*By Request*
“I always hear people talking about who they feel is the best wrestler to never be a world champion. Can you do a column about your picks for that discussion, and maybe share your thoughts on why they never made it to the top?”
We’ve all been a part of that conversation, whether we intended to be or not. It’s talked about on social media, message boards, opinion pieces, and everywhere else you turn. If you pay attention to wrestling commentary, you’ll even hear it talked about on television, during so-and-so’s matches.
There have been a ton of wrestlers who made legendary careers for themselves without ever winning an officially recognized World Title anywhere. Some of those people made millions of dollars for themselves doing it, winning other championships, and earning spots in multiple pro wrestling Halls Of Fame.
It’s easy to just mention names and say this person and that person are the best wrestlers to never win a World Title. Talking about WHY they may or may not have reached that level in their career is a different story. Let’s do just that.
As I usually do, I’m going to list the names in no particular order.
Jake “The Snake” Roberts: Dependability. In the entire history of professional wrestling, there might not be a single performer who mastered the art of psychology, both in the ring and on the mic, than Jake Roberts. He had everything you could ever want out of a top guy. When it comes to things he had, though, you can’t overlook all of his personal demons. With all of Jake’s addiction issues, it would be very difficult to push him to the top, where he would need to represent the entire company in and out of the ring.
“Rowdy” Roddy Piper: Existing in the same time and space as Hulk Hogan. It’s really as simple as that. Piper’s full-time debut for the WWF came in 1984, which was the same year Hogan won the WWF Title for the first time. The company had always wanted to focus on having strong faces as the top guy, and that showed with Hogan’s reign, which lasted just over four full years. Roddy was gone from the company before that title reign came to an end, but had returned to the company at WrestleMania 5… where Hogan won his second WWF Championship, with that reign lasting one day short of a full calendar year. By this point, Roddy was wrestling on a part-time schedule, at best, and never really reached the main event scene again. Had Hulk Hogan not been around, or had the WWF not been so face-centric at the top of the card at the time, I think Piper would’ve had at least one WWF Title reign to his credit.
Arn Anderson: Ric Flair’s “shadow.” I don’t say that with any sort of disrespect to Arn, who is one of my all-time favorite performers. I just feel that’s the way he was pushed… in Flair’s “shadow.” Flair was the NWA’s top guy, and rightfully so, for such a lengthy period of time. Fans were paying to see Flair have his legendary feuds with the likes of Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, and so on. Flair was on a different level, placed on a pedestal by everyone, and I feel that relegated Arn to the tier below that as a singles performer, and putting him in the tag scene. He won a total of 11 championships while working for the company, but he was never able to make it to the top.
Jushin Thunder Liger: His “sin” was coming up in the wrong era. He’s one of the single greatest junior heavyweight wrestlers of all-time, and one of the most influential performers that the sport has ever seen. That’s the thing, though… he’s a junior heavyweight. While he was becoming a household name in Japan as a member of the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster, heavyweights and junior heavyweights were kept apart completely. It was a different time back then. In more recent times, New Japan has pushed people like Kota Ibushi, Zack Sabre Jr and Will Ospreay… names that have either been Junior Heavyweight Champions in the past, or are in the weight range for the division… and made them outright World Champions. If Jushin Liger were in his physical prime over the last several years, instead of retiring in that time frame, there’s no doubt that he would go on to hold the IWGP World Heavyweight Title at some point.
Scott Hall: In the WWF, it was a gimmick that placed a cap on his mic skills. During his time in WCW (the nWo days, not the Diamond Studd days), it was a lack of dependability. As much as people loved the Razor Ramon character, it’s pretty clear that it was never designed to be able to handle the type of promos that a World Champion was generally asked to feature. The Tony Montana vibes were certainly cool, but Razor wasn’t going to be able to go out there and cut a variety of different promos, using different emotions and styles, to get his point across. That improved, of course, when he went from Razor to simply being Scott Hall, but by that point, things had really started to spiral out of control in his personal life. He was battling so many demons during his final WCW run, and there was no way he could be trusted to be THE guy with all that going on.
William Regal: He got in his own way. In 2008, WWE held a King Of The Ring tournament that Regal would go on to win. All the rumor and innuendo was that the KOTR victory was going to be Regal’s springboard to the main event scene, and that a WWE Championship reign was in his future. However, a month after winning KOTR, Regal would be suspended for 60 days following his second violation of the company’s Wellness Policy, and that put the kibosh on any push he would’ve received.
Dean Malenko: “The Iceman” was unable to thaw a personality out. This one is pretty easy to figure out. If you were to make a list of the best technical wrestlers of the last 30-ish years, Dean Malenko is going to be right there in the vicinity of the top of that list. He just wasn’t able to present much of anything else that would make a wrestling promotion view him as a contender for their World Championship. Look no further than his Radicalz partners, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Those two were able to overcome size disadvantages to become World Champions due to a combination of natural charisma, intensity, and an ability to connect with live audiences that Malenko never had.
Brian Pillman: A car accident. On April 15th, 1996, he was involved in an accident after falling asleep at the wheel, causing his vehicle to hit a tree and flip. He was in a coma for a week, and suffered numerous facial fractures in the accident. However, it was the shattered ankle he suffered in the crash that was the most devastating to his career. The ankle had to be fused in a “fixed walking position” and, just like that, one of the top light heavyweight wrestlers of the 1990’s had to work a completely different style, and he was never the same from a physical standpoint. I completely understand the fact that Pillman would pass away from a heart attack brought on by previously undetected heart disease, and his passing came a year-and-a-half after his car accident. However, I do think his in-ring skills, combined with his ability on the mic, and his “Loose Cannon” persona, were perfect for the WWF. If he would’ve arrived in the WWF in great physical condition, I do believe he had what it took to be involved in the main event scene before October 1997 rolled around.
“The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase: Existing in the same time and space as Hulk Hogan. Again. DiBiase is one of the greatest wrestling characters ever, but being a heel… in the same company as Hulk Hogan… during the 1980’s and the early-1990’s… was a guaranteed ceiling for your career unless your name was Andre The Giant, The Undertaker, or Yokozuna. No matter how good DiBiase was in the ring, on the mic, and as a character, he wasn’t large enough to overcome Hogan and how Vince McMahon viewed Hogan.
Shelton Benjamin: The lack of a believable presence on the mic. Sometimes, I feel that people forget just how good Shelton is/was in the ring. He had the insane athletic ability that allowed him to fly around the ring when a match called for it. At the same time, he was a world class amateur wrestler, and he had the ability to get on the mat with anybody. While I wouldn’t say he was ever terrible on the mic, it certainly wasn’t his strong suit, and that can be a huge problem for career advancement in WWE. Shelton just never sounded truly confident on the mic. He made a great career for himself in WWE, winning a title on ten occasions, but he never even got to compete for a World Title in a singles match during his entire time there.
What say you? Do you agree with my reasoning for why these names never won a World Title? If not, why do YOU think they never reached that level in their careers? Go ahead and chime in on some names that I didn’t list here, as well. As always, feel free to hit me up in the comments section below, or on Bluesky (@aaronhyden.bsky.social), and let me know what’s on your mind.
Now, let’s get to my Weekly Power Rankings, before closing things out for the week with the list of songs I was listening to as I put this column together.
Weekly Power Rankings
John Cena: First and foremost, some of you have gone way overboard praising Cena’s “pipe bomb” promo. I’ve seen people call it the best promo of Cena’s entire career, and I’ve also seen people say it was one of the greatest promos in wrestling history. Relax. It was very entertaining. Easily the best thing Cena has done since turning heel. That’s it, though, and that’s perfectly fine. It probably isn’t even in the top 20 of Cena’s best promos. Again… relax.
Randy Orton vs Sami Zayn: A pay-per-view main event quality match on television, with two of WWE’s best going at it, with high stakes on the line. Sometimes, it really doesn’t take a whole lot of fanciness, bells, and whistles to succeed in this great sport.
AEW Grand Slam Mexico: One of the most entertaining episodes of AEW television from start to finish in a long time. The crowd and atmosphere carried the episode to an entirely different level. Good stuff.
AJ Styles vs JD McDonagh: The outcome was never in question, and that’s probably the only real “complaint” I have about the match. I really like that AJ is being built up again. Sure, many folks feel like he should be competing for World Titles again, but I’ll take an Intercontinental Title feud for him with no problem whatsoever.
Mark Briscoe vs Kazuchika Okada: It was slower paced than a lot of the top matches you see in AEW, and especially so on an episode of Dynamite that was basically an ode to Lucha Libre, but it was still plenty entertaining. What else do you need?
Asuka vs Stephanie Vaquer vs Ivy Nile vs Raquel Rodriguez: It’s so, so good to have Asuka back in WWE. The entire women’s division gets a boost by her presence, and I look forward to watching her go wild again.
Adam Cole, Templario, Atlantis, Atlantis Jr, Bandido, Brody King & Daniel Garcia vs Konosuke Takeshita, Kyle Fletcher, Dax Harwood, Hechicero, Lance Archer, Josh Alexander & Volador Jr: That’s entirely too many people to have in one tag match, but hey, at least the match was good. As I always say, though… I’m so thankful I don’t need to do play-by-play coverage of these types of matches. There’s no shot I’d be able to keep up.
Jey Uso vs Rusev vs Sheamus vs Bronson Reed: A hard-hitting match that featured four men who were working with extra motivation, trying to earn a World Title shot at SummerSlam. Simple. Effective.
Will Ospreay, Samoa Joe, Powerhouse Hobbs, Swerve Strickland & Katsuyori Shibata vs Jon Moxley, The Young Bucks, Wheeler Yuta & The Beast Mortos: Damn, Mortos is revealed to be dating Mercedes Moné, and the next thing you know, he’s on the winning team in the main event of Dynamite? Her creative control is stronger than we thought. I’m kidding, of course, but it was still cool to see Mortos in a spot like this.
Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Bandido & Daniel Garcia vs Konosuke Takeshita, Kyle Fletcher & FTR: If Tony Khan’s going to do one thing, it’s throw a whole bunch of names together and have them work tag matches of some variation. It works far more often than it doesn’t, though.
Hologram vs Lio Rush vs Mascara Dorada vs Ricochet: Spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots… everybody!
Asuka vs Alexa Bliss: Like I said, it’s awesome to see Asuka again, and she blessed us with two really good performances in her first week back. Works for me.
Jordynne Grace vs Lola Vice: It’s important for NXT to make sure that Jordynne is built up well and looks strong, no matter who she’s facing. After some high profile losses, this was a good start in getting her back on track.
Elijah, Josh Briggs & Yoshiki Inamura vs Trick Williams, AJ Francis & Wes Lee: Raise your hand if you predicted the current, reigning, and defending TNA World Champion would be pinned by a wrestler from Japan’s Pro Wrestling NOAH promotion that is on a work excursion in America. Put your hand down, you dirty liars. That was a big surprise, coming on a brand that has been full of big surprises recently. I can dig it.
Thea Hail vs Jaida Parker: Intense and hard-hitting. I’ll take it.
This Week’s Playlist: “All over me” by HAIM… “Relationships” by HAIM… “Bodies” by Offset & JID… “All Gas No Brakes” by Teddy Swims & BigXThaPlug… “This Is How I Knew It (Remix)” by Tina Noelle & Montell Jordan… “Where To Start” by Wale… “Into Hell” by I Prevail… “Static” by Our Promise… “Hell or High Water” by As The Structure Fails… “Wicked Game” by The Expendables… “Hey Lover” by LL Cool J & Boyz 2 Men… “Loungin (Who Do Ya Luv) – Remix” by LL Cool J & Total… “I’m Bad” by LL Cool J… “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J… “Fa All Y’all” by Da Brat… “Funkdafied” by Da Brat & Jermaine Dupri… “Written All Over Your Face” by Rude Boys & Gerald Levert… “Summertime In The LBC” by Dove Shack… “Don’t Leave Me” by Blackstreet… “You Are My Lady” by Freddie Jackson
