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It is surprising to learn that WWE has operated over 40 different championships during the promotion's history dating from the old Captiol Wrestling Corporation days in the early 50s. More than half of those titles are no longer active - they have been either retired/replaced or merged with other titles.
That statistic isn't much of a surprise considering that the WWE operated a number of titles like the WWF World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship, and Intercontinental tag team titles.The first retired championship was the WWWF United States Tag team Championship which wasn't even afforded a formal announcement when it was made defunct in 1967. The final champions were Spiros Arion and the legendary Bruno Sammartino.
Sometimes, titles are also considered to be retired when a new championship takes its place. WWE considers Layla as the final WWE Women's champion before it was replaced with the WWE Divas championship. The current WWE RAW and Smackdown Women's titles are considered to have a separate lineage.
This list takes a look at five such titles in recent WWE history and who were the final wrestlers to hold the gold.
#5. ECW Championship - Ezekiel Jackson
It has been over a decade since the WWE version of Extreme Championship Wrestling ceased to exist. The original ECW had enthralled the hardcore pro-wrestling fans with its liberal use of violence and when the company was declared bankrupt in 2001, WWE swooped in to buy its assets.
Initially, there was no plan to resurrect ECW within the WWE walls - but all that changed when the WWE-produced 'Rise and fall of ECW' documentary broke all kinds of records in video sales. Vince McMahon was sufficiently captivated and when Rob Van Dam suggested to have an ECW reunion show hosted under the WWE umbrella, the Chairman acquiesced.
That show - 'ECW One Night Stand' - in 2005, went on to perform extremely well as far as PPV buys were considered and a year later, ECW was resurrected as the third show under the WWE banner. This version of ECW started with a bang, when Mr. Money in the Bank RVD, beat John Cena in front of rabid crowd to win the WWE Championship.
ECW started as a weekly show on the Sci-Fi channel with Van Dam as the champion and a number of ECW alumni present on the roster. However, the wheels soon fell off the brand after the hot start. Champion Rob Van Dam and Sabu were arrested for possession of drugs within a month and Van Dam was forced to lose his title to The Big Show.
That started the downfall of WWE-ECW and many of the decisions made by WWE management was derided by the ECW faithful. Pushing Bobby Lashley down fans' throat, having Vince McMahon win the ECW World title and original owner Paul Heyman quitting, all added to the frustration. It was too late when fan favourite Tommy Dreamer - who had been treated as a jobber in the WWE for years - won the ECW title.
Guys like Jack Swagger and Chavo Guerrero had dismal reigns with the belt, but no one was more forgettable than the final champion - Ezekiel Jackson. 'Big Zeke' couldn't cut a promo, wasn't good in the ring and didn't have any ties to the original ECW style of wrestling, and was the blandest choice to crown as the last ever champion.
Jackson ended Christian's enjoyable 205-day reign as champion on the final episode of ECW in an Extreme Rules match. He was supposed to build on this and become a major star on SmackDown - but a forgettable Intercontinental title run as part of the even more forgettable 'Corre' stable led to him being rarely seen on TV. Many injuries later, Jackson left the company on a whimper.
#4. WWE Cruiserweight Championship - Hornswoggle
While NXT currently has its own Cruiserweight Championship, it is not considered to be the continuation of the original Cruiserweight title that started in WCW. The title, which was held by the likes of Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero and Ultimo Dragon in WCW, was acquired by the WWE once the Atlanta based promotion went out of business.
With Shane 'Hurricane' Helms as champion, the WWE version of the Cruiserweight championship got off to a good start. It even absorbed the WWE's equivalent - the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship. The prestige of the title reached its apex during a fabulous opening match at Wrestlemania 19 between Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio in 2003. Reigns for the likes of Mysterio, Hardy, Chavo Guerrero and Billy Kidman were enjoyable to watch as the cruiserweight division defined fast-paced action.
However, by 2005, the title started to be treated as an afterthought. With the pillar of the division, Rey Mysterio, being elevated to the World Championship scene, the title was treated like a hot potato. Forgettable reigns ensued for the likes Nunzio, Kid Kash and Juventud Guerrera and the title reached its low point when Hornswoggle won a cruiserweight open to become the champion in a comedy angle.
Swoggle was later revealed to be the on-screen son of Vince McMahon and once that angle started, the cruiserweight title was never mentioned of again. Such an inauspicious way for a title to meet its demise.
#3. Hardcore Championship - Rob Van Dam
The precursor to the 24/7 Championship, the WWE Hardcore championship had 240 different reigns over a 4-year period. Originally intended as a one-off for an angle where Vince McMahon presented Mick Foley with the title as a comedy championship to hark back to his hardcore days. The title soon became a serious commodity and the title defences were marred with violent spots - the most talked about being Shane McMahon plummeting 30-feet down from top of the SummerSlam stage in 2000 courtesy of Steve Blackman.
Crash Holly introduced the 24/7 aspect of the championship after he won it, leading to the title being defended inside and outside the ring and even in public places at any hour of the day. Raven holds the distinction for most regins with 27 and almost all mid-carders in the company had runs with the belt.
The title was low on the company totem pole because of the sheer number of times it changed hands, but it gained unexpected prestige when The Undertaker captured the title in 2002 during his heel American bad ass run in the company. After the acquisition of WCW, WWE decided to merge the Hardcore title with the Intercontinental championship and on 26 August 2002, Hardcore champion Tommy Dreamer took on Intercontinental champion Rob Van Dam in a title unification bout.
Van Dam won the match with the Five-Star Frog Splash to become the final champion, a fitting choice considering his hardcore days in ECW.
#2. Light Heavyweight Championship - X-Pac
The Light Heavyweight Championship was WWF's answer to WCW's groundbreaking Cruiserweight division during the Monday Night Wars. The Light Heavyweight title was originally created as far back in 1981 and allowed to be defended in Mexican promotion UWF and later in NJPW. Perro Aguayo was the first champion but when the WWF ended its association with NJPW, the title came back stateside and a tournament was set up to crown the first WWF Light Heavyweight Champion.
The title was appropriately won by the Japanese star Taka Michinoku who beat Brian Christopher in the finals and held on to the title for over 300 days. But after a year, WWF started to consider the title as a comedy prop, with Gillberg - a parody of WCW superstar Goldberg - handed the title and allowed to start a 445-day reign with the championship.
Former WCW Crusierweight champion Dean Malenko brought some prestige to the title with a 321-day reign in 2000, but the emergence of the WCW Cruiserweight title in the WWE during the Invasion storyline led to the demise of the Light Heavyweight belt.
X-Pac actually held both the Cruiserweight and Light Heavyweight title at the same time after beating Billy Kidman on Raw, but the titles weren't merged at that point. X-Pac would later lose the Cruiserweight title, but continued to hold on to the Light Heavyweight belt. A title unification match was set up against Cruiserweight champion Tajiri for the 2001 Survivor Series PPV, but an injury to X-Pac meant that the Light Heavyweight title was quietly retired.
#1. European Championship - Rob Van Dam
The European title was created in 1997 over a series of matches held across house shows in Europe. The British Bulldog was the first champion, beating Owen Hart for the belt. The title was created to appeal to the European fans of the WWE, especially considering the lucrative tours that the company had to the UK.
The title was part of a number of classic moments during the first year of its inception, with the British Bulldog defeating Bret Hart in a classic match at London's Wembley stadium. Similarly, the British fans booed the roof off the building at the 'One Night Only' show in Birmingham when heel Shawn Michaels cheated to beat Bulldog for the title.
The title suffered a dip in prominence when Michaels laid down for Triple H in a title match in December 1997 and fans weren't pleased when Shane McMahon won the championship in a tag team match and later retired the championship in 1999.
It was later reactivated after four months and handed to Mideon. William Regal would soon make the title his own with multiple reigns, defending or challenging for the title in UK and Europe during multiple WWE tours. However, the influx of WCW titles to the WWE during the Invasion angle necessitated the demise of the European title.
European champion Jeff Hardy took on Intercontinental champion Rob Van Dam in a unification ladder match on a July 22 2002 episode of Raw. Van Dam came out on top, signalling the end of the European title after a fantastic match.
