Hey Scott.
Which titles would you have in WWE? Bringing back a title or titles is fair game. Personally I would have 1 world title, keep both the intercontinental and US title, and bring back the cruiserweight. Yah, I know they are all
pretty meaningless at the moment, especially the U.S. Sheamus and Punk are off to good starts at the top at least, even though I hate the idea of 2 world titles. Oh, and I guess keep the tag titles: hire back Team Angle, bring in the Outlaws for a little nostalgia, and get some current teams over! How would you book the stagnant tag division?
This e-mail is just all over the place, man. Pick a topic and focus! Anyway, the first question is more interesting to me.
I really liked the setup in 2002. You had ONE World title with a champion who was multi-brand, and then the idea was going to be that the Intercontinental title was exclusive to RAW as the #1 belt when the World champ wasn't around, and the US title was going to be the #2 belt on Smackdown. So that way you'd have the World champion wrestling only on PPV to keep it special, but you could do big TV matches based around the secondary belts. Then from there you have the #3 singles belts to distinguish the brands -- RAW would get the Hardcore title (or a TV title for the PG Era) and Smackdown would get the Cruiserweight title. The tag champs could also work both shows, but frankly at this point I'd just kill the belts anyway. Any belt that Titus & Young are the #1 contenders for isn't worth saving.
WWE/World heavyweight (one or the other; it doesn't matter which), IC (for Raw), US (for Smackdown), TV (for the internet/syndicated shows), & world tag.
ReplyDeleteBring back the Western States Heritage Title. Solves all problems.
ReplyDeleteWwe title, ic title, tag title. No point in splitting belts for smackdown since its just the b show and not a separate brand.
ReplyDeleteHow about the Million Peso Title for Alberto Del Rio?
ReplyDeleteWE WANT FLAIR! WE WANT FLAIR!
ReplyDeleteWell, I think Lita has the best set, but if we're talking about the current roster of Divas then...wait a minute...whoops! Sorry, misread the title.
ReplyDeleteI'd keep the WWE and US titles (I've always thought the name "Intercontinental title" was stupid...what is it, a world title that excludes some islands?), and maybe also replace the tag titles with mixed tag titles, to give the Divas something to do without having to carry the full load of a match by themselves.
I would say the US title is worth even less. Since the champion isn't even a JTTS. He's a straight up jobber. I mean he got fucking squashed by an NXT guy last week on Smackdown. And he's won like two matches in six months.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I was thinking of this the other day and the best way to create a hierarchy of today's titles is to compare it to the year 2000 when this many titles were around. So the WWE title would be the WWF title. The Heavy Weight Championship would be the IC. The IC would be the European. And the US would be the Hardcore championship. Though comparing Santino to Crash is actually an insult the late Crash Holly's wonderful reign. At least Crash won some matches. But its the closet comparison I got.
This really doesn't have anything to do with what this guy asked. But I just felt like saying this to try and make sense of the pointless titles they currently have. And the total disregard they have toward their own titles. Scott's idea is as good as any. Though I think the brand split is officially over.
Only if he can wear the "1 cent" tights that Volkoff had to wear
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to tell me that Larry Z doesn't sell tickets? I'd bet he thinks he can sell out any arena
ReplyDeleteStop perpetuating that urban myth! The belt they used for Luger at GAB 1992 was Dusty Rhodes' PWF title, not the Western States title!
ReplyDeleteWorld Heavyweight title, IC title, TV title, Tag Team titles. WWE doesn't know how to handle cruserweights and, except for a couple years every decade, only push second-rate models as female "wrestlers" so both those titles are worthless. Go back to the WCW TV title model (15-minute time limits, defended more than any other belt, the works) and let midcarders work their way up instead of debuting as fucking heavyweight champion and then getting shunt down the card.
ReplyDeleteUnify the WWE and Wold titles (but keep both belts), unify the IC and U.S. titles, and go back to the old WCW U.S. title belt (or just use the IC belt and call it the U.S. title, either way the WWE U.S. belt looks like cheap shit and needs to go). Keep the tag belts, scrap the Diva's title (and the whole division), and add a cruiserweight division with the old WCW belt.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see someone beat Sheamus for the World Title, say, someone like Brock Lesnar, then have him and Heyman throw the belt in the trash and call the damn thing what it really was: an excuse for Triple H to make himself the champion because he knew he could never beat Brock Lesnar.
ReplyDelete(well, in kayfabe terms, and this is hanging on the hope that Triple H actually loses to Lesnar at Summerslam)
Tell me that wouldn't be an awesome moment? Because let's be honest, that belt is a joke and having two "top" titles is stupid, especially when somebody like Jericho loses to Punk and just goes and gets a title shot against Sheamus the next month anyway for the other title.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem is that with everybody being a former world champ, and the secondary belts meaning somewhere between "jack" and "shit", You have a lot of guys fighting for that dreaded numberonecontendership and are above the secondary belts.
Which further pushes down the midcarders.
Me? I'd just fire every main eventer thats not a draw (merch/ratings/ppv) and start over. Get that stigma off of them and then bring them back after building a very credible midcard.
Orton- gone
Sheamus- gone
Del Rio- GONE.
Miz- gone
Mysterio- Sad, but gone.
Keep Taker as the special attraction that he is til he totally craps out and then move either HBK or HHH as the new special attraction.
Who is he to doubt the living legend!?
ReplyDeleteWho are you to doubt El Dandy? I couldn't resist.
ReplyDeleteThe Intercontinental Champion is champion of only the continents, so he has no power whatsoever in seas or oceans, and I suppose islands as well. Chris Jericho gave an awesome explanation of this in some interview a few years back.
ReplyDeleteMixed tag team titles is a great idea, one that I had never even considered before. Why have meaningless tag titles and a meaningless Divas title when you could combine them into just one set of meaningless titles. This could have worked in the Attitude Era and could still work today. Brainstorming possible combinations...
Dolph/Vickie
Bryan/AJ until recently
Tyson Kidd/Natalya
Cesaro/Aksana
Otunga/Eve or Miz/Eve
Brodus Clay could have a Freebird-like team with Cameron and Naomi
Layla and Kelly Kelly could go with the likes of Santino or Zack Ryder
I'm not sure who would be a good fit with Beth Phoenix, unless they reform her awesome team with Santino from back in the day.
And of course bring back the Harris twins and the Bella twins! That team would be unstoppable! Twin Magic Squared!
I'm imagining, a battle royal to crown the inaugural Mixed Tag Team Titles, and Brock Lesnar storms the ring, throwing all of the other male competitors out, claiming the titles for himself and Paul Heyman, naturally leading them to challenge Triple H and Stephanie to a title match.
How about Hypnosis?
ReplyDeleteI don't care if they unify or drop or do whatever with any of the current titles. All I want is a WWE Brass Knuckles Championship and this lousy company means nothing to me until that happens.
ReplyDeleteBe realistic.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe we've had 10 years of this two world titles bullshit. Old school fans like me hate that. The rosters ARE combined now.(Even though Raw guys are never on Smackdown which is more like 'Thunder' now.)
Unify the belts, under the title 'WWE World Heavyweight Championship" That was the way it was for years. Not unified, not undisputed. Those terms are implied in the name.
Keep both IC(2nd rate) and US(3rd rate like European which would be fine to have an over-comedy act like Santino) belts because of the vast history behind the two belts but make both of them mean something by having stars fight for IC and midcarders for the US. Guys like Sheamus, Ziggler, Del Rio who are not over enough to be THE guy like Cena, Orton or Punk so he should not have THE world title untill he's ready. Kind of like Ultimate Warrior in 88/89 or Bret Hart in 91/92.
Keep the Unified Tag Titles. Their should never have been 2 sets of tag titles. And sadly we'll never get a hardcore title(probably best to save 'hardcore' for big moments anyway) or a real Juinor Heavyweight belt like the X title in WWE due to the products style.
I dunno I just want clear order of the belts. Ya of course the WHC doesn't mean as much as the WWE title if you look at the past two Manias..but I really want the one belt over all else.
You could just have one title, the WWE Championship, and if the champion happens to get into an angle with a tag team, boom, it doubles as tag titles.
ReplyDeleteThey should just have two titles, and shelve the Tag Titles for the time being. The Divas Title can just switch based on calender sales, and that'll be that.
I think I read somewhere that to do this they'd have to get Mattel's approval first. I wouldn't be surprised if that was playing some role as to why they haven't changed the WWE title design yet.
ReplyDeleteIndependent promotions having a Brass Knuckles Championship always intrigued me.
ReplyDeleteThey only need 3 titles, World, US or IC, Tag. That's it. If they can't produce a decent tag division that's their problem. A lot of guys would get over if they stuck them in a tag division. Or at least they'd have the chance to. As it stands, losing every week then winning then losing again, keeping them in middling form does them no favors.
ReplyDeleteIrony is the Tag division was to the WWE Attitude era what the Cruiserweight division was to WCW... When both companies had humming B-guys in play who were getting over (Rey in WCW, Dudleys etc in WWE) we got amazing storylines that practically booked themselves and incredible wrestling as well. Now there's a 'kinda sorta' X Division in TNA and a non existent tag division in WWE. The sooner either company wises up and puts their resources into bolstering the midcard, of which on BOTH companies there is AMPLE... the sooner one of them starts to get interesting again. Having their "Hot Potato" titles and a joke of a US Championship on Santino is the least of their worries. They spent MONTHS building up the US Championship between Ziggler and Ryder, and in WEEKS it was a joke again. They're clueless with how to handle their belts...
ReplyDeleteWhy am i being realistic in a fantasy scenario?!
ReplyDeletesmh...
What has Del Rio done the past 3 YEARS beside be injured and bore everyone to tears?
I like Sheamus but they ran him up too fast. When you a perfectly good US title that could have given him a ton of mileage in the interim.
Its like in the WWE now, its either you're pegged as a main eventer out the gate. or nothing, cuz you are gonna be force fed superstar X until its bought and paid for.
ADR and Sheamus arent main eventers in my eyes... yet..
It seems like the last guy that came up the right way was seriously Edge.
That took 8 years!
Sheamus and ADR have taken 1 each.
And the returns on those guys are terrible. No upside in ADR period unless he does a severe gimmick/character overall. Or turns face.
Sheamus has huge upside with some charcter tweaking. I mean to to reply to the guy talking about Sheamus the other day but the topic got buried.
tangent.
Im not saying for Sheamus to completely drop the Irish aspect of his character. Its been established, lets get some more charcter depth to him to make him more 3d and VULNERABLE. He is big White as shit (great white is borderline racist IMO) and likes to kick Ziggler in the face... alot. WHat else is there? How does a heel get heat on him?
/tangent
Really outside of Cena who is clearly THE MAN, who else is there thats a draw? Who is there that legit generates real heel heat?
AJ? for like 3 weeks before she got overexposed
tangent
I liked the Bryan/Aj thing at first. At fact, loved it cuz it was different. But when you are building to a PPV and this chick is in 8 segments and doesnt even factor into the outcome of the story AND THEN is put in more segments as the cliched authority figure... its a bit much.
/tangent
Ryders "Internet Championship" gimmick, could (and should) be SO MUCH MORE, since they're rim-jobbing twitter all the time at the moment. Ryder should be defending it on YouTube pre-shows before Raw, Smackdown... PPV's etc. It's a way to build a character and a belt to mean something, even if it's a micro-push for a guy like Ryder. You could have a whole "Internet" division that wrestles just on social media shit like YouTube or Superstars on WWE.com. Loads of opportunities there... The TV Title is a fantastic "invention" because it's a title that CAN mean something if defending EVERY WEEK ON TELEVISION. Build it into a legitimate belt, and move the constant "number one contender" shit into the background, since they make that up as they go along anyway (See; Rock). Save the WWE Title for PPV's, the Intercon for special RAW's and PPV's and a TV title that's defended EVERY WEEK.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say the U.S. title has any history at all. Maybe the WCW version did, but that championship died in 2001.
ReplyDeleteWWE championship + World Heavyweight championship = WWE World championship
ReplyDeleteIntercontinental championship + US championship = WWE National championship
WWE Tag Team championship
I love the history of the IC title as much as anyone, but its
credibility has been completely killed over the last few years. It's
for the best to just start over. The brand split is explicitly ended, everyone works both shows. Have one WWE commissioner instead of general managers for both shows. The lack of third and fourth singles titles forces them to utilize the tag team division.
"WWE doesn't know how to handle cruserweights and, except for a couple
ReplyDeleteyears every decade, only push second-rate models as female "wrestlers"
so both those titles are worthless."
by that logic there shouldn't be a tag team championship as well.
"Tyson Kidd/Natalya" = awesome.
ReplyDeleteNot gonna lie, that would be fucking exceptional; if not impractical, given that it's Hunter we're talking about.
ReplyDeleteOh, he's jobbing at Summerslam, trust me. But he's going to make a stink about it all the way through.
The tag division was great in the 80s and 00s so they know how to do it. The same can't be said for the crusers.
ReplyDeleteEl dandy and Hypnosis are both high flyers of the highest magnitude and pretty jam up guys.
ReplyDeleteAnd Booker T was going to beat him at WrestleMania. And Goldberg HAD to beat him at Elimination Chamber -- still the biggest travesty of booking I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather see one ROSTER, instead of one title. End the brand split, which doesnt even really exist anymore, and just make the WWE one big roster again. Then you can kill off the World Title and move on from there.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Kerry Von Erich played the Ultimate Warrior for a bit?
ReplyDeleteWell I think AJ's are perky, while Laya's are full...
ReplyDeleteOh I'm sorry I didn't have my contacts in....you said "Titles".
I like the idea of a Brodus Clay/Naomi team as long as Naomi carries most of the work (check her out in FCW, the woman could wrestle). However, they should keep Cameron out of the ring as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteI agree. but he needs to upgrade the belt and put TOUT on it.
ReplyDeleteIC Title was supposed to be the champion on both North and South America.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the WWE actually has two equal world titles. I think they've shuffled the importance of the belts, but there is a hierarchy.
ReplyDeleteWWE champion = Old WWF champion -- the top title in the company.
World Heavyweight champion = Old WWF IC champion -- second-most prestigious title, often given to a young up-and-comer before they hit the main event.
Current IC and US champions = Old WWF European champion -- throwaway titles the bookers give little or no thought to, and are not really prestigious.
Now that the brand split is done, if the WWE unites the two top titles, they would have to build up one of the IC or US titles to be prestigious again. But why do that, when the World Heavyweight title has been booked for years to be important (but not as important as the WWE championship). They should just scrap one of the IC or US belts, and give more airtime to the lower midcarders competing for the surviving belt -- guys at the level of Santino need a belt to fight over.
This Undertaker isn't the same Undertaker that it used to be, too.
ReplyDeleteI believe post-ECW's creation in 1994, all statements like the one above should read as the following:
ReplyDeleteMaybe the WCW version did, but that championship died - RIP! - in 2001.
:-)
Why does everyone think they could never bring back the Hardcore title? Most of the time the Hardcore title wasn't really ECW/FMW style slash and bang hardcore, it was goofy stuff like Crash wrestling the Headbangers at Chuck E. Cheese and Al Snow rolling bowling balls into people's nuts. You could still do that stuff in the PG Era, and it would play into the young demographic well. They should bring it back, in fact.
ReplyDeleteThis also essentially creates Jericho/Undertaker at WM28, which would've been a fresh match and it would've paid off Jericho's "end of the world as you know it" spiel.
ReplyDeleteInternet-erconTOUTnental championship
ReplyDeleteAnd once they get called up from FCW, Kassius Ohno and Sara Del Rey (or whatever her WWE name will be) will squash or the other teams and take their rightful place as the WWE mixed tag team champions.
ReplyDeleteYou'll never see me quoting Shane Douglas.
ReplyDeleteThey should give Brock Lesnar the WWE AND World Title and he can make some promo vids and defends the Title only at the PPV. The longer he is Champion, the more the titles will grow in value.
ReplyDeleteBullseye.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the time period, but I thought their best usage was when the brands were completely separate. Each show had their own announcers, referees (loved those blue Smackdown official shirts), and champions. During this time, they actually made almost all the titles mean something also. And the two rosters really had very little interaction with each other. I certainly remember a time when the tag team division was strong enough to sustain feuds for two different titles. And -- gasp! -- the title on Smackdown quite frequently closed the show!!
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the two world titles, I think it's absolutely insane how much they're missing the boat by not having the US and IC title defended at least once every other week on TV. The titles are virtually never defended on PPV, so you know what? Don't, unless you have a hot angle or it's Night of Champions. Have the two world titles exclusively defended on PPV (except for perhaps big, big deals like Raw 1000), have the US title defended every other week on Raw, and the IC title defended every other week on Smackdown. It elevates the titles by having them actually defended (does Santino ever defend anymore?). It gives people a match announced ahead of time to look forward to. It elevates the title holder by having him actually want to keep a title and, presumably, win those matches. You can build up some actual midcard feuds for those titles. It's just very obvious to me especially with Raw going to 3 hours. Instead they're rarely if ever defended and when they are it's often just a quick 2 minute unannounced match.
ReplyDeleteAgree 100% that's all the had from 79 till 97 when they started making all these garbage titles (Euro, Hardcore, Cruiserweight). Although still need a womens title, once they get some actually wrestler, not models, since AJ doesn't seem to be a wrestler anymore. The current females are useless, KK is pathetic, Layla just plain sucks and is the ugliest thing ever, Beth and Natty are great but never really used.
ReplyDeleteThis.
ReplyDeleteAND it is so stupid to give a title to a FACE wrestler and then let jobbing him every week in non title matches.
That hurts the title, hurts the wrestler and doesn't make sense.