1 week Ago By Jake Schulz
WWE is a love story, and often those love stories pertain to the ultimate underdogs. These wrestlers, who often "shouldn't" be in the position they are, scratch and claw to reach the pinnacle of their sport and achieve their ultimate goals of winning the World Championship. There's a reason underdog stories are so instantly memorable, and WWE has had its fair share of iconic underdog storylines throughout its existence.
These seven, however, stand far and above the rest as some of the greatest underdog storylines of all time, with their impact still being felt to this day. 7 The Man Comes Around The rise of Becky Lynch from 2018 to superstardom by closing off WrestleMania 35 as a double champion is an underrated underdog storyline in WWE. Consistently overlooked as a member of the Four Horsewomen of NXT, the Irish Lasskicker was often seen as the odd woman out, despite fans connecting with her and consistently wanting to see her succeed.
While Lynch was the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion, she was never treated as a credible champion. At SummerSlam 2018, Lynch failed to win the SmackDown Women's Championship in a triple threat with then-champion Carmella and the winner, once again, Charlotte Flair. After seemingly having enough, Lynch turned on her long-time friend and brutally attacked the new champion, thus seemingly embracing a darker side.
Despite originally being portrayed as a villain, fans continued to embrace Lynch, and the support was so unwavering that WWE pivoted to The Man persona. Lynch became the most popular star in WWE, and The Man rode a major wave of momentum to the Royal Rumble 2018. Lynch won the Royal Rumble for the first time, and punched her ticket to WrestleMania 35 in a bout against Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey.
Rousey vs. Lynch was the biggest match WWE could make at the time, but needlessly clipped themselves in the foot by inserting Flair into the match. However, all three women would end up closing WrestleMania 35 in a historic Winner Take All Match, becoming the first three women to main event a WrestleMania.
WWE could have chose to give this win to Flair, who they loved to toss a belt to whenever they could, or Rousey, who was a big-time acquisition after joining the company in 2018. However, it was Becky 2 Belts that walked out the match clean as a whistle with both belts around her shoulder. It's a move that solidifed Lynch as one of the greatest women's wrestlers of her time.
6 Jeff Hardy Jeff Hardy was always a fan favourite. He did crazy, death-defying moves that brought the WWE Universe to their feet. He was a terrific in-ring talent and always got massive ovations, yet it never really felt like he was the prototypical World Champion material.
Despite being in countless World Title fights, he never came out of them as the winner, and fans began to question if he'd ever get his chance to hold a big gold title. It took until 2008, but Hardy took on two of the biggest stars in Triple H and Edge at Armageddon 2008, and succeeded by pinning Edge to win his first World Championship. To this day, nearly two decades later, it is still one of the loudest, organic ovations of euphoria a crowd has reacted to.
If you want to know how much this title meant to Hardy and the fans, WWE gave him ten minutes to celebrate after winning. A true people's champion, and a pure cut example of hard work paying off. 5 Mick Foley Wins "The Big One" Mick Foley always had a special connection with the audience.
His breakneck hardcore style, in which he put his body on the line every single night, his incredible character work and determination to entertain the WWF faithful was noticed by everyone. While the episode of RAW on January 4, 199 was pre-taped, WCW's Tony Schiovane thought it was a good idea to spoil the result of the match for their WCW faithful in an attempt to coax audiences to stay with their program. It did the complete opposite, as 600,000 tuned into RAW is War to lose their minds as Mrs.
Foley's Baby Boy stunned The Rock to win the gold for the first time in his career. It's arguably one of the more legendary moments in wrestling history. Not only did Foley's win blast open the door for every single wrestler to have a shot at the World Championship, but the long-term effects in ultimately putting WWF over WCW in the Monday Night Wars can be singled down to this very moment.
That'll put butts in seats, indeed. At the risk of not sounding very cool, I'd like to dedicate this match to my two little people at home and say..
. BIG DADDIO DID IT 4 Latino Heat's World Championship Reign One of the greatest technical wrestlers of all time, Eddie Guerrero, captured the hearts of wrestling fans with his charisma. Whether he was lying, cheating, or stealing, people loved Guerrero and pushed for him to be a top guy in an industry that never felt like he was destined for top billing, as he struggled to win big-time matches.
After flirting with the tag and secondary title scene for most of his WWE tenure, Guerrero finally got his shot, and had to be perfect to beat the unstoppable Brock Lesnar at No Way Out 2004 for the WWE Heavyweight Championship, and perfect he was. After an unwanted interference by Goldberg, Guerrero spiked Lesnar onto his title and hit the Frog Splash to an enormous eruption as Latino Heat did the unthinkable and won his first World Championship. The loss was just Lesnar's third singles loss to date, and catapulted Guerrero to main event stardom as SmackDown's top guy for 2004.
3 Rey Mysterio's Road to WrestleMania Rey Mysterio is the pure-cut definition of an underdog. Standing at 5'5, Mysterio was hardly the larger-than-life superstar that fans were accustomed to seeing win the World Championship. That all changed in 2006.
Not only did Mysterio shock everyone with his win at the 2006 Royal Rumble to spark his Road to WrestleMania, he did so by making history. After entering from the number two position, Mysterio would last a whopping one hour and two minutes, a record that stood for 17 years. He took that momentum to WrestleMania 22, where he shocked the world as he won the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time in a triple threat match with Randy Orton and Kurt Angle.
He ultimately proved that anything is possible in the world of wrestling. Even though he was dubbed the "underdog champion", his heart proved bigger than anything else. 2 KofiMania Kofi Kingston was always beloved by fans, but not even the biggest of fans could have predicted how perfect KofiMania was in 2019.
Since debuting in 2008, Kingston had always been seen as a solid hand, but the thought of him holding a World Championship seemed to have passed. However, an unfortunate injury to Mustafa Ali in February forced him out of the Elimination Chamber, and he was replaced by Kingston, who took full advantage of his moment. After an incredible performance at the Chamber that saw Kingston fall just short as Daniel Bryan retained his WWE Championship, WWE decided to keep the momentum swinging and go full force on KofiMania.
Stacking the odds completely against him, with Vince McMahon getting involved, Kingston was forced to win a gauntlet match to prove he was worthy of facing Bryan at WrestleMania in a tilt for the World Championship. The match at WrestleMania 35 was incredible, and even more satisfying given the parallels between Bryan and Kingston's underdog storylines. It made Kingston's win even sweeter, as the moment of the Trouble in Paradise knocked The Planets Champions' shoulders to the mat for three, and he celebrated with his New Day brothers; a moment played out to near perfection.
1 The YES! Movement Simply put - Daniel Bryan 's unbelievable rise to the top of the professional wrestling world wasn't supposed to happen. There were never any plans for Bryan to be the face of their company, but people forced WWE to pull the trigger on him. Bryan's relationship with the fans grew organically throughout 2013, and only grew louder the more disrespected Bryan was treated by creative booking.
For months and weeks, fans wouldn't settle for anything less than Bryan, regardless of WWE treating him like a "B+ player". They'd hijack segments chanting his name , chanting "YES!" whenever they could, and it got so loud and visceral to the point that it was impossible to ignore anymore. Once Bryan was thrown out early in the 2014 Royal Rumble, and Batista won, fans had enough and wanted justice.
And justice they got. Bryan had to go against the odds to make his dream a reality. He had to get through Triple H in the opener to even get a shot at competing in the main event of WrestleMania 30.
And once he did, he walked into the main event and defeated two Hall of Famers to notch his second win of the night, and one of the most satisfying wins in wrestling history..
