21-time WWE champion told he would never win a major title; reveals reason why
A former WWE Superstar recently revealed why he never won a major championship during his tenure with the biggest wrestling company in the world. The star did win a title 21 times in his 11-year stay with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Stevie Richards made his name in ECW during the early to mid-1990s before jumping ship to WCW in 1997. When his time at World Championship Wrestling ended quickly, he returned to ECW before leaving again in 1999 to sign with the global sports entertainment juggernaut.
In his 30-year career, Richards only won one major title, the NWA National Heavyweight Championship in 1998. He held the Hardcore Championship 21 times in WWE and is a former ECW World Tag Team Champion.
On the latest episode of The Stevie Richards Show, a fan asked him why he never won a major title in the Stamford-based promotion. He explained that people within the company told him he was "too small" to ever win the Intercontinental Championship.
"Why I was never IC Champion, I was told this by Pat Patterson once, and a couple [of] other people had echoed it, and you're going to laugh at it. Do you want to hear why I never won the IC belt? 'You're too small.' I was too small. Yeah, I got it. I was too small. I'm too small to be IC champ," Richards said. [1:14 - 1:33]
At six-foot-two inches, Stevie Richards is no small human being, but he seemingly doesn't have the physique like some of his contemporaries. He challenged for the Intercontinental Championship only once in his career. He failed to capture the title from Shelton Benjamin on an episode of Sunday Night Heat on November 29, 2004.
Stevie Richards was supposed to wrestle CM Punk outside of WWE
While recovering from a facial injury after a match against Chris Masters in 2005, Stevie Richards was supposed to wrestle then-Ring of Honor Champion CM Punk. Richards explained on a November episode of his podcast how they were close to facing each other in two 60-minute draws.
"We were supposed to have a two out of three fall series, not one match, but, and I was going to do two 60-minute draws with him because I wanted to see if I could do it and then he would have won the third match. We were going to work, but it didn't happen," Richards said. [H/T: Fightful]
Punk and Richards eventually wrestled against each other several times in 2006 and 2007 when they were part of the ECW brand under the WWE banner.
If you use quotes from the article's first half, please credit The Stevie Richards Show and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.
