The Belt system gone back to the 80's

[Guest Trivia247]

I dunno if anyone watched as long or longer than this 23 year old but its interesting how the various belts the WWE had has dwindled back down to the belts they had in the 80's. World Championship IC and Tag team. With the Elimination of the European and Hardcore titles, they effectively close the door for lower midlevel Talent to get more exposure as Prelim champions. Now I know people are thinking wait...What about the Cruiserweight and Women's title??? Women's title was contested pretty much up to 88-89 then shoved into the Mothballs until Moolah can come back and hobble around the ring for it. and the Cruiserweight belt....its Equivilent title, the WWF Light heavyweight Championship around the time of the 80's was bouncing back and forth between Mexico and Japan were Japanese legends like Great Sasuke, Shinjiro Ohtani picked it up , also a little known at the time Masked Wrestler called Pegasus Kid...Hmmmm wonder what happen to him.

 

If booking for the Cruiserweight title and its wrestlers stagnates anymore than they might just send the belt back out overseas for another 20 years.

And the Women's division had some signs of legitamacy with people like Jazz and Trish Drastic improvement as a wrestler and the few others. Well Bischoff basically trashed it in a heelish Sexist declaration of what the women division is. T&A isn't a problem but come on if their gonna wrestle let em wrestle if they can. And Im not talking about Stacy trying to do a spinning heel kick without jumping.

 

Basically now back to the 3 title system. Does it put more pressure on their performers to excell in order to reach these belts? or with the lack of the other two belts cause the remainder of the talent to get buried in the back....

 

Takes a break..

 

your thoughts.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

I think at the current time the Cruiserweight belt is more important than the Tag Team belt, as unbelievable as that is.

[Guest RicFlairGlory]

If this whole thing makes it MEAN SOMETHING SPECIAL when you win a title, I dont mind it one bit.

 

We've had WAY too many Champions lately. All the pre-Hogan years in the WWWF, and Hogan was only the NINTH World Champion. By now we're probably in the 100's

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

For the world title, there's about 70-some, according to 411's page.

 

The sad thing is, I'm a relative newb who started watching in Jan 99, and I've seen 27 title changes.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

The Europian and Hardcore belts never meant anything to begin with, so what does it matter? Niether one ever gave anyone a chance to make a name for themselves, they just solidifief the holders of them as jobbers.

[Guest AllState]

Well the whole idea that undercard wrestlers got exposure from the European or Hardcore titles is faulted. Looking back to this years Wrestlemania.

 

European Title: Contested between DDP and Christian as the result of a bizarre feud over Christians "temper tantrums." Fast forward six months from that "exposure" and you see some retired has-been (to be generous) and a bit player in directionless stable.

 

What a rub from the European title!

 

Hardcore Title: Contested between Maven and Goldust with about a week of build-up prior. Six months later, Maven is injured and forgetten and Goldust is a tag wrestler/sidekick (very entertaining I'll admit).

 

In closing, these titles never helped get any undercard talent in the last year at least.

[Chunk 0]

i havent decided as to weather or not i think its a good or bad thing yet.

 

however, i do think that they could have given more time to the unification of the titles, by putting the rvd vs dreamer match at unforgiven.

 

this would have helped to get rvd over (even more than he is), we could have had a very entertaining hardcore match (as the one on raw was shaping up to be good in my opinion, but needed a little more time)

 

and MOST importantly!: By making the unification match at the ppv they could have gotten the IC title over and given it some more prestige! They could have done a whole feud over the next 4 weeks of RVD vs Dreamer and IC vs Hardcore, meaning that when the IC title is the one that is left then it is made to look more presticous!

 

Plus you would also have the advantage the RVD and Dreamer work well together, and rvd might have shown a little more enthusiasm for this feud (than he did against Benoit).

 

just my opinion!

 

ChUnK!

[Guest RickyChosyu]

There was no "feud" with Dreamer, and I think by "enthusiasm" you mean "coherance." Rob can do hardcore, so he looked better doing that, then say, wrestling with Benoit.

[Guest The Electrifyer]

I like the system now. World, IC, Tag, Cruiser and Womens Titles are enough for 2 shows. Even though I enjoyed the Hardcore Title as a guilty pleasure, I'm glad its gone. With only these titles, it just shows that you have to be at the top of the game to win a title.

[Chunk 0]

There was no "feud" with Dreamer, and I think by "enthusiasm" you mean "coherance." Rob can do hardcore, so he looked better doing that, then say, wrestling with Benoit.

i was talking as though they could have done a feud between RVD and Dreamer (and the IC and hardcore titles) in the coming weeks, ending in a unification match at Unforgiven!

 

it just seemed to me that RVD seemed more up for the match with dreamer than for his match with Benoit. The fact that RVD "do" hardcore only adds to the potenital the feud had, as we could have had a number of hardcore matches (in the feud) leading up to Unforgiven.

 

ChUnK!

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

In theory, the Euro and hardcore titles should have been useful...but they were both a waste. The only Euro reigns I remember with any sort of interest are Angle's, because it was his first belt and he made a big deal of being Euro-Continental champ for a month, and Regal's, because he personified the belt, by, you know, actually being British.

 

Hardcore was a joke--the only good matches lately happened when they threw Richards and Dreamer in a ring for 6 minutes and said "go."

 

The supposed exposure one got from being a champion of one of those belts never really came to pass. I think it's good that they're gone. This *should*, by all rights, force the writers to come up with interesting storylines to motivate matches...and there's the downside of the upside.

 

We're not exactly getting great storylines now...and without belts as a crutch of "I want yours, let's fight a couple times," we could be getting something even worse. Add to that the fact that the IC title has gone from RVD to Eddy back to RVD to Benoit to back to RVD in the span of 2 months, and that the heavyweight title has had 6 champions in just 9 months of existence, and you've got a recipe for problems either way you swing it.

 

Bottom line: if the writers can concoct some interesting angles and make the remaining belts seem worthwhile, it's a good move. If not...well, it won't matter if they've got 2 belts or 20.

[Guest HossSauce]

The Europian and Hardcore belts never meant anything to begin with, so what does it matter?

 

Actually, you're wrong. The European title used to mean something. In fact, when the Bulldog beat Owen for it in a ***** match over in Germany, he even elevated it beyond the status of Rocky Maivia's Intercontinental title.

 

The European title only became a joke in 1999. For the first two years, it was held by great champions such as the Bulldog, Shawn Michaels, HHH, Owen Hart, D'Lo, etc. It was right up there with the I.C. title.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

Oh yeah, Michaels was such a great champion. How did he lose the title again? [/sarcasm]