“The truth is, however, that I believe that the championship is one of the most important aspects of wrestling as a whole. I refuse to believe that it is merely a prop. Yes, WWE is entertainment. However, it was built on sport. It was built on the dreams of fans wanting to someday reach the top of the world and having the championship to prove it. I think of it as the culmination of a career, rewarding a wrestler for their hard-work and struggle to reach the pinnacle. Wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero, Daniel Bryan and Chris Benoit, that put their bodies on the line, eventually reach the promised land. The title is a representation of that struggle. That’s why Benoit was in tears when he won the World title in 2004. He saw that title being carried around when he was younger and now he was the one with it. That emotion is what a belt should give you. I believe it is one of the MOST important aspects of all of professional wrestling, possibly the most important. My only concerns is that WWE doesn’t replicate my passion for the legacy of a championship.”
In September, I produced an article called “WWE’s Championship dilemma” which ended with the words above me. It was mostly an article designed to look at the title designs and the prestige of these new titles that we were “gifted” with this year. We got new titles, which didn’t really look new, as I discussed the importance of preserving the image of these belts. I was passionate about the idea of the championship being the most important aspect of WWE programming and wrestling as a whole. If you’re not fighting for the biggest title around, why are you fighting? I wanted these titles to be treated with care and as special entities within professional wrestling.
You know, there was a part of me that thought perhaps I was exaggerating over the image of all the titles in WWE. Maybe the booking for these titles may actually shine through when all said and done. Maybe I was wrong. On the week beginning the 28th of November 2016, I was proven right.
Let’s start with Monday Night RAW, which I had the privilege of watching live from 1am to 4am. I’d sat through a below average RAW and had just seen the United States Champion Roman Reigns beat the Universal Champion Kevin Owens clean in a non-title match. I was actually OK with that part of the show, because at least their chosen top babyface was actually booked well as opposed to being booked like a giant loser like Seth Rollins. I can almost defend that part. Then we got to the main-event, which saw Charlotte defending the Women’s Championship against Sasha Banks.
Before I dig into that, I must first address what went down earlier on in the night. They had built up this big title match, with Sasha and Charlotte beating the hell out of each other. They spill outside of the ring… and it ends in a double count-out. Now, I’m sure that a lot of people will defend this by saying that it set up the main-event. Here’s the problem. If we pretend in our heads that all of this is real and that Sasha and Charlotte had no idea that the match would be restarted later, why would Sasha get herself counted out? She is well aware of the rules and took herself and Charlotte outside of the ring which resulted in a countout. Why should SASHA deserve a rematch for this? She failed because of her own mess-up.
Anyway, the match is restarted. It’s a Falls Count Anywhere match in the main-event of RAW. It’s not the first time they’ve done this on RAW. It’s now been the third time when they’ve done a match like this on RAW. These two girls fought on RAW in July, with Sasha winning the title. These two girls fought on RAW in September, with Sasha winning the belt. These two girls are now fighting each other on RAW and to be fair, it was a pretty good match. The drama was there and the crowd was still invested into this program for reasons that I can’t fathom. Then, in the finish of the match, Sasha submits Charlotte and wins the belt.
This wasn’t even Deja Vu. This was DOUBLE DEJA VU or whatever the proper term is for this. Maybe the term is repetition because that’s all I’ve been getting ever since this program between Sasha and Charlotte began in July, although it technically began all the way in January when Sasha laid out Charlotte at the Royal Rumble. Sasha won the title on RAW in July and Charlotte won it back on PPV in August. Sasha won the title on RAW in September and Charlotte won it back on PPV in October. Sasha won the title on RAW in November and I’m assuming that Charlotte wins it back at Roadblock on PPV in December. Why do we need to see this over and over and over and over again?
It’d be one thing if they change the belt back-and-forth for a title that’s been around forever like the Intercontinental Championship, which we’ll get onto later. They’re doing this with a belt that’s not even a year old. Charlotte and Sasha Banks are three-time champions of this belt. Sasha’s had this grand coronation of being the champion three times now. This is happening so many times that I fully expected another “you deserve it” chant when Sasha came out on RAW.
I think I’ve dedicated a lot of time in picking apart the booking of the women’s title this year so I’ll move on. This title changing hands all the time is one thing. THEN we move onto 205 Live, headlined by the Cruiserweight Championship match between champion Brian Kendrick and challenger Rich Swann. Keep in mind that they put the title on TJ Perkins in September, who then lost it to Kendrick on October. That’s one thing. They do this match and the champion Kendrick, who had lost several times to Swann recently, loses to him again and Swann is the new champion.
So for the record, the Women’s title is not even a year old and it’s had six different title reigns. In what seems like a really bad game of one-upmanship, a championship that’s only been around since September has already had three different champions. I can only understand the idea that they did the title change to try and pop a rating for 205 Live. However, why couldn’t Kendrick at least have won some kind of big match in order to make himself look good for the title match? This is simple wrestling booking right here. Why did Kendrick lose twice to Swann and then lose to him again? In fact, the former champion TJ Perkins also got beat by Kendrick on RAW before HE lost the title to Kendrick!
At least when Sasha beat Charlotte the first time in July, she was beating a champion that was hard to beat so it came off as a big deal. Here, all the champions are losers that get beat all the time heading into their big title matches! Isn’t it that hard to book a champion to look strong? If you want an example of a strong champion, watch Matanza from Lucha Underground or even “Mighty Mouse” Demetrious Johnson from UFC. These are champions that WON every big match that they were in.
So two title changes on two different shows in consecutive days was one thing. Then Shinsuke Nakamura regained the NXT Championship from Samoa Joe in a house show match at Osaka in Japan. This came after Samoa Joe had regained the NXT title from Nakamura at the NXT TakeOver event in Toronto about a few weeks ago. Nakamura winning the title in Japan does make sense in the fact that he’s doing it in his own country but why even bother having Nakamura win the title in the first place? Why couldn’t you have built up to Nakamura winning the belt for the first time in Osaka, have Joe build up an even stronger NXT title reign by beating Nakamura at TakeOvers and then dropping the belt. Why did the NXT title have to change hands this much in the space of five months?
Initially, I was just going to leave this post at that. Three different title changes on three separate shows. Even if there were title changes at TLC, I wasn’t too bothered. I, at least, expected the Wyatts to win the SmackDown! tag team titles so I was fine with that. Then something else happened… Alexa Bliss won the SmackDown! Women’s title from Becky Lynch.
I LOVE Alexa Bliss but this was not the time for her to win the championship. The reason I say this is because, again, the best way to build up a title change is to promote the champion before it takes place so Alexa comes off as a star when she beat Becky. Before this, Becky had been injured for a number of weeks and only defended the title once before in controversial fashion. To me, that just doesn’t make Becky seem like a strong champion in my eyes. At the end of the day, I just saw it as just another title change and Alexa is an act that deserves a lot more than that, as does Becky.
Obviously, all of this nit-picking about every single title change in the past week only diverts us away from the bigger issue. The bigger issue is the fact that there’s been five title changes spanning four shows during this week. It’s an issue because it means that the titles lose a sense of importance and relevancy to WWE, making each title match seem far less important then they theoretically should have been. In July, Sasha Banks winning the women’s title was a big deal as we’ve discussed earlier but by the time she won it for the third time, it just came off as just another title change. Sadly, everyone of these title changes come off as just another title change with the exception of two. Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton winning the tag titles is special as it was Bray’s first ever championship won as part of WWE while Nakamura’s victory was special as it was a house show victory in Japan. As a whole though, these title changes just seem to lack any meaning.
Is it too much to ask for us to have champions that look strong and stay champions for a good period of time? The only champions that started their reigns before August are the New Day and Asuka. It doesn’t even have to be a long reign, but a decent enough amount of time so its a big deal when they lose the belt to the man or woman that you want to replace them as the champion. Both main roster women’s titles changed hands in the same week. We got new NXT, Cruiserweight and SmackDown! Tag Team Champions all in the same week. It degrades what it means to hold a championship and what it means as a viewer to see titles change hands. Is it too much to ask just to have good champions? Please? It’s all I ask. I want a good champion who wins a lot and I want a challenger who wins a lot, and then I want those two winners to have a match at a big show at WrestleMania where only one of them can win.
That really shouldn’t be too much to ask right? Or do we need a saviour in the writing team to talk some sense into the powers that be?
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