With 2022 now in the history books, fans are filled up with memories from what were 12 insanely fun months of professional wrestling, to say the least.
Throughout the year, many historic title reigns concluded while some new ones began. However, there were reigns that could barely be remembered by the fans now that the year is over. No matter if it's WWE, AEW, NJPW, or Impact Wrestling, they've all booked underwhelming title reigns in 2022 that wrestling fans simply forgot about. Let's take a look at a few of those championship tenures.
10 Bobby Lashley - WWE Champion
"The All Mighty" Bobby Lashley had one of the dominant runs in all of WWE in 2021 when he reigned as the WWE Champion for most of the year. Unfortunately, his reign in 2022 proved to be the complete opposite.
At the 2022 Royal Rumble premium live event, Lashley shocked the world when he defeated Brock Lesnar to win the most prestigious prize in the industry. Even though the victory came after the assist from Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns, it seemed as if Lashley was once again destined for a lengthy title reign. However, he lost the belt back to Lesnar during the following month's Elimination Chamber, after being pulled mid-match due to a kayfabe concussion.
9 Brock Lesnar - WWE Champion
Speaking of Lesnar, WWE's resident beast has had two immensely forgettable world title reigns in the year 2022. First, Brock surprisingly won the WWE Championship at the Day 1 PLE, after his scheduled bout with Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship had to be scrapped at the last moment due to the champion testing positive for covid-19.
Lesnar lost the title a few weeks later to Lashley, only to win it back at the following month's Elimination Chamber. The former UFC Champion's second title reign of the year did not last long as well as he once again lost the strap at WrestleMania 38 to Roman Reigns in a title-versus-title match.
8 Young Bucks - AEW World Tag Team Champions
After reigning as the AEW World Tag Team Champions for the majority of 2021, there were zero plans for the Jackson brothers to win the gold again in 2022. However, following Jeff Hardy's DUI suspension from the company, the Bucks saw themselves become the promotion's first-ever two-time tag champs as they defeat Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus at Road Rager 2022.
Their time as champions was a very brief one, as the duo dropped the titles to Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland just four weeks later in a three-way tag match also consisting of Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs of Team Taz.
7 Tyler Bate - NXT UK Champion
After the NXT UK Champion Ilja Dragunov had to relinquish his title during the summer due to an injury, a tournament was immediately announced to crown the new champion. The eventual winner was Tyler Bate, who was also the inaugural champion back in 2016.
However, following WWE's decision to shut down NXT UK, the company made Bate appear on NXT 2.0 as the champion while the NXT UK tapings of him winning the title had yet to air. This was done to rush the announcement for a Bate vs Bron Breakker match at the World's Collide event, where the latter won to unify his NXT Championship with Bate's NXT UK title.
6 Frankie Kazarian - X Division Champion
Even though the working relationship between Impact Wrestling and AEW is nowhere near to the point it was in 2021, the two companies still see talent briefly jumping around. Such is also the case of Frankie Kazarian who has been appearing for the Anthem-owned promotion from time to time.
At the Bound for Glory 2022 PPV, Kazarian defeated Mike Bailey to win his fifth reign with the X-Division Championship. However, the reign didn't last long as Kaz would announce on an October episode of Impact Wrestling that he'll be invoking Option C, resulting in him relinquishing the belt.
5 Finn Balor - WWE United States Champion
In February 2022, the inaugural Universal Champion defeated Damian Priest to win his first-ever United States Championship. However, Finn's run barely saw him or the title getting booked to the point where the US Title was not even featured at WrestleMania.
After weeks of directionless booking and a lack of opponents, Balor lost his title to Austin Theory on the April 18, 2022, episode of Raw. The run neither helped Finn nor the belt and the Irish star soon turned heel.
4 Sanada - IWGP United States Champion
While Sanada's time in NJPW since his debut in 2016 has seen him having multiple breakout performances, the Los Ingobernables De Japon member has always been overshadowed by the likes of Evil, Naito, and Shingo Takagi. This changed in 2022 when the bookers finally showed confidence in the star and had him defeat Hiroshi Tanahashi to win the IWGP US Championship at the New Year's Golden Series.
However, luck, unfortunately, was not on Sanada's side as he had to relinquish the title just 49 days later due to an orbital fracture he had suffered during his New Japan Cup bout against Will Ospreay.
3 CM Punk - AEW World Champion
Similar to 2021 when he made his triumphant return to professional wrestling, CM Punk was once again the talk of the town in 2022 but this time it was for all the wrong reasons.
At the 2022 Double or Nothing PPV, CM Punk won the AEW World Championship off Hangman Page in what was indeed a feel-good moment. However, just days later it was revealed that Punk had suffered a broken toe and would be out of action. He returned a few weeks later but lost his title within minutes to the interim champion Jon Moxley. Punk did defeat Moxley at All Out to recapture his title, but that reign also ended immediately due to Punk suffering torn triceps and getting suspended due to his brawl with The Elite.
2 Minoru Suzuki - ROH World Television Champion
After Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor earlier in the year, fans were surprised by the announcement that the legendary Minoru Suzuki will be challenging for the ROH TV Title at the Supercard of Honor PPV. At the event, Suzuki picked up a short victory over Rhett Titus to win his first title of the historic promotion.
However, Suzuki would lose the belt just over a week later to Samoa Joe on AEW Dynamite, in what was a dream match for many.
1 Cody Rhodes - TNT Champion
At this point, it seems insane to think that at the start of 2022 Cody Rhodes was not only in AEW, but was also the TNT Champion in his third reign.
Rhodes won the title at the end of 2021 at the Rampage Holiday Bash special but was soon sidelined due to testing positive for covid-19. After returning, Cody faced the interim champion, Sammy Guevara, in a title unification ladder match and put over the young star as he headed for WWE.