5 WWE Superstars You May Have Forgotten Were Champions

The history of professional wrestling has largely been rooted in championships. Sometimes it is all about who the champions of a wrestling company are. Other times it is more about the chase as wrestlers are in pursuit of their company's championships. Any way you look at it, some performers need a wrestling championship to seem more important to the wrestling audience.

Presently, the WWE has a lot of title holders. Beyond the male competitors holding world championships on both Raw and Smackdown, there are female world champions on both brands, tag team champions for both weekly programs, an Intercontinental Champion, a United States Champion, a Cruiserweight Champion, and a United Kingdom Champion.

If you want to get technical, there are also titles within the NXT. In turn, there can be more than a dozen WWE-signed performers at any given time that are traveling around the world with a belt.

As injuries and often unforeseen circumstances regularly pop up for wrestlers, the majority of performers on the WWE roster have their ups and downs. In turn, someone that was once in the main event scene may find themselves wrestling matches with lower-card talent.

This means that a good number of former WWE champions may not be fresh on your mind as former champions. So as a refresher, here are five current WWE Superstars who you may have forgotten were once WWE title-holders.

#1 Curt Hawkins

Curt Hawkins first signed to WWE in 2006, spending around a year within the WWE's Ohio Valley Wrestling developmental territory. Within OVW, Hawkins -- then known as Brian Majors -- was a tag team champion along Zack Ryder (then known as Brett Majors). He was eventually called up to the ECW brand of WWE before making it over to Smackdown alongside Ryder.

In late 2007, Hawkins and Ryder became part of a storyline alongside former WWE Championship Edge in which they were considered "Edgeheads" -- or look-alikes of Edge -- and part of "The Rated-R Entourage."

In 2008, Hawkins and Ryder won the WWE Tag Team Championship from The Miz and John Morrison at the Great American Bash pay-per-view as part of a four-team match. The two became the youngest tag team champions in WWE History and held onto those titles until September 2008.

Unfortunately, this title reign is generally forgotten about as Hawkins is currently known for his still-going losing streak.

#2 Curtis Axel

Curtis Axel is a third-generation professional wrestler as his father was "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig while his father wrestled as Larry "The Axe" Hennig. Axel signed to WWE in 2007, wrestling in developmental league Florida Championship Wrestling for a few years. Axel made his NXT debut in June 2010 as Michael McGillicutty and was eventually part of The Nexus. This led to a WWE Tag Team Championship run alongside David Otunga in 2011.

Axel returned to NXT from late 2011 through mid-2013, occasionally appearing WWE's "B" shows like Main Event. He reappeared on the WWE's main roster in May 2013 as Curtis Axel, as introduced by new manager Paul Heyman.

Axel's next few matches included victories over Triple H, John Cena and Chris Jericho. Shortly after he won the International Championship. successfully defending it against Jericho, R-Truth and The Miz. After losing the title to Big E, Axel was placed into a tag team with Ryback, and he has not been part of a singles title-oriented storyline ever since.

But respect is due to Axel for his Intercontinental Title reign, since he and his father are the first-ever father-son combo to have held the well-respected WWE title.

#3 Titus O'Neil

WWE Superstar Titus O'Neil was a stand-out college football player (and a former Arena Football League player) before signing a developmental deal with WWE in 2009. While part of WWE's developmental league Florida Championship Wrestling, O'Neil was an FCW Florida Tag Team Champion alongside Damien Sandow. O'Neil got his main roster call-up in 2012, making up one-half of The Prime Time Players alongside Darren Young.

The Prime Time Players were quickly put into the WWE Tag Team Championship scene, challenging the likes of The Real Americans and The Shield, before the team was disbanded.

The Prime Team Players came back together in 2015 and at Money In The Bank, the team won the Tag Team Championship from The New Day. This turned out to be a short-lived run as The New Day quickly took back the titles from The New Day.

Currently, O'Neil is struggling to live down his fall at the Greatest Royal Rumble. Furthermore, while O'Neil does still wrestle, he has taken on more of a managerial role over the last year, serving as the head of the Titus Worldwide stable.

#4 Goldust

Goldust, then Dustin Rhodes, had his first WWE run in late 1990. Rhodes had been active for a few years before coming to WWE, and almost 30 years after his September 1988 wrestling debut, he is one of the longest-tenured WWE Superstars of all time.

Rhodes also had successful runs in TNA, WCW, and All Japan, being a former United States Heavyweight Champion, World Six-Man Tag Team Champion and World Tag Team Champion within WCW.

While any WWE fan of the last 20-something years ought to remember Goldust, not everyone will remember how many championship reigns he has had. Beyond his three runs as WWF Intercontinental Champion and three different reigns as a WWE Tag Team Champion, Goldust won the WWF Hardcore Championship nine times.

Two of his three Tag Team Championships were alongside Cody Rhodes -- formerly known as Stardust -- which were within the last few years. Goldust's career may be winding down, but the industry veteran should not yet be counted out from having one more title reign.

#5 Zack Ryder

As noted in an earlier slide, Zack Ryder joined WWE alongside Curt Hawkins. Ryder and Hawkins joined WWE developmental in 2005 and got a call-up to the main roster in 2007, working a high-profile storyline alongside Edge. Ryder and Hawkins became tag team champions in 2008, becoming the youngest-ever WWE tag team champions.

Things slowed down for Ryder after initially becoming a singles wrestler. The popularity of his YouTube series eventually led to WWE management taking notice and regularly using him. In 2011, Ryder won his first singles title, the United States Championship. He lost the U.S. title less than two minutes after winning it at TLC.

In April 2016, Ryder unexpectedly won the International Championship as part of a Wrestlemania ladder match. Sadly, the title was won by The Miz the following night on Raw.

When you do the math and realize that Ryder has been a Tag Team Champion, the International Champion and the United States Champion of the WWE, that means that he is only one belt short of being a Grand Slam Champion.

Having held three of WWE's major titles, Ryder is in rare company as the same cannot be said about a lot of the company's all-time greats. Ryder is currently injured, but when he gets back to 100 percent, it will be interesting to see where he winds up on the roster.

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