Many fans were surprised when Jey Uso dropped the WWE World Heavyweight Championship to Gunther on the June 9 edition of WWE Raw. Uso’s a popular talent who was less than two months into his reign. Moreover, if a title change were to occur, Seth Rollins looked positioned to be the heel to make the switch happen given he’s been riding high as the top heel on Raw and recently won the Money in the Bank briefcase.
On top of these other considerations, there’s the matter that Gunther himself was the champion Uso beat for the title. It’s not totally unfamiliar ground for champions to trade titles back and forth, but it is less common for it to happen coming out of WrestleMania, where title changes tend to mark more seismic shifts as one star takes a step back and another redefines his career trajectory.
This isn’t the first time a world champion crowned at WrestleMania dropped the title back to the previous title holder, though. In fact, this is the sixth occasion.
Jey Uso Vs. Gunther In 2025
It’s too soon to know the full story or to tell what the ramification will be of Jey Uso losing the World Heavyweight Championship back to Gunther. Just the same, seeing the inspirational babyface drop his title in this fashion to heel who has already been at the top of the mountain for a long reign could be seen as disheartening.
Prevailing theories suggest that WWE may have wanted the title on Gunther to defend against Goldberg in the legends predicted retirement match. Meanwhile, WWE may decided to pull the plug on the Uso solo run experiments, and Jimmy doesn’t seem like he’ll ever flourish in that role, and Jey may well have hit his ceiling. Time will tell what the implications are, but it is interesting that Jey Uso was the first ever first-time world champion crowned at WrestleMania to drop the title back to the original title holder.
Randy Savage Vs. Ric Flair In 1992
Randy Savage and Ric Flair worked a heated feud in 1992, centered on The Nature Boy’s insinuation that he’d been an item with Miss Elizabeth before The Macho Man. Savage sought revenge and got it by taking the WWE Championship off Flair at WrestleMania 8.
WWE struggled to find its footing with Hulk Hogan out of the mix for the rest of 1992 and Savage and Ultimate Warrior sort of filling his spot, while neither got real traction as the definitive top guy. In the end, the powers that be elected to move the title back to Flair in the fall, only for him to serve as a transitional champion—a vehicle to move the belt to a fresh main event face in Bret Hart.
Hulk Hogan Vs. Yokozuna In 1993
In what was, at the time, the most shocking finish to a WrestleMania of all time, 1993 saw Hulk Hogan work an impromptu match with newly crowned WWE Champion Yokozuna and promptly take the title off the super heavyweight.
Fans have never gotten a definitive picture of what happened from there. The consensus, though, seems to be that Hogan just wasn’t as popular as he had been as WWE on the whole cooled off, Hulkamania felt played out, and a vocal portion of fans were mad that WWE had seemingly disrespected Bret Hart as world champ by moving his title straight to The Hulkster.
Whatever the precise combination of reasons, Yokozuna got his title back at the next PPV, King of the Ring, and held it straight through to WrestleMania 10, when the belt went back to The Hitman.
Brock Lesnar Vs. Kurt Angle In 2003
Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle each carved unique and truly legendary careers in professional wrestling. Given Angle’s departure from WWE in 2006 and the fact that these two never worked a match in the second act of The Beast’s WWE career—as a part time attraction from 2012 to 2023—it’s easy to forget that they were once rivals with remarkable chemistry.
Indeed the respective amateur pedigrees and out-of-this-world athleticism made Lesnar and Angle genuinely special opponents for one another. A botched shooting star press at the end of their WrestleMania 19 main event unfortunately overshadowed the excellent match they’d built up to that point. Fortunately, the rivalry raged on, including them flipping face and heel roles and The Olympic Gold Medalist taking his title back at SummerSlam.
John Cena Vs Edge In 2009
One of the prevailing stories of John Cena’s retirement tour has been him revisiting memorable rivals from his past, including Randy Orton, R-Truth, and CM Punk. Were he still in WWE at this point, there’s little doubt Edge would be in that mix.
Cena and Edge had an outstanding off and on rivalry that extended from 2006 to 2010. One chapter of the feud saw Cena take the World Heavyweight Championship off The Rated R Superstar at WrestleMania 25 (in a Triple Threat that also included The Big Show). The Ultimate Opportunist would get his win and his title back at Backlash with a noteworthy assist from The World’s Largest Athlete. Cena would go on to feud with Show while Edge and the Big Gold Belt settled back in on the SmackDown brand.
Seth Rollins Vs. Brock Lesnar In 2019
WrestleMania 35 started off with a bang when underdog Royal Rumble winner Seth Rollins picked up a decisive victory over Brock Lesnar in a fun sprint. The Beast wasn’t done with the babyface champ, though. Lesnar was a surprise, late addition to a Money in the Bank match that summer and went on to cash in on Rollins and take his title back.
This storyline was a rare case in which a champion taking back the title from the man who beat him at WrestleMania presented a third act: the WrestleMania winner going on to win the rubber match in another PLE main event. Rollins beat Lesnar at SummerSlam in a more full-fledged and definitive, rivalry-ending bout that looked to cement Rollins as the “the guy.” Unfortunately for The Beast Slayer, he ran into The Fiend that fall, and saw that run on top come to an unceremonious end.