WhatCulture Wrestling

10 Worst First Days For WWE Champions - CM Punk! Daniel Bryan! Batista! Roman Reigns?!

To the winner goes the spoils. Or should that be spoiled? WWE's worst firsts, revisited... Gareth Morgan presents the 10 Worst First Days For WWE Champions...

ENJOY!

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Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 15 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first-three-month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of details. The thing about winning a massive shiny belt in professional wrestling is that, for better and worse, it is the accepted way of showing everybody that you are the very best at it. Imagine, then, when finally living that seemingly unattainable dream becomes a nightmare in less than 24 hours. Well, with that in mind, I am Gareth. This is what culture wrestling, and here are the 10 worst first days for WWE champions. Number 10, Chris Jericho. Few first days, first hours, first-minute stories are as bad as the ones told by Chris Jericho about his maiden trip to the Promised Land. His tale is so littered with misery and detritus that it's best left to the man himself to describe. As he did to Victor.com in 2017, and then later in several interviews and podcasts. From catering jokes at his expense to an empty locker room and a cacophony of hotel catastrophes, it's a real treat. Here's what he said, "I came back through the curtain, everyone was gone, because when you're on last, everybody leaves to get out of the traffic quicker." Sat there by myself and then drove to a hotel where room service stopped at midnight. It was 11.58. They wouldn't serve it, so I got pizza. They wouldn't bring it to my room, so I had to go down to the lobby to get it. When I went back up I was locked out. Went back down to the lobby, the guy wouldn't let me in even though I just checked in a few minutes earlier. Dropped the pizza on the floor when he finally did let me in. So I spent the night being the first undisputed champion eating cold, Fuzzy Pizza in a Ramada Inn somewhere in Anaheim, California. Just with every young up and coming star dreams of A, Fuzzy Pepperoni Euphoria. Number 9, Seth Rollins. Seth Rollins' 2016 return from a lengthy injury layoff came with a carefully marketed slogan of redesign, rebuild, reclaim. In a naval gazing network piece on his comeback, Rollins explained how connected he felt to the ethos, noting the scale of the surgery and rehabilitation right the way through to eventually getting back what had been taken away from him along the way in the form of the WWE Championship. He managed it fairly quickly, too. Though devastated to miss WrestleMania 32 in April, he was able to make it for extreme rules in May to set up a blockbuster main event against Roman Reigns at Money in the Bank the following month. On the night he got the job done against a big dog set to service suspension, but forgot all about the titular match earlier on the card. Longstanding rival/former partner Dean Ambrose ambushed him with the Money in the Bank briefcase and cashed in, completing the trifecta of Shield WWE Champions in a matter of seconds. The architect had to wait nearly 3-4 years without the gold before building himself back up to where he'd been before. He got there in the end, though, our Seth. Now I've got a quick question for you, what is your favourite Shield match of all time? Is it one involving them against one another or teaming up? You let me know in the comments section down below. Number 8, Dolph Ziggler. It's one thing to have your first championship reign instantly terminated by something like a Money in the Bank cash-in, or chalks off entirely due to some other brand of pro-wrestling nonsense. But Dolph Ziggler's first win exists in a strange hinterland between the two, recycling an old and slightly laboured idea. Vicki Guerrero awarded him Edge's World Heavyweight Championship after the Rated-R Superstar used his spear in direct opposition of a blanket ban. He was stripped and fired with Ziggler benefiting on both counts. As a standing authority figure for Teddy Long, it looked like the planet worked too. All until the man himself returned from a secret attack by Ziggler and reassumed control of the blue brand. Long booked an immediate rematch with Edge, and the show-off was without the title just 10 minutes after strapping it around his waist. Hell of a run. Number 7, Drew McIntyre. WrestleMania 36, all things considered, was quite the creative success story. The ethics of it could be debated for days and the standard of expectation was set way, way too high for the wrestlers within that wretched performance centre atmosphere as a result. But WWE actually served its consumers a night of escapist entertainment in the dark days of April 2020, a fleeting moment of something to actually savour. Unless you were Drew McIntyre, forever immortalised as WWE's then newest made man during an unfathomable time. The coronation was the hollowest of any in WrestleMania history, and the disappointed new title holder had to defend the belt straight after two. Madness, I say. Due to the company's need to film everything before a brief Florida shutdown, the big show was drafted in for a title match that could air on Raw the night after. McIntyre looked every bit of a guy making the best of a bad situation. But best had never been so tempered and bad situation had never been such an understatement. It was a clunky, pandemic-y start to life on top for the Scottish warrior. Though it would at least become a crucial part of his compelling character's lore in the years that followed. Every Cloud. If you're taking care of a senior loved one, then you know, it can be hard. Remember, it's okay to ask for help. There's a reason why 29 million families have turned to Care.com. 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And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those owners to your contracts, they said, "What the f*** are you talking about? You insane Hollywood s***?" So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first-three-month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of details. Number 6, Daniel Bryan. Only Bryan Danielson could make something so surprising to outsiders seem so completely logical when explaining context. And that's what happened when he revealed how little affection he had for memories of his iconic WrestleMania 30 victory, compared to an evocative defeat five years later. Comparing his contrasting emotions between New Orleans and New Jersey while speaking on my mum's basement, Bryan said, "My favourite match in my career is my match with Kofi at WrestleMania 35. It's so special and such a cool moment." One of the things that I love is it's Kofi winning at the end. WrestleMania 30, my shoulder is horrible, I hurt my neck, I have this horrible pain down my arm, and I have to get up and do media the next morning. Everyone comes up to you and are like, "Congratulations." There's a lot of responsibility. When I wrestle Kofi, everyone goes to Kofi and says, "Congratulations to him." I get to have my moment with him and be like, "Hey man, thanks, that was awesome." Then I get to hug my wife and daughter and go home the next day. Kofi is the one who has to do media and deal with people congratulating him. Like one of his exceptional matches, this was sweet, smart and served as a reminder of just how demanding the industry can honestly be. And that this dragon has bloody earned his incoming retirement from full-time action. Just for checking out this video today, folks, and if you are enjoying what you're watching then hit that subscribe button down below. 5. Roman Reigns Whatever WWE had attempted to create with the closing shots from Survivor Series 2015 had failed. Roman Reigns didn't look sympathetic as bits of his celebratory confetti Reign down from the ceiling following his first WWE Championship win. He looked pitiful as they attached themselves to his sweat-soaked grimace following a loss to Sheamus just minutes later. The big dog had been neutered by a careful Triple H plan, an all in the hope that fans would feel the way they did for other wronged parties that had suffered similar fate in the past. Instead, people simply laughed at Reigns' desperate plight and considered him foolish for not considering the reality of a briefcase holder stepping in and taking a shot. He'd win it back soon enough and then again for the third time rather than the first in another failed WrestleMania main event. But yet more damage was done to the character in what many consider its worst ever year. Ahead of the tables come a long way folks. 4. Randy Orton Pretty much the worst way to turn babyface is by having your heel friends turn on you. But that's what happened to Randy Orton just 24 hours after he was strapped up as the youngest champion in WWE history. His fairly unremarkable victory over Chris Benoit at SummerSlam at Night Earlier should have foreshadowed how long we'd all have to put up with technically sound and methodically paced Randy Orton matches over the years. But instead it was given a generous pass because at least somebody brand new was being given a shot. It just took a day or so to see that he was actually being taken out back like an old horse to receive it. The turn and title reign went horribly for the legend killer after that, wholly detestable by his very nature back then. The babyface switch wouldn't have taken even if the booking was good and it decidedly wasn't Orton run away from Triple H and the lads for three weeks. Ben lost the belt to him at the very next pay-per-view. It wasn't a mystery why this didn't work. 3. CM Punk The conclusion of CM Punk's WWE Championship match with John Cena didn't mark the first time the straight-edged superstar had lifted the company's richest prize. Nor was it particularly bleak because of the money in the bank cash-in that followed. With just WWE to end the match to determine an undisputed champion with a finish and follow-through, that could be disputed for months by about six different claimants. Speaking Cena inside Chicago's Molten Allstate Arena that prior month had been the real moment that capitalized on Punk's epic pipe bomb promo. An intentionally unclear finish in a diluted rematch at the biggest party of the summer, the belt entirely as though WWE had taken back complete control of the wheel. Especially when Kevin Nash bulldozed through him and opened the door for an Alberto Del Rio smashing grab. Losing the title wasn't what made any of this the worst first day. But when Punk lost grip on the angle that could have changed everything, well, we are lost out. A dark dark day it was. 2. Rey Mysterio Rey Mysterio being the wrestler chosen for this rather strange role in 2011 remains one of the more perplexing booking decisions in WWE history. And that includes unearthing big sexy himself of all people for a payoff down the road. To recap before the aforementioned SummerSlam atrocity, CM Punk had brought shame on WWE or John Cena or whatever Vince McMahon deemed most believable with his win at Money in the Bank. No longer under contract in K-Fame, he was thus also not WWE Champion regardless of how the fans felt. Told to just get on with their businesses if everything was novel, the top wrestlers on Monday Night Raw were lumped into a tournament to become champion. Eventually won by Mysterio, a fresh Cena despite being the great shamer in all of this, then got a shot at the knackered opponent and won. He'd barely held the belt aloft before Punk suddenly returned, dropping an asterisk next to Cena and Rey's names for eternity anyway. What a weird bit of business. And number one, Batista. It had been a long hard road back to the WWE Championship for Dave Batista when he finally defeated Randy Orton for it at Extreme Rules 2009. But the animals dream was yet again cut short by injury. Big Dave had torn his bicep in the steel cage clash with Randy Orton one night prior. And thus barely appeared on screen with the belt before he was beaten down and hospitalized by the Viper's legacy stablemates Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase. Orton attempted to declare himself champion. But an attack by returning Triple H resulted in both being added to a fatal four-way match with John Cena and The Big Show weeks later for the now vacant prize. Stripped of the gold as he was being strapped to a gurney, Batista returned later that year full of significant sick of this crap energy. Getting revenge on Randy Orton before moving to Snack it down, the former champion violently soon turned on former friend Rey Mysterio after yet another attempt to recapture gold went awry. If only they'd just give him what he wanted. Have you enjoyed this worst first days for WWE champions video? Well then check out this 10 wrestlers who asked to drop their title one too. You'll have a ball, trust me. Hi, this is Jonathan Fields, host of The Good Life Project. Where each week I talk to listeners about investing in the future by increasing their own vitality. But when it comes to those financial goals, whether it be saving for home renovation, growing your child's college fund or travel, life can make it difficult to stay the course. By working with a dedicated mayoral advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. 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