A recent instance of the butterfly effect saw Kofi Kingston challenge Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. Kofi replaced the injured Ali in the Elimination Chamber and put on a performance that marked the start of KofiMania. The fans got behind him and the World Wrestling Entertainment hype machine duly followed suit. WWE even had Vince McMahon personally involved in the storyline doing what his character does best: stacking the odds against a red-hot babyface for him to overcome.
Despite the angle being done to death, Kofi’s rise was so organic that his eventual title win sparked a reaction akin to what the Planet’s Champion’s title win produced at WrestleMania XXX. It was a feel-good moment 11 years in the making and boy did it feel good!
There are quite a few wrestlers on the WWE main roster now who should have held a world championship ― World Heavyweight Championship, WWE Championship or Universal Championship ― by now. However, for reasons we’ll discuss, they’ve been held back. Needless to say, few world-class wrestlers like Ricochet, Aleister Black, Andrade, Drew McIntyre and Ali wouldn’t be making the list as they’ve only just been promoted to the main roster. We can, perhaps, wait a couple of years before mourning about them not having had a title reign yet.
Make sure you let us know of your own top 5 deserving world champions in the comments section below.
5. Rhyno
Given Rhyno’s association with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), you may think he’s on the wrong side of 50. However, he’s just one year older than John Cena, 42. Rhyno started his career as an enhancement talent in 1994 with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and then-WWF, putting over Jim Duggan, Road Warrior Hawk and Henry O. Godwinn, among others. Moving to ECW in 1999, we saw him rise to stardom as Paul Heyman made him the last-ever ECW Heavyweight Champion and handed him wins over some high-status names like of The Sandman.
His push continued even after his move to WWE, as he secured wins against Kane and Raven and even held the Hardcore Championship three times. He even found himself rubbing shoulders with The Rock, Stephanie McMahon and Chris Jericho. It looked as though Vince McMahon and co. were behind him, given how he was booked strongly and prominently.
However, injuries proved detrimental to his ascension, as he, less than two months after winning the United States Championship, sustained a neck injury that kept him out for 16 months. He has now become a prime example of what could have been.
While his recent run saw him face off against high-profile names like Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Baron Corbin and Sami Zayn and even win the SmackDown Tag Team Championship with Heath Slater, it was evident that he hit his ceiling.
Rhyno recently turned down an improved WWE contract with a view to join All Elite Wrestling (AEW), Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor (ROH) or New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). However, even there, chances are low that he’ll reach the heights he could have without the setbacks he’s faced.
4. Braun Strowman
Big Show, Kane and The Undertaker had needed replacing for a long time, and WWE didn’t have anyone to turn to — that was until the arrival of Braun Strowman. Initially made the fourth member of The Wyatt Family, he started growing in prominence following their split in 2016. He embarked on a winning streak that also made James Ellsworth an overnight star, and won his feuds with Sin Cara and Sami Zayn.
In no time, he found himself wrestling with then-Universal Champion Kevin Owens before entering a long, drawn-out feud with WWE’s chosen one Roman Reigns. The feud solidified his position as a monster, and he also managed to win over the fans via his crazy feats of strength and decimation of The Big Dog. WWE, upon realizing his popularity, booked him to overpower huge names like Dean Ambrose and Triple H and even gave him five pin-falls ― The Miz, Elias, Seth Rollins, John Cena and Finn Balor ― at the Elimination Chamber match.
However, multiple unsuccessful pursuits of the Universal Championship have made him an afterthought. His winning the Raw Tag Team Championship with a kid and becoming only the fourth wrestler to fail a cash-in haven’t helped his cause either. More recently, at WrestleMania 35, he found himself feuding with Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Michael Che in the pre-show.
After a promising start to his singles career, he now finds himself in throwaway mid-card feuds. However, given his popularity, there’s a huge chance for him to end up winning a world title before the turn of the century.
3. Shinsuke Nakamura
After spending over a decade with NJPW and winning everything the promotion had to offer, Shinsuke Nakamura moved to WWE in 2016. One of Triple H’s biggest acquisitions to date, he debuted at a TakeOver event where he defeated Sami Zayn in front of a Dallas crowd they made raucous. Seldom losing clean and securing wins against Samoa Joe and Finn Balor, he was made a WWE superstar.
Much was expected of him on the main roster and their promotion team did an awesome job hyping his SmackDown Live debut for weeks. He even had his main-roster debut at a pay-per-view, Backlash. However, his first couple of feuds against Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin killed the momentum he’d built during his time at Full Sail University.
Upon the culmination of his feud with The Lone Wolf, however, WWE tried rebuilding him, giving him wins against Randy Orton and John Cena in number-one contendership matches; however, he ended up losing to Jinder Mahal twice, killing whatever was left of his momentum.
Although WWE gave him a Royal Rumble match win in 2018, he lost his match at WrestleMania, this time against a worthier opponent in AJ Styles. He wrestled AJ Styles many times again, coming up short on all occasions. He has since won the United States Championship, but lost decisive matches, like the US Champion vs. Intercontinental Champion match against Seth Rollins. His stocks have fallen further in recent times, with him forming a rather lacklustre tag team with Rusev.
With reputed combat sports journalist Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter reporting that the Japanese stalwart will be staying with WWE post the expiry of his current contract later this year, you’d think he might win a world title sometime down the line.
2. Sami Zayn
An established indie name when he signed for WWE, Sami Zayn had an underwhelming start to his NXT career booking-wise. He lost his first feud to Cesaro and lost matches against Bo Dallas, Neville Corey Graves, Tyler Breeze and even Titus O’Neil, including NXT Championship bouts against the former two.
It took him nearly two years to win a big feud, when he ended his long rivalry with Neville with a NXT Championship win at TakeOver: R-Evolution in December 2015. His title reign lasted only a little over two months, as Kevin Owens dethroned him following a lopsided affair. His last NXT appearance saw him lose to a debuting Shinsuke Nakamura.
His being promoted to the main roster had his fans hoping for bigger things. However, he has only lost multiple matches and feuds to Kevin Owens, Braun Strowman, Samoa Joe, Bobby Lashley and Chris Jericho.
His teaming up with former foe KO saw him produce some of the best work of his WWE career as he managed to draw genuine heel heat. They did have an amazing feud with Shane McMahon, which culminated in a WrestleMania match. Unsurprisingly, he lost that match as well.
One of the few wrestlers to boast the ability to put on five-star matches and deliver top-quality promos, he is yet to win any WWE title, let alone a world title. His recent anti-fans gimmick got off to a great start, with his promos or parts of it heavily shared on social media and message boards. However, even that’s led to a feud with Braun, which he’s bound to lose.
Should he stay with WWE for as long as Kofi has, he may end up holding a world title at some point.
1. Cesaro
Cesaro topping this list should surprise no one. What would probably surprise most of you would be the fact that the United States Championship is the only singles title he’s won during his eight-year WWE career. In fact, he hasn’t won a singles title in nearly seven years, although he has won the Tag Team Championship titles a whopping six times with Sheamus and Tyson Kidd.
Unlike a lot of other indie wrestlers, Cesaro managed to get over with all types of fans. The casuals who only attend the shows and the more hardcore ones who discuss wrestling all day on social media both rooted for him and even birthed the Cesaro Section that grew in leaps and bounds. However, the WWE management, Vince McMahon in particular, has found him too boring to be a champion.
If his run with The Bar is anything to go by, he does boast the charisma, style and character required to be a champion. If anything, he’s just as charismatic as multiple-time WWE Champion AJ Styles.
That said, given WWE’s talent pool, chances of his ever becoming a world champion is slim. At 38, he still has at least five years of top-level wrestling ahead of him, so he should take the Jon Moxley or Austin Aries route if he cares about winning titles.
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