Editorials
The Piledriver Point: The titles are Worthless WWE, totally worthless
By Steve Ashfield on November 14, 2009There was a time back in the 90s when it wasn’t that difficult to remember all the WWE title changes dating back to the early 80s when Bob Backlund was the champion, even Bruno Sammartino if you had a really good memory. Try doing that now, have a quick attempt at remembering exactly all the WWE and World Heavyweight title changes since the start of 2008. Not easy is it, especially not when the simple fact is that in 2009 the WWE title alone has changed hands eight times and on three occasions between September 13th and October 25th. Since November 23rd 2008 the title has changed hands on ten occasions. The World Heavyweight title has also changed hands eight times this year and ten times since November 2008. Edge and John Cena have both had four WWE/World Heavyweight title reigns while both Orton and Jeff Hardy have had three and that’s in one calendar year. What the heck is happening here?
The IC title has had six title changes this year, the US title three changes, the ECW title has had four title changes, the tag titles three changes, Women’s title twice and the Diva’s title three changes. In all the seven titles in WWE have had 34 changes and we’ve still got a month and a half to go. It’s an even higher figure if I include the pointless Ms. WrestleMania title but as the editor of ‘Fighting Females’ magazine I’m really trying to forget that ever existed.
You just cannot keep switching champions like this and expect the titles to have some kind of value. Out of all the changes this year only injuries to Batista and Maryse, JBL leaving the company and the suspension of Rey Mysterio meant the title had to change.
Continual changing of the belt can be defended I guess by the bosses simply claiming it’s a really competitive division now and everyone is capable of beating everyone else but that excuse means the division doesn’t have a dominant champion. That’s something I always like to see in pro wrestling and even better if it happens to be a heel holding the belt. A dominant heel leads to the creation of a face challenger that can finally rid us of this hated champion. Think back to when Yokozuna held the title for nearly a year before Bret Hart won the belt from him at WrestleMania X.
There’s other ways in which companies can make their champions look weak and one is when they decide that they’re going to have an Iron-Man match on their card. For starters an hour long Iron Man match isn’t always that welcome because there are few wrestlers in the company that are capable of putting on a good performance for such a length of time. Even worse is the fact there’s few wrestlers in the company who anyone would want to watch for an hour.
The last Iron Man Match took place recently at ‘Bragging Rights’ when Randy Orton who had held the WWE title for an amazing 24 days lost the belt to John Cena who he’d also lost the belt to just over a month previously. Cena won the match by six falls to five and instantly became one of the weakest WWE Champions of all time? Why you ask, let me explain.
How can Cena claim to be an all-powerful WWE Champion when on a PPV we’ve just seen him get pinned five times in an hour? How can he go up to Randy Orton and brag about how he beat him when Orton can just say “Well I pinned you five times in an hour a few weeks ago so you know full well how capable I am of beating you.” Turn it the other way round and how can Orton say he’s so deserving of a title shot when he’s just been pinned six times in an hour by the champion?
You know what else bugs me and coming from the UK I’ll probably get shot for writing this, I really don’t like best of three falls matches. British matches always used to be fought over a rounds system and the best of three falls but that tradition has slowly died out in the past two decades. Totally the fault of the Americans of course as we were introduced to WWE and WCW where it was all one fall matches. Only a few companies in the UK now use best of three falls matches but for me the idea just doesn’t work, well not in a business where results are pre-determined.
So what’s my problem? Well you see the problem is it always seems to end with matches ending in two falls to one. As soon as one wrestler goes a fall up I’m usually just counting down the minutes until the equalising fall and then it’s time for the decider. That’s one problem but it also affects the superiority of a champion in title matches. With the one fall system the champion can hold the belt for months winning his matches and never being pinned. With the best of three falls system the chances are he or she will get pinned or made to submit in virtually every match that they have. Where’s the superiority in a champion who everyone can actually get a pin or submission over?
WWE need to create champions who can hold the title for a significant time and that means four or five months not four or five weeks, or in the case of Jeff Hardy four or five minutes when CM Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank title shot. WWE have to remember the days when they built up a champion who could have a series of matches against several wrestlers over a period of time and build up to a major title match at WrestleMania. Make the champion look strong and to a degree unbeatable not someone who we know can lose the belt anytime because he’s already done it several times this year.
We’re never going to go back to the days when champions held belts for years and years but all this constant changing just damages the credibility of the belts and the champions who hold them. WCW was like that in their dying days and no one wants a repeat of that. These days it’s sometimes difficult to even remember who all the champions are and that’s not just because there’s so many of them. It’s almost as difficult as working out who the members of UK girl group The Sugababes are this week!
Well that’s all for this week, if you want to read more of my work take a look at www.fightingfemales.co.uk and www.thewrestlingpress.com where there’s some downloadable free mags.
(8 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5)
Loading ...753 views
Latest Editorials Posts
- The Two Sheds Review: WCW/New Japan Collision In Korea
- Ring Rust Review: Raw 900
- The Two Sheds Review: UFC 118 Edgar vs Penn 2
- The Two Sheds Review: Strikeforce Houston
- The Two Sheds Review: YouShoot Live With Dixie Carter
- The Two Sheds Review: UFC 109 Relentless - DVD Review
- Bingo's Breakdown: The worst finishing moves in WWE
- The Two Sheds Review: ROH Phoenix Rising
- The Truth: A New Leader
- The Two Sheds Review: Strikeforce Challengers Riggs v Taylor
Henry McArcher on Mon, 16th Nov 2009 5:39 PM
I completely agree with you lad. All of this 3-4 week title reigns are getting confusing and unrealistic. The prestige of the titles are being destroyed. At this point the ECW championship sounds more important than the company’s trademark championship, the WWE Championship. A wrestler winning a title its no longer something that catches you by surprise and you can expect him to lose it at the next PPV. My only hope is that WWE decides to stop this short title reigns and build up their champions instead of having titles switch back and forth 2-5 times in a single rivalry.
Ryan on Tue, 17th Nov 2009 1:26 AM
Here is the thing with repetitive matches (Cena/Orton/HHH)
I do agree with your points. BUt here is the thing i don’t understand with the way people think. We bash them over and over about them fighting each other over and over. REason is this. They are the top guys no matter how much we hate it (or don’t). They want and feel they deserve shots to be the champion when they are no longer the champion and they win the number 1 contendership matches in order to do so. Therefore, in that of itself, the storyline makes sense. Just people piss and moan of having to see the same people again. Now the complaints aren’t really so much of the matches themselves being bad. In fact they are not that bad at all. Sure they are not 5 stars and such, but they can stand on their own as just a nice decent match. The only reason why most now get rolled eyes as a reaction is not really due to the action and the match itself, just people not caring to see these two fight again.
Well anyways, the point I’m leading up to is this. Everyone is fond of and respects the hell out of Ric Flair and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. Yes, their matches were wrestling clinics—but not all of them. But the real point is this…How many times has Ric Flair and Steamboat faced each other?
We can’t really know, but we all hear Flair run his mouth over and over againn when discussing such matters that they have fought “1000′s” of times. Now we all know that Orton/HHH/Cena have not faced each other that many times in a span of 4 years.
So why is it that it is ok looking back and saying wrestling was great, etc. even though we had Flair and Steamboat face each other NUMEROUS of times WITH by the way a title on the line a lot of those times as well?
Let me say again, i understand and you make good points on the subject. But must not forget that back then, people saw wrestlers back then face each other NUMEROUS of times AND a lot of those matches (Flair/Steamboat) didn’t have a storyline build up. Some times they were just booked against each other to fill up the card, though it was usually going to be a good or great match.
Now I’m sure both you and I can agree that Orton and HHH are good wrestlers in the ring right? Sure they have their faults, but overall they are good in the ring. Just depends on your taste of style you like to see and I know some don’t like the style of Orton’s slow methodical approach and HHH’s style of having an aura around himself of “superiority.”
As for Cena, I don’t fault him at all with his wrestling skills. You watch his earlier stuff in his career and you can see that he does have a bigger moveset. However, in WWE they tend to like to have their superstars to dial it down to a set of moves in order for the casual fans and younger fans to follow them even more and have that feel of knowing what they are going to do next and feed on the “set up” moves or chain of moves. To follow a formula for such fans. It has worked numerous of times before with Hogan, Warrior, and yes even Stone Cold Steve Austin. Now, i don’t know if you ever saw Hogan work matches outside of the U.S. and outside the WWE and WCW, but Hogan did indeed have a lot more moves in his reportoire.
The problem/faults of Cena in my eyes is more of the psychology aspect of wrestling. His ring psychology is horrendous. And it goes hand in hand with the way he no sells. Hogan and The Undertaker are the masters of the “no sell” done the right way. Cena’s no sells are done the wrong way. (Sorry kind of got off subject)
Yes, time has changed, the atmosphere and the “likes” that fans crave nowadays are much different. So the appeal of these wrestlers facing each other time and time again is not something fans want to see nowadays, but just remember. Back then, it was not seen as such a horrible thing. And it was normal to see two wrestlers face each other numerous of times.
Final Thought on the matter: Perhaps it wouldn’t be in as much of a negative light if it wasn’t always being the same two over and over in most of the main events in ppvs, especially when their are ppvs popping out left and right nowadays. I seriously hope they are planning on cutting them down.
As for the “Guest Host.” All i have to say is that there are some weeks it works, and some weeks it don’t. And when they don’t work, it REALLY doesn’t work. But there have been in my opinion, some good guest host raws where the host was doing well and the show was entertaining.
Ones who i thought were decent/good:
Ozzy
Bob Barker
Ted DiBiase
Dusty Rhodes (Yes, it would of meant much more if they continued that story at the end of that Raw and we pry would already see Ted Jr. on the rising star of stardom, including Cody Rhodes)
And Shaq. (I thought he did well and created a nice touch with Jericho and Show. Just a shame no one caught on with the Christina chants. YEs we all love and respect Jericho. But he is playing a top heel and heels crave to have negative reactions from the fans and Jericho would of loved i’m sure to have had that chant to catch on for awhile. People loved and respected Owen Hart but that didn’t stop them from calling him a nugget and it certainly didn’t mind the fans on chanting towards Kurt Angle that he sucks even though that is far from the case)