The decision to put a Championship on somebody comes from Vince McMahon and his creative team. Whoever wears gold, has to represent the company responsibly.
Some Champions who are given a chance at holding gold, despite failing miserably, still get to keep the title. It’s not just a recent problem. It’s been somewhat of a problem for years now.
This is a look at people that have won gold within the company and were allowed to hold the belt for much longer than anybody expected them to.
#5 Kevin Nash WWE title run
358 days; yes, you read that right. The WWE fanbase had to put up with Kevin Nash, known then as Diesel, as their champ for just shy of a year.
In that near-year span, he only had four successful defences of the WWF Title. He had a No Contest at the 1995 Royal Rumble against Bret Hart, a disqualification victory against Sycho Sid at In Your House four months later, and a disqualification loss to The British Bulldog at In Your House 4, the month before he lost the title.
On top of that, the WWF wasn't exactly putting on a good product with its main event draws featuring matches that included, Diesel versus Mabel main eventing SummerSlam and Diesel and Bam Bam Bigelow versus Sycho Sid and Tatanka at King Of The Ring.
I’m sure a lot of fans were puzzled as to why he was kept champion for such a long period of time.*wink*
#4 Big E Langston’s Intercontinental title run
Big E held the belt for 167 days in 2013, but wrestling fans have completely eliminated this run from their memories. From the get go the run fell flat on itself and people began questioning why it was still happening 167 days later. It hadn’t done anything for Big E, except only maybe hurt his character.
The whole point of an Intercontinental title reign is to use it as a showcase and move onto bigger and better things like superstars such as Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart had done in the past. After Big E’s tenure with the belt, he slowly got the “phasing out” treatment as he lost the championship to Bad News Barrett and failed to win it back in a rematch.
He’s now one third of the stable “New Day” along with Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, which is working terrifically, so all’s well that ends well.
#3 Kalisto’s US title run
This one is quite unfortunate as many fans would have loved to have seen Kalisto succeed as US champion. Hot-shotting titles has been a major issue for wrestling, often failing to help either the worker or the title.
Such a case occurred earlier this year when Kalisto upset Alberto Del Rio for the title on RAW and it was made out to be a big deal with his triumph. Just a few days later, Kalisto lost the belt back to Del Rio on SmackDown, which seemed a real waste.
He would regain the title a few weeks later.
Kalisto’s reign just didn’t go anywhere for him unfortunately and many thought that with WWE bringing out a slightly edgier Ryback into the picture that Kalisto was sure to drop the belt to him at Wrestlemania. That didn’t happen though and many people were left puzzled.
Kalisto probably should have drop the belt that night but what’s done is done.
#2 Jack Swagger World Heavyweight Championship reign
Swagger was the 2010 Money in the Bank Winner. Swagger cashed in on Chris Jericho after Jericho was attacked during the Smackdown taping two days after WrestleMania 26.
Swagger's title reign lasted an annoying 84 days. He had win loss record of 5 wins to 12 loses during that period. When you are the champion you shouldn’t be losing like that and it clearly made people think he could lose it at any moment.
Not a whole lot of people thought nor wanted his reign to get 84 days, but I guess you can’t argue with management
They actually booked him clean over Randy Orton at Extreme Rules 2010 which was a bit of a shock considering Swagger was booked like a loser before it.
#1 The Miz’s WWE title run
It's almost hard to believe that The Miz had a 160 day WWE Title reign. It happened, though. He won it via Money in the Bank cash-in on Randy Orton in November of 2010. Even more shockingly than that, he would hold it past WrestleMania.
He even went on to beat John Cena at Wrestlemania 27’s main event. Needless to say, it was one of the worst WrestleMania main events ever.
As if the fact he made it to Wrestlemania wasn’t surprising enough, nobody thought he would get past Cena on the grandest stage of them all.
