Embarrassing Wrestling Title Wins That Were Purely Out Of Pity

Booking the right champions is one of the most important aspects of any wrestling promotion. Without title-holders that are over and have the ability to capture a crowd's interest, it lessens the effectiveness of the entire main event scene. We've seen plenty of examples of this over the years, and the results usually mean a real reduction in quality for the overall product, no matter which promotion it happens to be.

Of course, there are many reasons why management decides to put a title on certain wrestlers. It could be their tenure with the company, or the fact that it would be a novelty to see them with a title. Whatever the reason may be, it's often also laced with pity. Given the scripted nature of professional wrestling itself, it's not a surprise that sometimes a title belt is placed on someone undeserving of it. The common perspective from bookers and management is that if the angle bombs, the title can always be booked to change hands to someone else.

So let's take a look at some of the most undeserving title wins in the history of the business.

Ranked below are 15 embarrassing title wins that were purely out of pity.

15 Road Warrior Animal & Heidenreich - WWE Tag Titles

This pairing was ill-advised from the beginning, and it's clear that despite their intentions, that WWE wasn't doing proper justice to the legacy of one of the greatest tag teams of all-time. Even though Animal was a part of this duo, Heidenreich was always more or less a joke to the WWE audience, and his time with the company was short-lived because of this.

Putting a title on this purported version of The Legion Of Doom didn't do anything except make fans desire to have Hawk back alongside Animal, instead of a second-rate ripoff with less talent.

They may have won the Tag Titles, but it barely even qualified as a legitimate title run, and most people tried to forget about it as soon as it was over.

14 David Flair - US Title

Anybody could see that the younger Flair wasn't ready for primetime when he debuted in WCW back in 1999. He simply wasn't cut out for the big leagues yet, but that didn't stop him from getting a push, and winning the United States Title shortly after entering the company.

Needless to say, it was one of the most nonsensical title reigns in the history of WCW, and that's saying a lot.

It's understandable that when you're the son of one of the greatest of all-time, that you're going to receive some career benefits that others wouldn't. Nepotism is real in wrestling, just like every other industry. But giving him the second-highest singles title in the company was a piss-poor move, that didn't do anything for WCW's legitimacy, at a time when WWE was beginning to take the lead in the ratings war.

13 Jeff Hardy - WWE Title

Hardy's WWE Title reign was a random and desperate attempt to shake up the main event scene in the company. Even though Hardy was always going to be nothing more than a transitional champion, there was still little reason to put the belt on him in 2008. He had already made his mark on the tag division, and there was no reason to shoehorn him as a singles wrestler.

He wasn't particularly effective on the mic, and his matches simply worked best when they weren't expected to be the main spectacle of the card. The title reign was also used to set up a feud between him and brother Matt. Needless to say, this didn't last long, and Hardy left for TNA shortly after the reign concluded.

12 1-2-3 Kid & Marty Jannetty - WWE Tag Titles

There have been multiple low-points in the WWE tag division over the years, but circa late-'93 to early-94 may have been the absolute worst. The Kid and Jannetty were lumped together as a team for little other reason than they wrestled in a vaguely similar style, and because there were no better options at the company's disposal.

They held the Tag Titles for a mere seven days before losing it back to The Quebecers. Considering that was their biggest competition, essentially a mid-card-level team, it shows just how in the doldrums the division was around this time.

The Kid and Jannetty would break up soon after, due to Jannetty's legal troubles. An awkward pairing between the two made for an unmemorable stint in the tag ranks.

11 Hornswoggle - Cruiserweight Title

Having a character like Hornswoggle actually win the Cruiserweight Title was just one of the things that had a hand in delegitimizing the belt entirely.

It was, quite frankly, a joke, and this kind of nonsense plagued WWE in the mid-2000s with their mid-card division seemingly all the time.

We can argue whether or not Hornswoggle was an entertaining character, or had a place in the company at all, but winning a title was just too much of a hokey booking maneuver to be taken seriously at all. He'd stay in the company for a long time in a myriad of roles, but it was his Cruiserweight Title win which was a certified low-point for the company.

10 Bret Hart - US Title

Hart's comeback in the late-'00s was met with a variety of reactions. He hadn't set foot in a WWE ring since the infamous Montreal Screwjob in 1997, and much of this was simply seen as a way to make amends for the whole thing. Whether or not you believe it was actually a shoot in the first place, many people would agree that after the incident, Hart's career suffered a significant downswing.

Defeating The Miz for the United States Title was merely the company tossing him a bone.

After more than a decade of underwhelming career moves, Hart had yet another WWE-based title to his name. Of course, the reign didn't last long, as it was more for effect than anything else, and as a public gesture from the company to Hart himself, acknowledging the history between the two.

9 The Mountie - Intercontinental Title

The Mountie and Jimmy Hart — via wwe.com

One of the most improbable Intercontinental Champions of all-time, The Mountie (Jacques Rougeau) won the title on a house show in January of 1992, and promptly lost the title to Roddy Piper two days later. It was the shortest reign for the title in WWE history for a while, and certainly one of strangest title changes we've ever seen.

Bret Hart was going through contract negotiations at the time, and WWE needed a safeguard option to put the belt on for a few days. Rougeau was a veteran of the company, so management threw him a bone, in exchange for essentially helping them on short notice. It wasn't a particularly memorable reign in the least, but it does stand out as a curiosity.

8 Bob Backlund - WWE Title

Nobody denies that Backlund was one of the most important WWE figures of the late-'70s, and helped establish the company with his top-notch in-ring skills during that time. But by the early-'90s, the business had simply changed, and he wasn't a good fit for the new look of wrestling that was taking shape at the time.

He would win the WWE Title from Bret Hart in 1994, and the move was really just a terrible idea. The feud itself wasn't believable, and Backlund just had little place in the new WWE landscape of the time.

This era may have had a lot of questionable characters, but they were out of their prime, and taking titles away from rising stars. Thankfully, his reign would last only three days, and soon after Backlund would move to a role that was mainly outside of the ring.

7 Tommy Dreamer - ECW Title

A hardcore innovator while with the original ECW, Dreamer was squarely out of his prime when he went to WWE's incarnation of it. The whole thing was really just a watered-down version of a once-great product, and his ECW Title in WWE's version meant next to nothing. Dreamer himself couldn't add much to it at this point in his career, and his involvement seemed to be a rehash of past glory.

There's no denying that Dreamer is one of the most important wrestlers of the 90s for all of the ground he helped to break, but by the late-'00s, he was running on empty as a legitimately active wrestler. Predictably, WWE's version of ECW shut down soon after his title run.

6 Rey Mysterio - WWE World Title

Even though just about everybody is a fan of Mysterio, it's clear that his World Heavyweight Title reign in WWE was the result of the death of Eddie Guerrero in 2005. Rey's in-ring work was always great, but selling him as a legitimate heavyweight champion, as a wrestler who was clearly a cruiserweight for his entire career, wasn't really a viable option.

It's true that Mysterio was able to move merchandise during his WWE career, but not at a top-tier level. Putting the belt on him was a plan-B to Guerrero's reign with the title just a year earlier, and while Mysterio tried to make it work, he was hamstrung by a difficult situation. He never should have been put in this situation in the first place.

5 Billy & Chuck - Tag Team Titles

Billy Gunn is one of the most notable tag team wrestlers in the history of WWE, but this was one of his worst efforts by far, teamed with Chuck Palumbo. The homosexual gimmick seemed to be far too contrived for wrestlers that had been around for so long with past gimmicks to their credit, and though they won the titles, there were better options in the tag division at the time.

The whole thing just seemed haphazard, and just a way to keep two fading stars relevant at a time when there was an influx of new talent in play at the company. The Billy & Chuck tandem was one of the more forgettable gimmicks of the early-2000s.

4 Mark Henry - WWE World Title

Nothing against Henry, who carved out a long career for himself in WWE, becoming one of the most tenured members in the company, but his World heavyweight title reign in 2011 was nothing short of the company pandering to him for all the time he put in.

Henry deserved to be commended, but considering the relative disappointment he was after signing his initial 10-year contract in 1996, this title reign reeked of cronyism.

Now, this is professional wrestling, and bookers do have the ability to script back the title to a more worthy contender in short order. But still, Henry sticks out like a sore thumb when talking about past World Heavyweight Champions. It wouldn't last long, thankfully.

3 David Arquette

In one of the silliest moves WCW ever made, Arquette, an actor, won the WCW Heavyweight Title. It was something that effectively signalled that the company had jumped the shark, although many would argue that it had happened well beforehand. In fairness, Arquette never wanted to win the title, but Vince Russo insisted that the angle go through.

RELATED: Other Things That Killed WCW

So while this certainly wasn't Arquette's doing, it was still horrible, and was one of the most embarrassing angles in all of professional wrestling. Nobody would have expected differently from WCW at the time, since the writing was on the wall, but it still stands as a colossal failure.

2 Jinder Mahal

Mahal had been in the WWE ranks for well over five years by the time he won the WWE Title last year, and it was clearly a move to pander to him, and the international audience. It was probably the worst booking decision of that year, as everyone could tell that Mahal didn't deserve to be champion, and certainly not for the amount of time that he ended up getting. Any kind of hope that it would be a transitional title reign was squashed when we started racking up title defenses.

Mahal held the belt for roughly six months, and it was one of the most plodding, lethargic reigns in the history of the company.

The goal was to put the title on A.J. Styles all along, but there were dozens of other options that would have been a better play than to let a marginal talent like Mahal hold it for half the year.

1 Ryback

WWE's fascination with Ryback, and their hope that he would be the second coming of Bill Goldberg, was the most perplexing thing at the time, and it doesn't make much more sense now. Clearly, they were looking at a shakeup for the Intercontinental Title landscape, but putting the belt on a derivative character and bad wrestler like Ryback wasn't the way to go about doing this.

It was simply one of the worst title reigns in the history of the company.

The talent wasn't there for a marquee, monster push, and Ryback slowly fizzled out of the company by the time they probably thought he'd be one of the top dogs, in 2016. Ultimately, it stands as a failed experiment, and shows that trying to recreate the past isn't the best idea in the current WWE landscape. Ryback was nothing more than dead weight, and his title reign was for sure an embarrassment.

NEXT: Legends Who Surprisingly Never Won The WWE Championship