The Complete History of the WWE Championship - Part 5

Bob Backlund (November 23, 1994 - November 26, 1994)

Bob Backlund: Second WWE title win came sixteen years after his first

In 1983, Vince McMahon had requested that the then-WWE Champion, Bob Backlund ditch his strait-laced, All-American boy character and turn heel.

Backlund had declined. However, a decade later, he finally complied with McMahon's request and began portraying a complete lunatic character.

Backlund began chastising the masses, believing that the whole world aside from him had gone mad. The former WWE Champion had his own path to forge.

Revenge was first on his agenda and he applied his Crossface Chicken Wing finisher to his old manager, Arnold Skaaland at a TV taping in September, as retaliation for Skaaland throwing in the towel in his title defense versus The Iron Sheik in December 1983.

The 45-year-old was a revelation after undergoing his attitude adjustment and due to the dearth of credible challenges, for WWE Champion, Bret Hart, Backlund was selected to face him at Survivor Series 1994.

In that bout, Backlund held Hart in the Crossface Chicken Wing and a devious Owen Hart convinced his mother Martha to throw in the towel on Bret's behalf. In a mirror image of Backlund's title loss a decade earlier, this time Backlund was the beneficiary of the towel throw in the finish.

However, Backlund wasn't main event material in 1994 and his reign acted as a transition to McMahon's next babyface hope. His first reign lasted five years. His second, a mere three days.