10 Wrestling Champions Who Barely Defended Their Title
These wrestling champions didn't put their belts on the line much
8. Gillberg - WWE Light Heavyweight Championship
WWE introduced its Light Heavyweight division in 1997 as an attempt to counteract WCW’s revolutionary cruiserweight crew.
With the world’s best luchadores and other standout workers like Dean Malenko and Chris Jericho were tearing it up on Nitro, the pickings were slim for WWE and they ended up giving up on the concept fairly quickly.
It became apparent that WWE weren’t taking it seriously when they had Goldberg parody Gillberg (who won it as ‘Duane Gill’) beat Christian for the Light Heavyweight Title on the November 23, 1998, episode of Raw.
The longtime enhancement talent, to his credit, defended the title three times within the first month, beating Christian, Taka Michinoku and Matt Hardy on episodes of Heat.
And then…nothing. Gillberg did defend the title away from WWE on various independent shows, but the JOB Squad member continued to do jobs on WWE television.
Eventually, WWE decided they had to actually do something with the title and hastily booked Gillberg to drop it to Essa Rios on the February 13, 2000, edition of Heat.
445 days as champ and just three televised defences for the longest-reigning WWE Light Heavyweight Champion of all time.
