The history of transitional champions in wrestling
Last Monday, Sami Zayn lost the WWE Championship to CM Punk and became the latest wrestler to enter the transitional champion club. But something happened after he lost the title. Everybody who is anti-TKO/WWE, including The Coach and Vince Russo, got angry at the fact that WWE took the belt off Zayn after only nine days, mostly because of a report from “the guy who shall not be named” claiming that WWE doesn’t see Zayn as a top guy.
The funny thing is, those same people who were mad that WWE took the belt off Zayn were the same people who were mad nine days earlier when WWE decided to put the belt on him. It’s hard to take them seriously when they complain about Zayn being champion.
Anyway, since all those people seem to have forgotten how wrestling works, and that a transitional champion is just as important to wrestling as having a long title reign, I wanted to look at some of the most famous transitional champions in WWE/F history.
1. Ivan Koloff: He was basically the first transitional champion in WWE history. WWE needed to take the title off Bruno Sammartino in 1971 and eventually get it to Pedro Morales, so Koloff was chosen to defeat Sammartino, only to lose the belt to Morales two weeks later. After losing the title, Koloff never won the WWE Championship or any other world title again, but he still had a legendary career and became a WWE Hall of Famer.
2. The Iron Sheik: This is probably the most famous transitional champion in wrestling history. In 1983, Vince McMahon Jr. had just bought the company from his father and wanted to take the WWF national, but he knew he couldn’t do that with Bob Backlund as champion. So he signed Hulk Hogan away from the AWA and wanted to make him the face of the company. The problem was that, back then, you generally didn’t do face-versus-face title matches. Vince decided to have The Iron Sheik beat Backlund for the championship so he could lose it to Hogan a few weeks later. After that, Sheik continued to have a strong career in the mid-card and eventually became a WWE Hall of Famer.
3. The Undertaker: The Undertaker is one of the greatest legends in WWE history, but in 1991 he was still a relatively new character, and nobody knew if he would be a flash in the pan or have a long career. WWE decided to have him win the WWF Championship at Survivor Series 1991 as a test to see if fans would accept him as champion. That title reign lasted only six days before he dropped the championship the following week. After that, he wouldn’t win another world title until 1997.
4. Kane: Kane won the WWE Championship only once, at King of the Ring 1998, when he defeated Steve Austin in a First Blood Match. He dropped the title the following night on Raw back to Austin and never won the WWE Championship again. He did go on to win the World Heavyweight Championship and the ECW Championship later in his career, and he still became a WWE Hall of Famer.
5. The Ruthless Aggression Era: During this era, a lot of wrestlers had short title reigns. Edge, Jeff Hardy, Triple H, Randy Orton, Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, CM Punk, and The Rock all had relatively short championship reigns at various points. They’re all either WWE Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers. Short title reigns have always been part of wrestling.
6. The Miz: The last wrestler to truly be a transitional WWE Champion was The Miz. His second reign in 2021 lasted only eight days because WWE wanted to take the title off Drew McIntyre and put it on Bobby Lashley. As a great heel, Miz cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on McIntyre at Elimination Chamber and then lost the championship to Lashley on Raw. After that, he returned to the mid-card, continued being one of WWE’s most reliable performers, and is widely considered a future Hall of Famer.
In the end, there are plenty of examples showing that being a transitional champion is an important role in wrestling. This outrage over Zayn becoming one is just that—outrage for the sake of outrage. It really shouldn’t be that big of a deal, as Zayn already has a Hall of Fame-caliber career, and this short title reign only adds to his legacy. So let’s stop getting outraged over reports that may not even be true and recognize that Zayn got to become WWE Champion, even if it was only for a few days, adding another accomplishment to his Hall of Fame-worthy career.
On a side note, it’s not like this was the first time Zayn was a transitional champion. He did something similar in NXT, winning the NXT Championship in December 2014 before losing it two months later in his first title defense against Kevin Owens.