF and it became just the WWF. Backlund held the title from February 20, 1978 to December 26, 1983 recorded by WWE as uninterrupted, but leaving out the fact that he lost it to Antonio Inoki and it was also held up after a match with Greg Valentine. Bob Backlund was, technically the last WWWF champion.
4. John Cena def. JBL – Love him or hate him, Cena is the face of the company. And it all started at WrestleMania 21. This was also followed by it being moved to Raw with Cena and trading places with the World Heavyweight Championship. Basically, this was the beginning of the era we find ourselves in now. If it wasn’t for this match, we would have a different face of the company.
3. Ultimate Warrior def. Hulk Hogan – This was beyond anything anyone had seen up until that point. Two big powerhouse face’s squaring off for the WWF title. Who the hell were people supposed to cheer and who were they supposed to boo?! Warrior came out on top to what is described as a thunderous ovation from the crowd. And I have to say that was nail in Hulkamania’s seemingly unstoppable train.
2. Chris Jericho, Undisputed Champion – This ushered in a new era. I hold this synonymous with the end of the Attitude era. Why? Well, if you haven’t noticed, once a new era in WWE starts a new WWE title belt is unveiled. The Attitude Era got rid of the eagle belt for the circle world belt. The, well, I guess it would be McMahon-Helmsly era was the Undisputed belt. The SuperCena era is the spinner. But back on track, this changed everything as there was no longer the WWE and WCW titles, but the one undisputed title.
1. Hulk Hogan def. Iron Sheik – This is the biggest of them all. This is the moment that pretty much revolutionized the wrestling business. Vince McMahon saw something in Hogan and he made him the biggest star that wrestling has ever seen. And even to this day Iron Sheik will tell you all about how he’s responsible for Hulkamania and how if it wasn’t for him, Hogan would have never become so big thus the WWF would have never become what it is today. Allah bless you, Sheiky baby.
Jack Bramma
HM: Batista defeats Triple H, WWE Wrestlemania XXI – Other than perhaps Rock making Brock Lesnar, this is the clearest example of a star being made the past decade and Lesnar didn’t stick around so this gets the nod.
HM: Yokozuna defeats Hulk Hogan, WWE King of the Ring 1994 – For all intents and purposes, this ended Hogan’s original run with the fed and signaled a major sea change to the New Generation
5. Mike Awesome defeats Masato Tanaka and Taz, ECW Anarchy Rulez 1999 and Taz defeats Mike Awesome, ECW on TNN, 4/13/00 – I’m grouping these two together because it just seems natural. ECW was able to survive and even thrive in some ways despite the losses of Jericho, Benoit, Foley, Malenko, Mysterio, Raven, Sandman, The Dudleys, Al Snow, etc. but the loss of Taz was the one that hurt the most for me. He was the backbone of the company, their strongest promo, and Paul Heyman deserves all the credit in the world for making him into an unbelievably invincible, badass charcter. When he signed with WWE, you just felt ECW was on the way out. Mike Awesome performed admirably until he signed with WCW also as champion. If that wasn’t enough, Taz was brought back in while still under contract with the fed to be the one to beat him and you had the infamous, WWE wrestler beats WCW wrestler for the ECW championship scenario. Both matches for me were the death knells of the original ECW.
4. The Montreal Screwjob: Shawn Michaels defeats Bret Hart, WWE Survivor Series 1997 – This match is important for a couple of reasons in that you can see it as the symbolic end of the New Generation and the beginning of the Attitude Era. That’s, of course, an oversimplification but it has some merit. With Bret getting the belt forcibly taken from him, this was arguably the beginning of his end as a major attraction. His arrival in WCW could have continued their dominance in the Monday Night Wars but they had no idea how to use him. Additionally, with Bret out of the picture, Vince catapulted himself as the company’s top heel with “Mr. McMahon” character and was much much easily able to hitch his wagon to Stone Cold without offending the old guard.
3. Stone Cold defeats Shawn Michaels, WWE Wrestlemania XIV – This is the match that finally gave the reins of the WWE over to Stone Cold Steve Austin and “ended HBK’s career” until 2002. After the WM XIII submission match against Bret, fans were solidly behind Stone Cold but they would have to wait another year before he was firmly positioned as the company’s alpha male at the biggest show of the year. This can also be seen, if not as the beginning, as the culmination and crescent of the Attitude Era and ushering in Stone Cold as one of the biggest stars in the history of the industry.
2. Kevin Nash defeats Goldberg – Starrcade 1998 and The Fingerpoke of Doom: Hollywood Hogan defeats Kevin Nash – WCW Nitro, 1/4/99 – Another natural grouping. Along with Stone Cold, Goldberg was the hottest attraction in wrestling in 1998. But WCW squandered a lot of that goodwill by placing him on the midcard while Hogan, Jay Leno, Rodman, and Malone could main event. However, Goldberg was still popular and remains popular, as evidenced by the loud pops and chants he still received in his WWE run in the early 2000s. Going into Starrcade with Nash as booker, he put himself over Goldberg with the aid of a cattle prod, which I don’t have as much problem with as other people, although it did stall a lot of Goldberg’s remaining momentum. The much more grievous error in judgment was the Fingerpoke of Doom just 8 days later. Outside of the oft repeated miscalculations in it, the saddest part about it was that WCW actually had matches the fans wanted to see: they wanted to see Hogan/Goldberg II, they wanted to see Nash/Hogan as evidenced by all of the fans flipping back to WCW after Mankind’s title win for the overrun, and after Starrcade, they wanted to see Goldberg/Nash II. And to my knowledge, we never got any of those after the Fingerpoke of Doom. This week and a half may not have killed WCW, but it put it on life support.
1. Hulk Hogan defeats Iron Sheik, 1/23/84 – This was the match that launched Hulk Hogan into the stratosphere and moved away from the no-nonsense wrestling of Bob Backlund into Rock ‘n Roll Wrestling. He had a good run in AWA but mostly as a face and they didn’t seem to realize what they had on their hands. It’s hard to realize how important this was without surrounding context. Hogan was coming off Rocky III and might have already been the biggest star in wrestling before he got to WWE to win the belt. Less than a month after Hogan claims the belt from Sheik, David Von Erich dies in Japan and that effectively ends WCCW as a possible contender for breaking out of the territories. And later that year, Vince buys the Briscoes out of Georgia Championship Wrestling on Black Saturday taking out the leg of the NWA and showing his intention to take over the wrestling world.
Wes Kirk
HM: Andre The Giant def. Hulk Hogan – Ended the over four year reign of the Hulkster.
HM: Lex Luger def. Hollywood Hogan, Aug 4, 1997 – The first major defeat of the nWo head honcho
HM: John Cena def. JBL, WrestleMania XXI – Created the only draw of this generation
5. Chris Jericho def. Rock and Austin to become Undisputed Champion, December 2001 – The career of Chris Jericho in 1995 was mostly unheard of. By 1999, he’d become such a huge attraction the WWF signed him away while he was out with an injured ankle from WCW, who didn’t see any future in him. After Y2J debuted, he became increasingly popular to the point a teased title change over HHH in 2000 was shown, but it would take until this one night when Jericho pinned BOTH The Rock and Steve Austin back-to-back before he was taken seriously as a true main event player for life.
4. Shawn Michaels def. Bret Hart, WrestleMania XII – It would have been laughed about in the 1980’s. the idea of two small guys wrestling for the top title in an hour-long Iron Man match. But Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels both did it, and drew enough to shut up much of the backstage criticism and disbelief they could handle the spot and an hour-long match to boot. It was this victory that propelled HBK from upper-carder to main eventer and helped begin the “New Generation” movement towards Attitude.
3. The Rock wins Deadly Game Tournament, Survivor Series 1998 – The Rock was a heavy face at the time, although only for a short time, since Rock had taken a stance against the Corporation. Obviously, as we would later find out, Rock was in league with Vince and his boys all along and took the championship, turning heel in the process and beginning his official main event status. Rock proved he was capable of running with the gold and becoming a bigger Hollywood star than any wrestler before him, and his main event success began here.
2. Steve Austin def. Shawn Michaels, WrestleMania XIV – Everybody wanted to see Stone Cold walk in and become champion, but it was difficult for several reasons: Mike Tyson was the special guest referee and was allied with HBK, Austin had serious neck problems, and Michaels had serious back issues at that point. Still, both men gutted out an intense performance and Austin went over to begin the “Austin era” in the WWF, which would quickly overtake the WCW domination in the ratings and lead to their demise.
1. Hulk Hogan def. Iron Sheik, Jan 23 1984 – Without the title victory of Hulk Hogan, the WWF would never have had the advent of the Rock’n’Wrestling Connection due to the lack of a viable face who could transcend the mainstream media in a way that was never done before. The man the AWA kept away from the title every chance they could ended up the biggest star in the wrestling world, helping to eliminate the territories and AWA itself with his success and the success of the WWF.
List your Top Five for this week’s topic on the comment section using the following format:
5. CHOICE: Explanation
4. CHOICE: Explanation
3. CHOICE: Explanation
2. CHOICE: Explanation
1. CHOICE: Explanation
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