5 WWE Superstars You May Have Forgotten Were Champions
The history of professional wrestling has largely been rooted in championships. Sometimes it is all about who the champions of a wrestling company are. Other times it is more about the chase as wrestlers are in pursuit of their company's championships. Any way you look at it, some performers need a wrestling championship to seem more important to the wrestling audience.
Presently, the WWE has a lot of title holders. Beyond the male competitors holding world championships on both Raw and Smackdown, there are female world champions on both brands, tag team champions for both weekly programs, an Intercontinental Champion, a United States Champion, a Cruiserweight Champion, and a United Kingdom Champion.
If you want to get technical, there are also titles within the NXT. In turn, there can be more than a dozen WWE-signed performers at any given time that are traveling around the world with a belt.
As injuries and often unforeseen circumstances regularly pop up for wrestlers, the majority of performers on the WWE roster have their ups and downs. In turn, someone that was once in the main event scene may find themselves wrestling matches with lower-card talent.
This means that a good number of former WWE champions may not be fresh on your mind as former champions. So as a refresher, here are five current WWE Superstars who you may have forgotten were once WWE title-holders.
#1 Curt Hawkins
Curt Hawkins first signed to WWE in 2006, spending around a year within the WWE's Ohio Valley Wrestling developmental territory. Within OVW, Hawkins -- then known as Brian Majors -- was a tag team champion along Zack Ryder (then known as Brett Majors). He was eventually called up to the ECW brand of WWE before making it over to Smackdown alongside Ryder.
In late 2007, Hawkins and Ryder became part of a storyline alongside former WWE Championship Edge in which they were considered "Edgeheads" -- or look-alikes of Edge -- and part of "The Rated-R Entourage."
In 2008, Hawkins and Ryder won the WWE Tag Team Championship from The Miz and John Morrison at the Great American Bash pay-per-view as part of a four-team match. The two became the youngest tag team champions in WWE History and held onto those titles until September 2008.
Unfortunately, this title reign is generally forgotten about as Hawkins is currently known for his still-going losing streak.