10 Real Life Events That Forced WWE Title Changes (7)

7. Booker T Winning WCW Title On Last WCW Show Because WWE Wanted To Keep Him

When WWE bought World Championship Wrestling in March of 2001, it meant they had booking control on the last edition of Nitro on March 26, 2001. It was a “Night of Champions” style show where titles were on the line and WWE could put the titles onto the men that they wanted.
The reason that was so important is because WWE wasn’t bringing in every WCW wrestler. They signed certain wrestlers while others had to wait until their contracts expired before WWE would consider bringing them in. They didn’t want to spend millions to get somebody out of their deals that they had with Turner.
Booker was a guy that WWE had pegged as a star of the future. He was an exciting performer in his mid-30s that WWE felt like they could build around. Steiner was an older guy that had a big contract that didn’t come into WWE right away. He went there a year and a half later, though.
Leading into the match, Booker was already the US Champion. After a competitive back and forth matchup, Booker emerged victorious and became the WCW World Champion as well. Booker T showed up in WWE a couple of months later and was defending the WCW World Title in WWE that summer. He lost it to Angle, then won it back and then lost it to The Rock in the main event of SummerSlam 2001.
It was the right move to put the WCW World Title on Booker on WCW’s last show. He went on to have a great career in WWE that led to him being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.