Five Best Who WWE Never Had As World Champion

wwe.com

No.5: Ravishing Rick Rude

While I’m not a fan of the late Rick Rude, I cannot take away from how talented he was as a professional wrestler. In the WWE he had reached main event status against The Ultimate Warrior during his World title run after WrestleMania VI when he pinned Hulk Hogan. Rude and Warrior had some very good matches against each other in that run, highlighted by their 1990 SummerSlam match in a steel cage (the good steel cage too, the big blue steel).

Before that Rude had a successful run as Intercontinental champion that he beat the Warrior for. He also was in a very heated program with Jake The Snake Roberts. It was at that time he started to show that he was made to be a top billing heel for the WWE. But at that time the WWE had Hogan and they wanted him battling against giants, not smaller guys who Hogan would be viewed as the favorite by the casual fan.

Rude had to leave the WWE to find success as a true main event talent. After signing with WCW Rude would be thrown right into the upper midcard programs and win the US Title. After an injury that stripped him of that title, Rude returned and challenged Ric Flair to a NWA title match. He would go on to beat Flair for the NWA title (which later was the WCW International title).

I think the WWE missed out on a chance to have Rude vs. Savage for the WWE championship. Rude’s character being the womanizer and Savage’s jealousy with anyone near Miss Elizabeth would have been a great story to let unfold on television, but McMahon must have felt the need to get the Mega Power to explode to be too strong to resist. So instead of an interesting and longer Savage run with the title, the WWE fans had their Mega Power’s implosion and WrestleMania V main event.

Next: No.4: Everybody's got a Price