Johnny cage

I say give the title to a completley new character that is introduced in that game.

I think as the Shujinko and Taven experiments have shown, fans tend to reject characters who are instantly given important roles immediately in the story. Unless it's a villain, the new champion or "hero" should be one of the established characters or should be a new one who was built up gradually for the role.

""He defeats the Dragon King or Blaze (or whoever the heck one needs to defeat to become champion these days) and the Gods restore his soul.

He bocomes Hanzo again, and even though he's champion, you just know that at some point, maybe not in this game, maybe not even in the next, you know he's going to somehow end up becoming what he once was.""

In Decepetion, Scorpion becomes the "true" Champion of the Elder Gods, and in return they would revive his family and clan.
In Armageddon it explains they didn't fulfill their end of the bargain to the fullest - they revived his clan in a zombiefied state.

Scorpion then turned on the Elder gods for their treachery and attempted to take out Taven.
So, while Scorpion DID become the Elder Gods Champion in order to take out Onaga, he did reject that role soon after.

Being a huge Scorpion fanboy I would have loved to have seen Scorps remain as the Champion, but on the other hand, I also love the fact that he is a lone-wolf, playing people for his own benefit and not taking any crap from anyone, including the almight Elder Gods!!

As for the next "Champion", it all depends on the official ending of Armageddon (assuming the story follows on from there).