10 WWE Championship Reigns That Definitely Should Have Been Longer
Every kid grows up dreaming of being WWE Champion for an hour...
3. Shawn Michaels (2002)
Similar to the case of Big Show we looked at earlier, Shawn Michaels won a world title at the 2002 Survivor Series, only to lose it the next month at Armageddon.
For the Heartbreak Kid, though, his title win was even more special, as he won it in the main event of the show, in the first ever Elimination Chamber match, at Madison Square Garden, in only his second bout back after improbably returning from a four-year injury layoff.
WWE gave Michaels, one of their best ever performers, the World Heavyweight Title in a confetti-filled feel-good moment. However, it soon became apparent that Michaels was not (yet) back long-term and that the title reign was tokenistic in nature.
HBK defended the title one time, a disqualification loss to Rob Van Dam on Raw, before giving it back to Triple H at Armageddon when he lost a Three Stages of Hell match.
A four-week reign with the big gold belt would have been fine, had The Showstopper captured another between then and his 2010 retirement, but he didn't, and this felt like a missed opportunity.
Written by Lewis Howse
Features journalist for Cultaholic.com and script writer for the Cultaholic YouTube Channel.