3. The Patriot – In Your House: Ground Zero 1997
Rest in Peace, Del Wilkes, the man beneath The Patriot mask, who passed away in June earlier this year. The Patriot wrestled throughout the world during his career, including a cup of coffee in WWE, for about six months in 1997.
Most fans remember him for having a pretty kickass entrance theme, that would go on to be known the world over as Medal, Kurt Angle’s entrance music.
Years before Angle would make his debut that music sounded before a match for the WWF Championship at In Your House: Ground Zero, in September 1997.
Champion Bret Hart was in the middle of his yay Canada boo USA feud that gradually everyone else in the world would come to realize was a righteous cause, Bret Hart way ahead of his time.
To bolster that feud, The Patriot was rushed into a title match with Hart to try and sell as many flags as humanly possible.
The highlight of the match saw The Patriot lock Bret in his own sharpshooter, though Bret would, of course, emerge victorious.
The Patriot only had three pay-per-view matches in WWF before succumbing to a triceps injury and being released shortly after, but when one of them is a 20-minute bout against WWF Champion Bret Hart, that’s pretty good going.
2. X-Pac – Capital Carnage 1998
Ah, the original karate kid. DX on, DX off.
Sean Waltman has had two major lifetimes in WWE, the first as the 1-2-3 Kid who was very good but also looked like he was about to burst into tears at the slightest breeze, and the second as X-Pac, who was very good but also spent most of his time doing hateful kung-fu poses like your mum’s new boyfriend.
Neither gimmick strayed above the midcard but amazingly, BOTH iterations of DX’s most earnest penis indicator received shots at the WWE Championship.
The 1-2-3 Kid got a shot against Bret Hart’s winged eagle on the July 1, 1994, episode of Raw, a match which went a whopping 17 minutes, was called by the commentator odd couple of JR and Macho Man Randy Savage, and was actually really bloody great.
Four years later, in 1998, the WWF produced the UK exclusive pay-per-view Capital Carnage, a show famous for featuring Vinnie Jones, Jacqueline having her top ripped off, and JR suffering an attack of Bells Palsy during the show.
With all that going on it’s easy to forget what the WWF Championship match was, the Corporate Champion The Rock putting his Big Eagle belt on the line against X-Pac, in a rematch of another WWF Title match the two had on Raw 3 weeks earlier, and in both cases the matches were… fine.
It was the late 90s, it was run-in central. They were fine.
1. The Brian Kendrick – Unforgiven 2008
Brian Kendrick was and remains awesome. He was the emotional heart of the Cruiserweight Classic, looks like what would have happened if Charles Manson had gotten in disco instead of cults and in the late 2000s his gimmick of The Brian Kendrick was really great.
A sort of Jack Sparrow rocker slash drug-addled swan, it was a lot of fun, he won the right to compete for the WWE Championship in a Championship Scramble at Unforgiven 2008, in a match that featured guys who also never otherwise got title shots MVP and Shelton Benjamin.
What makes the story even more fun is that not only was this cruiserweight with the odd gimmick getting an incongruous title shot, but he actually sort of won the WWE Championship…. Kinda.
See the rules of the scramble, and now I just really want a plate of eggs but I’ll get through it, stated that the match would last exactly 20 minutes, superstars enter every five, if you pinned someone you became interim WWE Champion, and whoever was champ at the end of the match won.
Shortly after he arrived, Kendrick pinned Jeff Hardy, became interim Most Prestigious Champion in all of Wrestling, held it for 6 minutes, before being pinned by Triple H.
Officially not part of WWE canon, Kendrick is unique as not only receiving a forgotten WWE Championship match but a forgotten WWE Champion reign, all 6 minutes of it.
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3 years ago by Adam Blampied
@AdamTheBlampied
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