If there’s one thing pro wrestling fans have learned over the years, it’s that really anything can happen in the WWE. Underdogs win, streaks end and the biggest juggernauts in the business end up losing, and that’s all accepted as part of the story.
But sometimes, that story is written in such a way that the match result is still truly unexpected, which is particularly shocking when it involves the WWE’s top title. Here are five times when the WWE Championship, now the World Heavyweight Championship, changed hands in shocking fashion.
#5 Chris Jericho becomes the Undisputed Champion
When the Vengeance pay-per-view began on December 9, 2001, the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin held the company’s top two belts – the WWF Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship inherited from WCW.
Chris Jericho first defeated the Rock for the world title, and then he faced Austin to unify the two major belts. Instead of WWF stalwart Stone Cold unifying the belts for the first time, though, Jericho got the win to become the company’s first undisputed champion.
#4 Roman Reigns loses the WWE Championship in 5:15
It would be easy to list most of the Money in the Bank cash-ins for this feature, but Sheamus’ cash-in at Survivor Series in 2015 was particularly surprising. And as shocking as the win itself was, the prior booking made it even more so.
Roman Reigns had been booked to become the company’s top guy for months, and after champion Seth Rollins went down to an injury, Reigns advanced all the way to a tournament title match to replace him, against Dean Ambrose.
While this seemed like an obvious set-up for the coronation of Reigns, which would even include pyrotechnics and confetti, the reality was that Sheamus would cash in to end Reigns’ first title run after just 5 minutes and 15 seconds.
#3 Austin defeats the Rock at Wrestlemania 17
Stone Cold Steve Austin defeating the Rock, and vice versa, was not shocking at all during the Attittude Era. In fact, their rivalry was one of the many reasons that era of WWE programming was so successful.
Yet fans were almost certainly floored with the way Austin beat the Rock for the WWF title at WrestleMania 17. After a hellacious match that saw both men use the other’s finisher, Vince McMahon came out.
He ended up helping Austin win, revealing an alliance between the former mortal enemies.
#2 Montreal Screwjob
Everyone who’s followed pro wrestling in the last 20 years or so knows what the Montreal Screwjob was all about. Bret Hart, the WWF champion, was headed to WCW, and Vince McMahon wanted to make sure he dropped the title on the way out.
The way this went down was absolutely shocking though.
Hart thought the original plan of the match ending in a disqualification was still intact, but McMahon ordered referee Earl Hebner to ring the bell with Michaels applying Hart’s own finisher, the Sharpshooter.
Hart never actually tapped, but lost anyway, and the ensuing melee is as infamous as the match finish itself.
#1 Daniel Bryan’s Big Moment
In hindsight, Daniel Bryan coming away from WrestleMania 30 as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion was the only way to go. He was immensely over with the crowd, and the moment was clearly as huge as WWE could’ve possibly hoped.
But the set-up to the match would’ve made his victory seem unlikely. In the months leading up to the event, the Authority had held Bryan back from the title. Further, at WrestleMania, he had to beat Triple H first just to qualify for the match against Batista and world champion Randy Orton. Of course, he did all that, and it created a truly raucous reaction from the crowd.
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