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WWE COO Paul "Triple H" Levesque had a busy WrestleMania weekend; in addition to helping promote what will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest wrestling events of all time (NXT TakeOver: New Orleans) and clashing with former enemy Kurt Angle and UFC veteran Ronda Rousey, Levesque used the weekend when all eyes and ears are on the wrestling business to make some big announcements for WWE.
One of the most notable announcements was that the company is once again resurrecting the King of the Ring concept and tournament, albeit as a UK special in line with last year's stellar UK Championship Tournament.
King of the Ring had long been an early summer fan favorite, a tournament where a single superstar could win the crown, throne, sceptre, and title of King of the Ring, along with various attendant perks and bonuses that came along with it.
Today, we take a look at the winners of each King of the Ring tournament to rank them as far as their tournament performance and what the title did for them moving forward; for the sake of simplicity, today we will only focus on the modern era of King of the Ring, beginning in 1993, which was the era when the crown was won only in tournament format and would not be defended in non-tournament matches.
#14 Mabel, 1995 King of the Ring
Mabel owns the distinction of being the worst King of the Ring, and having won the title at not just the worst King of the Ring pay-per-views of all time, but possibly one of the worst pay-per-views of any type in WWE's long history.
Taking place in June of 1995 in Philadelphia, PA, WWE made the bold gamble to eliminate two of its biggest draws, The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, in the first round of the tournament in front of some of the most rabid and diehard wrestling fans in North America.
Mabel, thankfully, only wrestled twice on the show (thanks to Michaels and Kama, the future Godfather, going to a time limit draw), but failed to earn a single positive star in both matches combined. He defeated Savio Vega to take the tournament, with Vega performing in his fourth match of the night, replacing another top WWE draw in Razor Ramon.
Mabel was overweight, overexposed, and overworked; his gimmick as part of a rap duo was fine, and had given him some moderate success with a brief tag title run, but his heel turn in 1995 leading to his coronation and its aftermath stretched his acting chops too far. Most of his heeldom consisted of a series of scowls and angry looks, and all of his character's viciousness came in the form of real-life mistakes (crushing Kevin Nash's ribs, breaking The Undertaker's orbital socket) rather than scripted evil.
His Career After King of the Ring
Mabel drifted in and out of WWE, TNA, and various independent companies after winning King of the Ring, being redubbed "Viscera" after an abduction by the Ministry of Darkness; his only other WWE title was a Hardcore Championship reign, which he won and lost in the span of mere minutes during a Hardcore Battle Royal.
Sadly, Nelson Frazier, the man behind Mabel, passed away of a heart attack in 2014 at the age of 43.
#13 Bad News Barrett, 2015 King of the Ring
Wade Barrett is seen by many fans as the classic example of a performer whose potential remained untapped due to his being prone to injury and the victim of inconsistent creative direction.
Prior to King of the Ring, Barrett was a competitor in the very first NXT, and used that exposure to launch the memorable Nexus invasion, which exploded onto the WWE scene before fizzling out very quickly.
Barrett had amassed 5 Intercontinental Championship reigns, but never really managed to get a sustained push, and often saw a tremendous buildup of momentum squashed by an untimely injury hitting the reset button on his career.
In 2015, after losing his fifth, and final, Intercontinental Championship in a WrestleMania ladder match, Barrett participated in the WWE's first King of the Ring tournament since 2010; the company held preliminary matches on the April 27 RAW, featuring a bevy of talented undercard and midcard stars like Dolph Ziggler, Luke Harper, R-Truth, Stardust, Dean Ambrose, Sheamus, Barrett, and recent NXT call-up Neville.
The semifinal and final rounds made up an April 28 WWE Network special, where Barrett and Neville advanced to the finals, defeating Truth and Sheamus, respectively, before Barrett pulled off the shocker of beating Neville, whom fans had assumed the tournament would set up to rise through the company in the coming months. It was a disappointing result to a promising tournament, and the company would never truly capitalize on it.
His Career After King of the Ring
Redubbed "King" Barrett after the tournament win, Barrett would weasel out of the ensuing feud with Neville, be the first man eliminated from the Intercontinental Championship Elimination Chamber Match, lose repeatedly to R-Truth, lose a celebrity match, then become part of a thrown-together xenophobic stable of non-Americans known as the League of Nations; during his time with the group, internet rumors abounded of the real-life Stu Bennett's dissatisfaction with his WWE career, and was written off and wished well on his future endeavors after being attacked by his League of Nations allies after WrestleMania.
#12 Ken Shamrock, 1998 King of the Ring
Ken Shamrock's WWE run lasted just over two years, and strongly resembled Mitch Hedberg's summation of pancakes: all exciting at first, but then by the end, you're sick of them.
Debuting as the referee in Bret Hart and Steve Austin's WrestleMania submission match, Shamrock was pushed heavily through the rest of 1997 as one of the toughest men in the World Wrestling Federation, reaching his first pay-per-view main event in December by defeating WWF Champion Shawn Michaels by disqualification after interference from Triple H.
Shamrock moved on to feuding with The Rock over the Intercontinental Championship, seeming to win the title before losing via disqualification when he refused to break his signature ankle lock hold, Shamrock tore through two members of Rock's Nation of Domination (Kama Mustafa and Mark Henry) and Jeff Jarrett before getting retribution against The Great One himself in the King of the Ring final round.
It was one of the best matches the pair had in their six-month feud, but suffered from sharing a card with two of the most famous falls ever shown on a wrestling broadcast.
His Career After King of the Ring
The rest of Shamrock's summer saw him at odds with another King, Owen Hart, whom he battled in a series of gimmick matches focused on each man's credentials as a submission fighter; Hart got the win in the Hart Family Dungeon, while Shamrock was victorious in WWE's spin on UFC's octagon at SummerSlam.
Shamrock turned heel in the fall, aligning himself with Vince McMahon's Corporation, then became embroiled in a nonsensical feud with Val Venis and Goldust over both Shamrock's Intercontinental Championship and his kayfabe sister (but real-life girlfriend) Ryan; he drifted through a faction of anti-Corporation performers and a feud with Steve Blackman before leaving the company in late 1999, not having lived up to the excitement surrounding his 1997 debut or his 1998 King of the Ring crown.
#11 Billy Gunn, 1999 King of the Ring
Billy Gunn had made a name for himself throughout the 1990s as a tag team competitor, winning tag team gold both with his kayfabe brother Bart as The Smoking Gunns and with Road Dogg as The New Age Outlaws; during that same time, his singles run as Rockabilly was much more forgettable, and the impetus for a "we have nothing else for you" pairing with Dogg that led to an iconic tag team.
As 1999 approached the late spring and early Summer, Dogg and Gunn were testing the waters of singles competition, having both competed for singles titles at WrestleMania while D-X imploded around them; WWE saw Gunn as having the bigger star potential (due to his size, look, and charisma), and invested in him with a significant singles push starting at King of the Ring.
On a show where it was plain that Vince Russo was running out of the creative magic which had made WWF such a raging success the prior summer (this is, after all, the show whose main event saw Steve Austin lose a ladder match when the briefcase he was reaching for mysteriously moved itself out of Austin's way), Gunn overcame 1998's King Ken Shamrock, then former allies Kane and X-Pac to claim a crown many felt he was undeserving of.
His Career After King of the Ring
Billy Gunn went on to have a lot more success after winning the crown and scepter, but almost none of it comes from this tournament victory; his only high-profile singles feud came with The Rock, to whom Gunn lost a SummerSlam contest whose name Sportskeeda's PG policies won't let us publish. That match, and Gunn's inability to keep up with Rock on the microphone, making him seem inept and foolish, effectively killed The One's biggest singles push, and he was back with Dogg within weeks.
Gunn famously spent the 2001 King of the Ring broadcast hosting from WWF New York, with a promo leaving many fans wondering where it fell on the spectrum between work and shoot about his being a former King but not being on the actual show.
Aside from a two-week Intercontinental Championship reign, nearly all of Gunn's subsequent WWE success came with tag teams, winning tag titles both with Road Dogg and with Chuck Palumbo; it's not a disappointing career, but it's not the massive change in singles success a King of the Ring win was originally intended to be.
#10 William Regal, 2008 King of the Ring
It makes a great deal of sense for Regal to earn the crown, with the prim and proper Englishman always using a great deal of royal imagery in his gimmick, from his name to his mannerisms.
Regal in 2008 was on the back nine of a legendary globe-spanning career, and had been an on-and-off authority figure with WWE since the beginning of the decade; he was instrumental in keeping Ric Flair's win streak alive, preserving The Nature Boy's career until his fateful loss to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania.
On the April 21, 2008 edition of RAW, the three-hour broadcast was a one-night, self-contained King of the Ring tournament; Regal bested Hornswoggle and Finlay in the quarterfinals and semifinals before handing CM Punk his first submission loss in the finals.
His Career After King of the Ring
Being named royalty (as opposed to just nobility) afforded Regal the opportunity to add more pomp and flair to his attire and ring robes; sadly, he would take a sixty-day suspension for wellness violations within a month of his coronation, but would return to take the Intercontinental Championship from Santino Marella, which Regal would lose in a feud with Punk.
Regal would float between kayfabe authority roles, the lower card, and ECW, then become heavily involved in the NXT brand and Florida Championship Wrestling (the latter, eventually, becoming NXT itself); as NXT established itself in its early run, Regal squared off against a who's who of current stars owing their success to the yellow brand, including Cesaro, Adrian Neville, Corey Graves, and Bray Wyatt.
Upon his official retirement, Regal moved into permanent office positions both onscreen and off, becoming the kayfabe NXT General Manager and the real-life Director of Talent Development and Global Recruiting; it was Regal who brought men like Kevin Owens and Johnny Gargano to NXT, having scouted their work on the independent scene.
#9 Sheamus
Sheamus is more successful in his career than your average King of the Ring, as a recent Instagram can attest; he is the only other person besides Edge to be able to claim a King of the Ring crown, a Money in the Bank briefcase, and a Royal Rumble victory. Two of those three (the briefcase and the Rumble win) resulted in a championship victory for the Celtic Warrior (both in record time) but, unfortunately, the King of the Ring title led to little more than a bad costume change.
By the time Sheamus won the tournament in 2010, he had already twice won the WWE Championship, losing his second title two months prior to entering the brackets in a six-pack challenge to Randy Orton (Sheamus would lose the rematch in a Hell in a Cell match as well). King of the Ring seemed like a consolation for the spiky-haired redhead.
Sheamus earned entry into the tournament by defeating R-Truth, then beat Kofi Kingston in the quarterfinals; his entry into the championship round was sealed by a double countout in the Drew McIntyre vs. Ezekiel Jackson quarterfinal match, and there Sheamus faced John Morrison, Morrison having defeated Tyson Kidd, Cody Rhodes, and Alberto Del Rio to earn his finals berth.
Sheamus, of course, won the match, taking perhaps the ugliest crown-and-robe combination in tournament history (and I say that knowing full well that the 90s renditions look like the regalia came from a local party store); upon his victory, Sheamus continued his feud with John Morrison, losing repeatedly to the Tough Enough veteran in a variety of matches (including a Number One Contenders Ladder Match at TLC).
His Career After King of the Ring
Two more world title reigns (one with the World Heavyweight Championship and one with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship), two United States Championships, a Money in the Bank win, and four RAW Tag Team Championships later, the first Irish-born WWE champion has made quite the resume for himself; King of the Ring, though, seems like a minor bump on his road to superstardom.
If anything, Morrison seems to have gotten the bigger push from Sheamus's coronation, with Morrison having gotten the better of the pair's subsequent feud.
#8 Booker T, 2006 King of the Ring
Prior to his 2006 King of the Ring win, Booker T was already a five-time (five-time, FIVE TIME) WCW Champion, even though one of those reigns came while the title was under WWE control; additionally, he had held every WCW men's heavyweight title (the Hardcore Championship doesn't count) and was three quarters of the way to his WWE Grand Slam.
This was a tournament taking place over the course of several weeks, beginning on an April broadcast of SmackDown and finishing at 2006's Judgment Day event; The Book ended Matt Hardy's chances at appearing in the finals, and an Angle injury sailed Booker T through to the finals, while Bobby Lashley put Mark Henry and Finlay out to make the last round as well.
At Judgment Day, Booker T relied on help from his soon-to-be-Queen Sharmell to distract Lashley and allow the Houston mayoral candidate to gain the offensive advantage; when that wasn't enough, Booker Man had Finlay level the former amateur wrestler with a shillelagh to officially become King Booker (although a Lashley spear ensured Booker's first encounter with his new throne would be a less-than-pleasant one).
His Career After King of the Ring
King Booker and Queen Sharmell instituted their reign of terror over the SmackDown roster with a combination of old-school heeldom and affected "drunk person at a Renaissance Faire" voices. Losing a feud to Lashley over Lashley's United States Championship, King Booker won a chance to challenge Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight Championship at the Great American Bash.
There, Booker won his only WWE-branded world title, completing his Grand Slam, and remaining champion until late November, when Batista would reclaim the belt; a Wellness Policy violation later, King Booker and Sharmell were granted their releases, which they requested in late 2007.
This resulted in several years with TNA, then a commentary run which introduced the world to convoluted ranking systems, surefire picks who never won, and, most egregious of all, "shucky-ducky quack quack."
Still, the King of the Ring boost and added character dimension propelled Booker T to his lone world title with WWE, which earns his coronation a decent ranking.
#7 Bret Hart, 1993 King of the Ring
The inaugural King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1993 had all three men involved in WrestleMania IX's main event in featured roles; Yokozuna, who defeated Bret Hart for the WWF Championship at Caesar's Palace, faced Hulk Hogan (who immediately defeated the sumo wrestler moments later at that same event) to regain his title with interference from a ringside photographer's flame-shooting camera.
The third man, Bret Hart, who had to feign joy at Hogan's title win with his face full of salt at Mania, entered the King of the Ring tournament, taking on relative newcomer Razor Ramon in the quarterfinals before putting on one of the top tournament matches in the event's history with a SummerSlam '91 rematch against Mr. Perfect.
Tattooed tough guy Bam Bam Bigelow followed the typical heel path to the finals, beating Typhoon and Jim Duggan before a time limit draw between Lex Luger and Tatanka gave the Beast from the East a semifinal bye; The Hitman played the underdog in more ways than one, as he was undersized compared to his foe and overtired from his combined 30 minutes of in-ring action in two previous matches that night.
Bigelow still relied on a chair to Hart's back delivered by the Bammer's "main squeeze" Luna Vachon to win the crown, but a referees' review of the tape restarted the match; late in the restart, Bigelow attempted a charge in the corner, which The Hitman expertly dodged to deliver a victory roll to become the first King of the Ring of the modern era.
His Career After King of the Ring
Hart's coronation set up a feud with Jerry "The King" Lawler, which would follow him throughout the remainder of his WWE run; whenever The Hitman's time wasn't occupied with a championship chase or a family feud, Lawler would be his fallback opportunity to get an entertaining win and great pop.
Lawler objected to Hart's coronation that night, beating Bret down with all the accoutrements of the title of King to leave him lying in the aisle; that feud would set up the Survivor Series match down the line pitting the Hart Family against Lawler and his "knights" (although Lawler's legal indiscretions kept him out of the match itself). That match kickstarted the Bret-Owen rivalry which set the wrestling world on fire for much of 1994, and helped catapult Bret back into the main event.
The rest of Hart's resume speaks for itself, and his winning of the inaugural crown was more a favor to the title of King than it was to Bret himself.
#6 Hunter Hearst Helmsley, 1997 King of the Ring
The 1997 crowning of Hunter Hearst Helmsley as King of the Ring was actually a year overdue; Helmsley was set to win the 1996 tournament until the infamous Madison Square Garden "Curtain Call" fiasco. When Helmsley, Shawn Michaels, Diesel, and Razor Ramon embraced and linked arms to bid goodbye to The Bad Guy and Big Daddy Cool, the two departing stars couldn't be punished for obvious reasons, and Shawn Michaels was carrying the company, and its title, through the summer, so Helmsley had to be the man to suffer.
The bulk of the 1997 tournament occurred on Monday Night RAW, and only the semifinals and finals took place at the tournament's eponymous pay-per-view event. The semis saw Jerry Lawler practice outdated 1970s heel schtick (like palming a mysterious hidden "foreign object" that he took out of his tights to batter The Deranged One) in a loss to Mankind, while Helmsley took advantage of a Chyna distraction to pedigree Ahmed Johnson for a championship berth.
The Ninth Wonder of the World made her presence known again in that final round match, the first high-profile encounter between Helmsley and Mick Foley; the match featured an announce table Pedigree to foreshadow the hardcore future of one of WWE's defining feuds, and another in the ring immediately afterward to seal the win.
Not satisfied with simply beating Mankind, Helmsley proceeded to continue the attack after the bell, using his scepter and crown to smash Foley into oblivion; reportedly, Helmsley detested the King of the Ring costume pieces in real life, and this was the first of many efforts to destroy every bit of royal regalia throughout the summer of 1997, until the company opted to stop replacing the crowns and no longer required the Connecticut Blueblood to wear them.
His Career After King of the Ring
Immediately after King of the Ring, Helmsley's summer of 1997 was spent locked in a blood feud with Mankind, and the pair literally brawled throughout Calgary's Saddledome throughout the July In Your House event, interrupting several segments to continue attacking one another in increasingly dangerous locations.
Their SummerSlam cage match, and Helmsley's Madison Square Garden street fight with Foley's Cactus Jack persona helped build Foley's legend, and built the backstory for a feud which, in 2000, would turn Triple H from unproven new champion to battle-hardened ring general.
It's a career which has included 14 world titles, two Royal Rumble wins, a Grand Slam, a surefire Hall of Fame bid, and a decent side gig running the creative direction of the entire company. While the King of the Ring crown might not have played a significant role in that, the feud Helmsley's King of the Ring win jump-started is the one which made a guy with a good look and decent in-ring talent into a bona fide superstar.
#5 Kurt Angle, 2000 King of the Ring
Kurt Angle's rookie year, not just in WWE but as a professional wrestler in general, was a sight to behold; debuting on the WWF roster in late 1999 with little to no developmental experience, Angle took to the business faster than anyone his trainers had ever seen. Coming from his amateur wrestling background, trainers worried that Angle would be reticent to take both bumps and losses, but proved them wrong immediately by attacking the mat with reckless abandon.
Within months of his debut, Angle was a double midcard champion, having acquired both the European and Intercontinental Championships (rebranded by the Olympian as the EuroContinental Championship) in January and February of 2000. He was freed of those belts at WrestleMania 2000, and allowed to expand his character and flex his acting chops through partnerships with Edge and Christian, as well as a tumultuous partnership/feud with the McMahon-Helmsley Era.
Angle's first King of the Ring tournament run was a rocky one, as the absolute best match on the entire show was his opening round match with the flashy and cocky Chris Jericho, although on a card where Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco in a Hardcore Evening Gown Match is the semi-main event, Angle vs. Jericho absolutely should shine (and, possibly, should have been the tournament final).
From there, the Olympian cruised through Crash Holly, then survived a bevy of power moves from Rikishi in the finals to best the Samoan with meticulous limb work and an array of suplexes; neither match could quite live up to Angle's opener against Jericho which, it bears repeating, should have been the tournament final.
His Career After King of the Ring
Angle was on a meteoric rise here, continuing the summer of 2000 with a feud against The Undertaker, as well as a love triangle with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon; this rise took him all the way to a WWF championship that fall, which he would hold until February of 2001. In a single year in the company, Angle managed to accomplish every feat but one (a Royal Rumble win) that a male competitor could achieve in the World Wrestling Federation at that time.
Angle completed his Grand Slam in 2002, in addition to some WCW gold while the brand was under WWF control; personal problems and backstage issues led to his exit in 2006, where he established his dominance over the closest WWE has to an American competitor, TNA.
Since then, Angle has earned a well-deserved WWE Hall of Fame spot, in addition to an onscreen role as RAW General Manager, and shocked the world by helping make Ronda Rousey's sports entertainment debut a watchable, and even enjoyable, affair.
#4 Edge, 2001 King of the Ring
Edge's King of the Ring crown came at a pivotal point in his career. Two months prior, he and Christian had left WrestleMania X-Seven tag team champions yet again, having survived TLC II and set a new standard for stadium spotfests. There really wasn't much of anything left for the future Rocketstrappers to accomplish as a duo, and both men were gaining enough steam that they could be viable draws as solo competitors.
King of the Ring 2001 threw gasoline onto a spark of jealousy from Christian, who was noticing that Edge was getting the better reactions and more focus from the company; Team ECK (Edge, Christian, and Kurt Angle) made up three fourths of the semifinal round, with the fourth competitor being E&C's muscle on the outside of the ring, Rhyno. As part of his feud with Angle, Shane McMahon finagled the Angle/Christian matchup to ensure that Angle had at least one more match to wear him out before the epic street fight most people remember this show for.
McMahon and Christian both interfered in the finals pitting Edge against Angle, McMahon intentionally costing Angle the crown, and Christian seeming to try his hardest to play helper to his best friend but inadvertently distracting the referee from a surefire pinfall; in the end, the Edgemeister was able to prevent Angle from becoming the first-ever two-time King, pinning him after a Shane McMahon spear set up an Edgecution.
His Career After King of the Ring
Again, King of the Ring was the gasoline that, when combined with Christian's spark of jealousy, led to the destruction and downfall of Edge and Christian's partnership. The InVasion storyline that followed this show added new wrinkles, seeing Edge capture both WWF and WCW singles titles, and Christian's envy just continued to boil throughout the summer, leading the future Captain Charisma to betray his best friend and join The Alliance.
King of the Ring both proved the viability of Edge as a singles competitor and provided the storyline justification for it to happen. His split with Christian was cemented with a match at Unforgiven, where Christian took Edge's Intercontinental Championship, and Edge stayed mostly in singles competition from then on, save for short-lived teams with Rey Mysterio (allowing Edge to participate in 2002's highest-rated match), Chris Benoit, and Hulk Hogan, with each man giving Edge another reign as tag team champion.
Edge was already a highly-decorated tag team champion before King of the Ring, but added dozens more at every level of competition afterward (which could have been even higher had injuries not intervened); King of the Ring brought Edge to a new level and helped transform him into the future Hall of Fame singles star.
#3 Owen Hart, 1994 King of the Ring
Owen Hart in the WWF is often cited as one of the most influential performers in the history of American wrestling; surely, this generation of agile technicians who trade impressive size for well-designed spots like Daniel Bryan, Johnny Gargano, Sami Zayn, and countless others, owe their success to what Hart was able to accomplish when wrestling was still a big man's game (and a much larger man, Kevin Owens, is very open in his personal and professional life about the influence Hart had on his career and style).
Hart's 1994 is about as impressive a year as a wrestler can have without claiming a championship belt, beginning the year in a tag team, which hid a simmering feud, with his older brother Bret, then turning on Bret after the duo failed to capture the tag titles; the brothers' match to open WrestleMania X, easily the single greatest show-opener in the history of the company, pushed Owen further with an expertly-timed reversal on a victory roll.
From there, Owen moved into the 1994 King of the Ring tournament, sulking from the shadows while Bret basked in the glory of his second WWF Championship reign. Owen looked like a million bucks on an uneven card marred by ill-advised guest commentator Art Donovan, a Baltimore Colts legend who was as unfamiliar with the WWF product as he was with individual performers' weights.
Beating Tatanka to move into the semifinals, Owen and The 1-2-3 Kid put on easily one of the most amazing matches under five minutes ever, squeezing more moves and impressive spots into three and a half minutes than many performers can work into thirty minutes. With assistance from his brother-in-law and former tag partner, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Owen claimed the crown from Razor Ramon in the finals, proclaiming himself the King of Harts and the greatest Hart to ever be King of the Ring, jabbing at Bret's win the previous June.
His Career After King of the Ring
Owen never held a world title, unlike many of the men he outranks on this list, before or after winning the crown; however, the King of Harts gimmick became so ingrained in his character, replaced only when Hart began adding Slammy Awards to his resume (and to his tights). Still, the crowned heart logo was an iconic emblem on Owen's singlet for a great deal of his remaining career, and few people on this list (if any) were as defined by their King of the Ring win as Owen was.
The momentum from this win would carry Owen into a cage match at SummerSlam against Bret, the best use of WWF's obnoxious blue bars ever, before Owen cost Bret the WWF Championship in a submission match against Bob Backlund at Survivor Series.
In the five remaining years of his tragically short life, Owen added four tag team titles (with Yokozuna, The British Bulldog, and Jeff Jarrett), two Intercontinental Championships, a European Championship, and, as his tights reminded us for many months, two Slammy Awards.
#2 Brock Lesnar, 2002 King of the Ring
The King of the Ring tournament in 2002, WWE's last until four years later when Booker T won the crown, added a new wrinkle to the competition: that year's winner would receive not only the title of King of the Ring, but also a shot at the WWE Undisputed Champion at SummerSlam. Like the 1993 Royal Rumble, the first to include the Number One Contendership stipulation, the move was an effort both to somehow legitimize the event and also give justification for a beastly newcomer to receive a title shot very soon after his debut.
Brock Lesnar interrupted a hardcore match on the night after WrestleMania X8 to annihilate some lower-card talent, and continued this path of destruction through ECW and Tough Enough castoffs until a program with the Hardyz elevated his stature (and the brutality of his game). In the preliminary rounds broadcast on weekly television, Lesnar easily dispatched Bubba Ray Dudley and Booker T to advance to the June pay-per-view, where an easy bout with Test led to a finals match against Rob Van Dam.
Setting the tone for much of his career, the match was standard Lesnar dominating a smaller man with numerous power moves, while the smaller Van Dam used quick strikes and flashy signature maneuvers like the Rolling Thunder to attempt to gain an advantage; when RVD tried to use his aerial superiority to take The Beast down, though, Lesnar easily snatched him out of midair for an F5 and the crown.
His Career After King of the Ring
The robe, throne, and crown meant little to The Next Big Thing, and he fought Van Dam throughout the summer before using his guaranteed title shot to challenge The Rock in the main event at SummerSlam 2002; there, Lesnar became the youngest WWE champion in history (at the time, at least) and, in kayfabe, made his contract and title exclusive to SmackDown, beginning the first "two world titles" era in company history.
Since then, Lesnar has won WWE's top prize (in one form or another) a further four times, and is seen by many backstage as one of the company's most valuable commodities; all of this success can be traced back to the world title opportunity he won by conquering 2002's King of the Ring tournament.
#1 "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, 1996 King of the Ring
It can be said with some degree of certainty that the wrestling business would not exist as it is today had Steve Austin not won the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, if the wrestling business even still existed at all.
Professional wrestling throughout the mid-1990s had become a parody of itself, focusing on family-friendly thrills with bright colors and silly gimmicks; both the WWF and WCW traded in intense physical competition for party-story special effects and children's morning show costumes, by and large.
June of 1996 saw two events radically change the course of wrestling history, one immediately, and the other on a slow burn. The former was the formation of the New World Order at WCW's Bash at the Beach pay-per-view event; this was the first time since the 1984 establishment of Hulk Hogan as a mainstream, all-American babyface that Terry Bollea had turned full heel, and the turn brought a new edge and a new aesthetic to WCW's product.
The latter event was the ascension of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin to King of the Ring winner; the reason wasn't the crown itself, but how Austin celebrated with a foul-mouthed promo who's standout one-liner directed at born-again Christian Jake "The Snake" Roberts became undoubtedly the most successful catchphrase and merchandise line ever in the business.
The rise didn't begin immediately, but as Austin gained more and more freedom to express himself on the microphone the same way he had in Milwaukee after dispatching Roberts, and as the WWF's merchandising department let the Austin 3:16 catchphrase make its way onto t-shirts, a sea change began in the company which swept its way up and down the card, leading to the Attitude Era and the revival of sports entertainment.
His Career After King of the Ring
Austin did okay for himself after becoming the 1996 King of the Ring, if you count six WWF titles, two Intercontinental titles, four Tag Team titles, three Royal Rumble wins, an award-winning podcast, and a 2009 berth, not to mention high-profile feuds with Bret Hart, The Rock, Triple H, and, most of all, Vince McMahon, as "doing okay".
