Well… not literally. But Zul’jin was a cool (and of course, sadly misused) guy, and his rise to power within the Amani is a classic. He challenged the Amani chieftains one by one, in a contest of their choice… and won them all, be it footrace, combat or whatever they chose. He provd himself worthy in their eyes, before being granted their consent to lead them.
…why exactly can’t we have that for the position of Warchief? In the past the Warchief of the playable Horde was just annointed by the last one. No wonder they sucked. The only one who go through his challenges was arguably Thrall, who at least did something to earn the loyalty of Darkspear Trolls and Bloodhoof Tauren.
Of course, we have the Council now. A democratic government… made from undemocratic peoples. The Horde consists of either tribal cultures like orcs, trolls and tauren, who follow a proven leader… and dictaturial regimes, like the elves, that aren’t really that interested in the consent of the governed. The council is just a bad fit. And that Blizzard’s character driven narratives certainly won’t pause for a leading character to get the consent of he council of leaders, it will be quite meaningless in practice anyways.
So let’s just drop the act and start auditioning. We don’t want just anyone, but someone who is clearly qualified. Someone who can outfight an orc, outwit a hunting troll, outlast a Tauren’s patience, outsolve elven riddles, and… erm, outgross an undead I guess? They’ll come up with something!
Even better, imagine every group setting up their test and allowing everyone (within reason) to try it. To prove worthy of their respect. But only someone who beats all the trials gets to lead. Until then… there is the temporary council, waiting for the one true king to pull the sword out of the stone.
Of course, this doesn’t fit the game. The game is about us, the player, and the player leading the faction doesn’t really work in Blizzard’s style of story telling. And standing around while someone else proves himself isn’t really that fun of an ingame activity, if the player isn’t doing all the work. And we can all see how the “Trials of the High King” turned out, which was Blizzard’s attempt to do something vaguely similar on Alliance side.
But we aren’t really restricted to the game, are we? There are novels, comics, and series of videos, and all of these could do a good job at showing us the story of one member of the Horde rising to a legend, and proving themselves worthy. I think it might make a particularly fun novel, which even Blizzard writers wouldn’t have to muck up, if they just stuck to the formula.
And the resulting Warchief? Well, that could be really about anyone. We wouldn’t be limited to the races leaders, we could shine a spotlight on any random officer who ever appeared or even someone completely new. New… but with the attributes the Horde races value most. I’d find that kind of exiting, really.
It also wouldn’t have to be a sudden thing. There could be one comic per patch or something like that, slowly progressing the applicants’ stories, and bleeding into NPC-commentary ingame, so there might be years before another Warchief has proven themselves, but it would be at least something to cheer for.
Well… so much for an idle thought, I just wanted to share it after it came to me. Have fun trashing it, and explaining to me why Blizzard could and would never do that, I mean, I would. 
