Best Wrestlers Who Never Won a World Title: Our Top Five
Roddy Piper, Owen Hart, Ted DiBiase, Arn Anderson and Jake Roberts never held a major world title. Our pick, with the nights they came closest.
Roddy Piper, Owen Hart, Ted DiBiase, Arn Anderson and Jake Roberts never held the WWF, WCW or NWA world heavyweight title, and all five are on our list of the best wrestlers who never got there. Each of them lost at least one match with a world title or a main-event push on the line, and DiBiase was briefly handed the WWF Championship in 1988 before it was taken back. Below is our pick, with what each man did win and the night the big belt got away.
How we picked
We counted a world title as the top championship of WWE, WCW or the NWA. A world title in a smaller regional company did not disqualify anyone, and we say so where it applies. We also limited the list to wrestlers whose careers are finished, since an active name could win a title next month and make the list wrong. The order is our own view of each career, weighing what each man drew and how well he worked against how much his near miss still matters.
| Rank | Wrestler | Closest call | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roddy Piper | Lost to Hollywood Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at SuperBrawl VII | February 23, 1997 |
| 2 | Owen Hart | Lost a steel cage match to Bret Hart for the WWF Championship at SummerSlam | August 29, 1994 |
| 3 | Ted DiBiase | Lost to Randy Savage in the WrestleMania IV tournament final for the vacant WWF Championship | March 27, 1988 |
| 4 | Arn Anderson | Lost to Barry Windham for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at Slamboree | May 23, 1993 |
| 5 | Jake Roberts | Lost to Steve Austin in the King of the Ring final | June 23, 1996 |
1. Roddy Piper
Roderick Toombs wrestled from 1969 to 2011 and picked up 34 championships along the way, by the count kept on his career record. The list runs from the NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship to the Mid-Atlantic version of the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, the WWF Intercontinental Championship in 1992 and, very late, the World Tag Team Championship with Ric Flair at Cyber Sunday on November 5, 2006. He and Flair dropped those belts to Edge and Randy Orton eight days later.
No one in the 1980s WWF was a bigger villain. Piper was the man Hulk Hogan had to beat to get the company to its first WrestleMania. At The War to Settle the Score at Madison Square Garden on February 18, 1985, Piper challenged Hogan for the WWF Championship in front of a crowd of about 22,000. The match ended in a disqualification when Piper's allies interfered, and the brawl that followed set up the WrestleMania I main event on March 31, 1985, where Hogan and Mr. T beat Piper and Paul Orndorff.
His best chance came twelve years later in WCW. Piper beat Hollywood Hogan with a sleeper hold at Starrcade 1996 in a non-title match, which earned him a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. At SuperBrawl VII at the Cow Palace on February 23, 1997, Randy Savage broke up a submission and handed Hogan brass knuckles, Hogan hit Piper with them and kept the title, and Savage joined the nWo. Piper went into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005, inducted by Ric Flair. He died on July 31, 2015.
2. Owen Hart
Owen Hart was one of the most complete wrestlers of the 1990s, and his record shows it. He held the WWF Intercontinental Championship twice, the WWF European Championship once and the WWF World Tag Team Championship four times. In Japan he won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. He also held the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship once, a title with "World" in its name from the regional USWA, which is why we did not count it as a major world title.
1994 was his year. At WrestleMania X on March 20, 1994, Owen pinned his older brother Bret in the opening match, the same night Bret went on to beat Yokozuna for the WWF Championship. Owen won the King of the Ring tournament in Baltimore on June 19, 1994, beating Tatanka, the 1-2-3 Kid and Razor Ramon, with Jim Neidhart attacking Ramon on the floor in the final. He crowned himself the "King of Harts" and spent the coronation running down Bret.
That set up the title match at SummerSlam on August 29, 1994, at the United Center in Chicago. The steel cage match ran 32 minutes and 22 seconds. Bret threw Owen's head into the cage, Owen's leg got caught between the bars, and Bret climbed over the top and dropped to the floor to keep the belt. Afterward Neidhart padlocked the cage and he and Owen attacked Bret until the rest of the Hart family got in. Owen never won the WWF Championship. He died on May 23, 1999, after a fall during a show at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, at the age of 34.
3. Ted DiBiase
Ted DiBiase is the only man on this list who was, for a few days in 1988, handed the WWF Championship. On February 5, 1988, The Main Event aired live on NBC from Market Square Arena in Indianapolis and drew 33 million viewers, a record for wrestling on American television. Andre the Giant pinned Hulk Hogan for the title with Earl Hebner in the referee shirt in place of his twin brother Dave. In the storyline, DiBiase had paid for it. Andre then handed the belt to DiBiase. WWF President Jack Tunney ruled that a title could not be passed on that way and declared it vacant.
The vacant title went into a tournament at WrestleMania IV in Atlantic City on March 27, 1988. DiBiase pinned Jim Duggan in the first round and Don Muraco in the quarterfinals, then got a bye when Hogan and Andre were both disqualified. In the final against Randy Savage he had a sleeper hold locked in when Hogan, at ringside to counter Andre, hit him with a steel chair behind the referee's back. Savage got free, hit the top rope elbow drop and became champion.
DiBiase challenged Hogan, Savage and the Ultimate Warrior over the following years without winning. He settled for a belt of his own making, the Million Dollar Championship, and three WWF Tag Team Championship reigns with Irwin R. Schyster. Earlier in his career he held the Mid-South North American title and the NWA United National Championship in Japan. He went into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010, and he also spent a short spell as WWE 24/7 Champion.
4. Arn Anderson
Arn Anderson spent most of his career standing next to Ric Flair as the Four Horsemen's enforcer, and that role kept him one step from the top. His singles honors came from the NWA and WCW World Television Championship, which he held four times and liked to call his "world title". In tag teams he won the NWA National Tag Team Championship with Ole Anderson in 1985 and the WCW World Tag Team Championship three times, with Tully Blanchard in 1987, Larry Zbyszko in 1991 and Bobby Eaton in 1992. With Blanchard he also had a run in the WWF as the Brain Busters.
His one documented shot at the real world title came at Slamboree on May 23, 1993, at the Omni in Atlanta. Anderson challenged Barry Windham for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and lost in 10 minutes and 55 seconds. We found no record of him ever challenging for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
Neck and upper back injuries ended his career. On the August 25, 1997, episode of Monday Nitro, with Flair, Steve McMichael and Chris Benoit around him in the ring, Anderson announced his retirement and gave his spot in the Horsemen to Curt Hennig. He went into the WWE Hall of Fame with the Four Horsemen in 2012 and later worked in AEW as a producer and on-screen talent from 2019.
5. Jake Roberts
Jake Roberts never won a singles title in the WWF or WCW, which surprises people who remember how over he was. His championships came from the territories: the NWA National Television Championship, the Mid-South North American Championship twice and the SMW Heavyweight Championship. What he had instead was the DDT, which WWE itself has called the coolest maneuver of all time, and some of the best promos of his era.
His title chances in the WWF were mostly for the Intercontinental belt, and none of them worked out. At WrestleMania VI in Toronto on April 1, 1990, he lost to Ted DiBiase by count-out with DiBiase's Million Dollar Championship at stake, which is about as close to a world title as Roberts ever got in the company.
His most famous loss came at King of the Ring on June 23, 1996, in Milwaukee. Roberts beat Hunter Hearst Helmsley, then beat Vader by disqualification when Vader used the referee as a shield to avoid the DDT. In the final, Steve Austin went after the ribs Roberts had hurt against Vader and won with the Stone Cold Stunner. Austin then turned on Roberts's born-again character in his coronation speech: "You sit there and you thump your Bible... Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass!" Austin became the biggest star of the next era. Roberts went into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2014, inducted by Diamond Dallas Page, and later managed in AEW.
Others we considered
Some names that often appear on lists like this one did not fit our rule. Curt Hennig, the man who took Anderson's Horsemen spot, held the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, and the AWA was a major promotion at the time. Rick Rude held the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship three times in 1993 and 1994. Claudio Castagnoli never won a world title in WWE as Cesaro but won the ROH World Championship at Death Before Dishonor in 2022. Tetsuya Naito won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in New Japan. We left all of them off.
Looking at the five together, outside help decided two of the biggest near misses: Savage's brass knuckles cost Piper at SuperBrawl VII, and Hogan's chair cost DiBiase at WrestleMania IV. Owen lost his to a cage and a trapped leg, Anderson got a little under eleven minutes with Windham, and the title matches Roberts is remembered for in the WWF were for the Intercontinental and Million Dollar belts.
Questions
Did Roddy Piper ever win a world title?
No. Piper challenged Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship in 1985 and for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at SuperBrawl VII in 1997 and lost both times. His biggest singles title in the WWF was the Intercontinental Championship in 1992.
Was Ted DiBiase ever WWF Champion?
Not officially. Andre the Giant handed him the title after beating Hulk Hogan on February 5, 1988, but WWF President Jack Tunney declared it vacant. DiBiase then lost the WrestleMania IV tournament final to Randy Savage.
Did Owen Hart ever win the WWF Championship?
No. His title match against Bret Hart at SummerSlam 1994 was a steel cage match that Bret won by escaping the cage. Owen did win King of the Ring 1994 and the Intercontinental, European and tag team titles.
