10 Wrestlers Who Refused To Drop Their Title

There are always risks for a promotion when they decide to put one of their titles on any given performer.

The talent could bomb, they could get injured or suspended while holding it (and thus need to vacate) or they could – ala Chris Jericho - have their title stolen while eating at a Longhorn Steakhouse.

The wrestler themselves may also decide they like holding onto the title so much that they don’t want to drop it.

Be it due to contract disputes, personal beefs or just plain old ‘being Shawn Michaels’, a wrestler refusing to drop their title when asked can lead to plenty of problems.

Check out 10 Wrestlers Who Refused to Drop Their Title below.

10. Rey Mysterio

Rey Mysterio is one of wrestling’s true good guys, a career babyface who is beloved by all from fans to his co-workers.

Though the masked man has been a model employee for the vast majority of the last 30 or so years, there have been a couple of instances of him speaking up and using his veteran status to change creative plans.

One such time was in the summer of 2009, when Rey was reigning as Intercontinental Champion.

Mysterio and Chris Jericho had been battling for months and trading the title in a great programme that not only enhanced their own stock, but made the title itself more important, too.

Rey was puzzled, then, when the order came for him to drop the strap to Dolph Ziggler at the Night of Champions pay-per-view, just one month after beating Y2J for the gold.

The Biggest Little Man successfully argued that he deserved a longer run with the title and convinced Vince McMahon that he shouldn’t pass it on to the Show-Off.

Rey beat Ziggler at Night of Champions and then a month later at SummerSlam, but a Wellness Policy violation saw him forced to lose it to John Morrison shortly after.

9. The Honky Tonk Man

The longest-reigning Intercontinental Champion in WWE history almost had his record-setting run with the gold ended six months earlier than it did.

Vince had asked for the Honky Tonk Man to lose his treasured title to Randy Savage on the NBC special The Main Event.

The dime store Elvis impersonator, however, flat-out refused to do it.

It wasn’t because he didn’t like The Macho Man or even had a problem with dropping the title in theory. He was against the plan because he knew the show would be watched by tens of millions of people and that such a high-profile loss would hurt his bargaining power if he wanted to go somewhere else, like WCW.

Apparently, he got his way, because the match ended in a count out and the Honky Tonk Man retained.

Not that Savage would have minded too much, since he won the WWE Title at WrestleMania IV six weeks later.

As for the Honky Tonk Man, he ended up getting steamrolled by the Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam, a destruction job from which he never really recovered.

8. Brock Lesnar

Brock Lesnar has always marched to the beat of his own drum and done business the way he thinks is best for Brock.

It was true when he decided to walk away from WWE in 2004 in order to chase a longshot NFL dream, and it was true in 2006 when he walked away from New Japan Pro-Wrestling while reigning as their IWGP Heavyweight Champion due to a pay dispute.

The Beast had won the title on his first night in the Far East and defended it a few times across seven matches, including a win over a young Shinsuke Nakamura inside the Tokyo Dome.

As he left what turned out to be his final tour for the promotion, Antonio and Simon Inoki tried to get him to leave the belt with them so they could ‘polish it up’ for when he returned. Brock was intent to keep hold of it, however, as an insurance policy until the money matters were taken care of.

New Japan tried to get him to come back later in order to drop the title, but when the two sides couldn’t agree on a dollar amount, Lesnar stayed on the farm.

He eventually lost the championship, many moons later, to Kurt Angle for Inoki’s new IGF promotion.

7. Stan Hansen

Stan Hansen wore his outlaw spirit on his pearl-snapped sleeves, feared as a wild man in the ring and noted as a savvy businessman outside of it.

The Lariat was not one to be messed with by wrestlers or the office, as Greg Gagne and the AWA found out in 1986.

The flagging organisation had made Hansen their World Champion after Rick Martel had failed to properly take off as top dog.

It was a surprise to Stan, who primarily made his living in Japan (where he was considered a legend), but he was happy to shoulder the responsibility and looked forward to working with the likes of rising star Curt Hennig.

Six months into his reign and already feeling dissatisfied with how it had turned out from a cash and creative standpoint, Hansen balked at the request that he drop the title, out of the blue, to Nick Bockwinkel on a show in Denver, Colorado.

Hansen was stripped of the title by the AWA, but toured Japan as champion and even defended it in spite of the fact.

The AWA threatened to sue unless he returned it, which Hansen did – but not before running over it with his truck.

6. Hulk Hogan

The closing scenes of WrestleMania IX certainly rankled with Bret Hart, who lost his WWE Title in the main event to Yokozuna, only to have his ‘friend’ Hulk Hogan come in and win the belt himself in an impromptu match.

The hardworking Hitman felt robbed of his big moment at the Showcase of the Immortals, but he lived with it because he knew, eventually, the Hulkster would do the honours for him, and he would get the belt back.

Right?...right?!? WRONG, BROTHER!

Turns out Hogan wasn’t really into the whole ‘losing the WWE Title to Bret Hart thing’ and backed out of their planned SummerSlam showdown.

Instead, Terry agreed to lay down for Yokozuna at the King of the Ring.

He was happy taking an L against a superheavyweight who received an assist from an exploding camera, but Hogan wasn’t about to do any sort of torch passing with the Excellence of Execution.

5. Sable

Holding a championship belt obviously doesn’t automatically make you a better wrestler, as evidenced by the fact the untrained Sable held the Women’s Title during the Attitude Era.

In the Vince Russo-penned world of WWE at the time, belts were little more than props and the Women’s Title, in particular, was a low priority.

But the blonde bombshell was a star, no doubt, and she knew it. The television ratings and merchandise sales told her as much every single week.

So when Sable was asked to drop the strap to veteran Luna Vachon at the 1999 Royal Rumble, she refused. And what were WWE going to do? After all, she was the one drawing in millions of people and gracing the cover of Playboy, while Luna was talented and respected, but ultimately caused many backstage headaches with her erratic behaviour.

Sable never really lost the title properly, ultimately dropping it to Debra despite being victorious in their evening gown match, because Commissioner Shawn Michaels was overcome by his horniness and named Debra the winner because he could see more of her flesh.

4. Ric Flair

Former WCW Executive Vice President Jim Herd, rightly and wrongly, gets a lot of flak for the three tumultuous years he was in charge of the promotion.

The absurd gimmicks and storylines the former Pizza Hut manager pitched angered and frustrated fans and performers, but there was one star who butted heads with Herd more than most.

Ric Flair was already established as an all-time great at this point and was one of the most popular stars in the company, but Jim felt his appearance and gimmick needed changing and that his time as a main event talent was over.

As part of his plan to push the Nature Boy down the card, he asked Flair to drop the WCW World Heavyweight Title to Lex Luger.

Slick Ric said no, since he had already promised to drop the title to Sting (who was injured at the time), while also believing The Total Package wasn’t yet ready to hold the Ten Pounds of Gold.

Flair attempted to compromise and offered to put over Barry Windham instead, but Herd fired him – resulting in the Dirtiest Player in the Game keeping possession of the belt – while the EVP booked Luger to go over Windham for a newly-created world title belt.

3. Chyna

If Chyna had things her way, she would have been WWE Champion and wrestling the likes of Steve Austin and The Rock on a weekly basis.

WWE did not have the same vision for the Ninth Wonder of the World, but tried to accommodate her by booking her to win the Intercontinental Title and then giving her a dominant run as Women’s Champion.

After flattening Ivory like a bug to win the belt at WrestleMania 17, Chyna embarked on a friendly feud with Lita.

The flame-haired daredevil and Team Extreme member had gotten over huge as a babyface and the company wanted to give her a push to match her popularity.

While they wanted Chyna to drop the Women’s Title to Lita, Chyna herself wasn’t convinced.

She liked Lita and was looking forward to working with her, but felt as though she should be protected more, especially since she’d spent the last several years wrestling (and beating) many of the men.

Chyna did raise Lita’s hand after beating her in their Judgment Day meeting, the first of a planned series of matches that never ended up happening as Joanie Lauer soon exited the company in acrimony.

2. Bret Hart

You might have heard of this one.

As Bret Hart was working the remainder of his WWE contract before jumping to rival WCW in late ‘97, Vince McMahon asked The Hitman to drop the WWE Title to Shawn Michaels.

This might not have been an issue a couple of years prior, but by this point a lot of very real bad blood had built up between the two, with Michaels expressly telling Hart that, if the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t do the honours for him.

Added to this was the fact the planned title change was scheduled to take place in Bret’s native Canada.

The Excellence of Execution felt that losing such a high-profile bout on home soil would have done serious damage to his reputation as a Canadian hero.

Bret did agree to lose the title elsewhere and to others, even suggesting he’d be happy to lose it to the Brooklyn Brawler, if that’s what Vince wanted, and in the end all involved agreed that the 1997 Survivor Series main event would end in a big ‘schmozz’ with members of DX and the Hart Foundation running in for the DQ.

Well, Bret thought that’s what they’d all agreed to…

1. Shawn Michaels

I mean, really, where do you even start?

Shawn Michaels is one of the GOATs, yes, but he was also for the longest time an absolute nightmare as far as his backstage attitude and politicking went, and no wrestler in history has ‘lost’ so many titles without actually losing them.

The Heartbreak Kid was far from bowled over when asked to do the J-O-B, especially if he was in possession of a championship belt.

There was always a way to forfeit the thing, whether it was hiding behind a dubious-looking injury or simply flat-out saying ‘no’ when the topic came up.

He wouldn’t lose the Intercontinental Title to Dean Douglas, turned his nose up at passing the WWE Title to Vader, misplaced his smile rather than returning the favour to Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13 and basically gave the European Title to DX buddy Triple H in a farcical ‘match’.

There has also been speculation that The Showstopper denied then-undefeated Tatanka an IC Title victory at ‘Mania 9, that he and Diesel weren’t going to drop the Tag Titles and so vacated them instead and that he was contemplating not losing the WWE Title to Steve Austin at WrestleMania 14, before The Undertaker ‘convinced’ him that the other way would probably be better.