Wwf title means something again?

[Guest Mik at Cornell]

I know some of you probably read the piece about the WWF title at Meltzer's site, and I was thinking about it before it was even posted there and it's totally true. The WWF title means more right now then it has for a LONG time, despite having a shitty champion.

 

Think about it: There are feuds for no. 1 contender. Angle and Jericho are pissed because they feel they deserve to be champion. Yeah, that's right feuds built around the belt itself, and not dog shit, convertibles and other assorted crap. If they make the WWF title seem important for a while like this, the fans might actualy, *GASP* care about the WWF title again.

 

And on top of that, HHH hasn't defended the title since Wrestlemania. If the WWF goes back to making WWF title matches special and not twice a week, well I'm all for that. I love these changes and I pray the WWF keeps it up.

[Guest]

Yeah if they get the title off Tiple H then it would seem much more important. I say give it to Angle or Undertaker.

[Guest dreamer420]

I don't think taking the title off of hhh and putting on the the taker is such a smart idea.  taker deserves one last title reign before his career is over but hhh should be jobbing his title the the undertaker.

 

if it is going to be defended at ppv's only or something i would be all for that as well

[Guest]

Dropping it to Angle would be fine then.  

[Guest Anglesault]

Super-Fine

[Guest Austin3164life]

Seems right.  The World Championship does mean something as of right now.  You have Hogan trying to go for his supposed last dance with glory by winning the Unified Championship, you have Triple H wanting to keep it(and not defending it every week), you have Austin & Undertaker feeling they are deserving of a title shot, you have Angle & Jericho feeling that they are deserving of wearing the belt.  That's 6 of the top stars in the WWF wanting the WWF Unified Championship.  I think that the split has helped somewhat, because now we have an indirect yet intertwining storyline for the World Championship.......

[Guest]

Hello to the SmartMark Forum community.

 

I believe the World title being defended just once a month at the pay-per-views is the best idea I have heard for a long time.  The universe of a wrestling organisation should orbit around its champion, and that champion should stand head-and-shoulders above his peers.

 

Over these last few years there have been a glut of performers who have all been very marketable, and this has led to hot-shotting the championship around like a hot potato to make the top stars all seem somewhat on the same level.  This should not be the case.

 

A promotion should carefully decide on a champion and run with him for a substantial period of time before he passes the ball for someone else to run with.  If that person was a sucess during his time as the promotional figurehead, there is every chance of them receiving another run in the future.

 

Multiple rapid-fire title-switches do nothing other than create long-term instability and devaluation of a championship.  By decreasing the number of shots one can have at the big belt, it instantly makes title-matches more meaningful again.  It hope it will create longer runs for champions, more prestige for challengers, higher buy-rates for pay-per-views and generally more longevity for the careers of all those involved.

 

The World title was rapidly becoming an afterthought to short-term storylines and temporarily marketable characters.  I applaud the WWF for applying the brakes and re-evaluating their most important structural element.

[Guest Dangerous A]

I think the title not being defended every other show is a good thing. It's a case of less is more. A title shot now seems like a real event as opposed to just another meaningless title shot. I really like the way Taker put that point over this week when he said that with the split, title shots are going to be more and more rare for everyone. Ditto for Angle mentioning that on SD. An example of less is more is the Triple Crown in All Japan. Triple crown title matches a year can sometimes be counted on 1 hand.(depending on which year) So when there is an actual title match, the fans feel that the challenger will give it his all because he may not get another shot for awhile. I know the Japan style booking and tours are different then over here, but you get what I mean.

[Guest Anglesault]

A problem is when you end up with a realy bad champion (Not naming names) it takes forever to get it off them.

[Guest]

A problem is when you end up with a realy bad champion (Not naming names) it takes forever to get it off them.

 

Especially when they have tremendous backstage pull and and INTENSE!

[Guest evenflowDDT]

While I agree that feuds focusing on the belt and not getting to be #1 contender are definitely a good thing, I say defend the belt twice a month.  Although I don't want there to be so many world title matches that it makes the belt trivial, I want to see a fighting champion.  Also, having less matches means if you don't like the current champion they will have the belt a lot longer (I mean this in general, not towards any particular champion), which is not a good thing.  I suppose that's an even trade-off.

[Guest Dangerous A]

Twice a month is good. Once on ppv and maybe switch the title defense between SD and Raw. Staleness for the undisputed title is a bad thing as DDP would say.

[Guest]

Can someone like me to all these damn sites (Meltzer, Keither, ect) i feel so lost...

[Guest Prime Time Andrew Doyle]

Twice a month is good. Once on ppv and maybe switch the title defense between SD and Raw.

I couldn't agree more

[Guest]

"Can someone like me to all these damn sites (Meltzer, Keither, ect) i feel so lost... "

 

Well, you're on Scott Keith's site right now...

[Guest]

I seem to remember back in 2000/2001 when they would have the Main Events not include the WWF Title,  personally I think it puts a lot of stress on the creative team to come up with a storyline just for one match every month that has to be special because its the "WWF Championship".  

 

I think the writing team could go along way by building up to a one-on-one match between say.. a tag-team match that would give them a little more time to build up to the blowoff match at the next PPV.

 

Reality is that with split shows it is way to hard to build up to a championship match with only 4 shows.  Now the writing team will have to build everything to me to be a longer feud.  Hopefully all those feuds will be good ones and won't involve the last few people in the main event on RAW.... you know who you are you coniving, greasy bastards.

[Guest Cataclysm911]

I'm in the minority apparently, because I feel that the WWF Title should be defended often. A "fighting champion" so to speak. Either that, or put it on a "heel" and re-incorporate the "30 day to defend the title" rule. That way, the "heels" can run, but eventually run into a wall.

 

I do think that the WWF title is pretty prestigious right now. It has been since Austin's long reign with it last year. It seems to be the only belt where the title reigns last more than a month.

[Guest the pinjockey]

Man, making the title seem important is a novel concept.  If the writing team had only thought of that three months earlier there might still be a really strong heel champ right now..hmmm.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

I like the fact that the title is the focus of several wrestler's ambitions right now, but only defending at PPVs?  I definitely think that's a bad idea.  The title has never been defended all that frequently, but I think a couple matches between shows would be great and almost necessary.  If all these wrestlers are interested in the belt at once, if it's their priority in the league, then it wouldn't be too hard to shuffle the shots around and have there be some intrigue as to who might be winning.  Shots'll still be rare, and shouldn't be tossed at nobodies who will obviously be losing even from a total mark perspective, but they should still happen.  Competition for the title doesn't mean a thing if nobody's actually getting a chance to compete for the belt

[Guest]

Hello again, SmarksForum.  Apologies if the following post is a little long, I have several points I'd like to make.

 

I have to say that I disagree with MrRant when he says it is way too difficult to build to a championship match with just four shows.  The WWF did exactly this from early '97-late '99 when Raw was their only two-hour flagship show.  They did very good business in this time period.

 

I believe modern fans have become oversaturated since Smackdown was added as a second flagship show in late 99.  At that time, various wrestlers were red-hot marketable commodities, while the writing and booking side of things was strong and original enough to sustain this schedule.

 

It worked, for a while.  A little over a year later, the product took a noticeable turn for the worse.  Now this could have been due to bad writing - the intriguing Triple-H/Stephanie/Kurt Angle triangle and the 'who ran down Steve Austin' angles were both badly botched - and it undoubtedly made things worse, but more than likely the major reason was the public en masse just got bored and watched something else for a while.  

 

The public will switch back over to wrestling soon enough, and the promotion has to be ready to hold their attention.  They will, I believe, switch back over sooner than most people think.  Do not underestimate how big a mainstream star The Rock is going to become over the coming months.  Sales of Rock DVD's and videos will go through the roof, and the general public's interest in wrestling will once again be in the ascendence.

 

If there's nothing in the product to keep them interested they won't stay, and there's no telling when the next opportunity to recapture a huge audience will present itself.  The creative department is not as strong as it was back in 97-99 - this time the WWF has to keep the public's attention by presenting something much more similar to the Japanese product - athletic competition focused around the pursuit of championship gold.

 

Presenting this very simple idea requires much less TV time than the overkill we have recently had of eight weekly hours of prime time to fill, in addition to the secondary weekend shows.  The roster split has been the first step in rectifying this overexposure which exists as a legacy to out-doing a competition which has since ceased to exist.  I firmly believe the roster split will remain in place until whichever of the two prime-time TV deals expires first, and then the promotion will return to a more managable and sensible schedule of four hours per week.  As it is, the roster split is somewhat effectively achieving this already.  I applaud them for a sound business move to resolve a bad situation.

 

I also have to disagree with Edwin MacPhisto when he says the championship needs to be defended more regularly if the WWF are to once again make it the focal point of their organisation, as well as the focal point of the characters within that organisation.  It is naive to believe more regular TV title-shots would equate to more wrestlers being given the big matches.  We have had this situation for the past few years, and all that has happened is the same select few workers getting the title-shots over and over and over again to the point where it completely loses all meaning and significance as an event.

 

Defending the championship belt should become a very special occasion reserved only for PPV.  As for Anglesault's point that once you get a bad champion it becomes very difficult to get the belt off them, there is certainly truth to that.  However, Vince McMahon has traditionally been very astute at knowing who to give the ball to at any given time (excepting the turbulent mid-90's), and I believe with greater focus he will continue to do so in the future, with an air of athletic competition settling over the promotion as its prime driving force.

 

The question of who to give this newly-elevated champiosnhip prestige to is a no-brainer.  The Rock.  He is by far the most valuable asset to the wrestling world at the moment, and the greatest possible ambassador the sport has ever seen.  The 80's had Hulk Hogan as their legitimate cultural phenomenon, the 90's had Stone Cold Steve Austin.  The 00's will have The Rock.  I have heard it said that The Rock's time came and went from 99-00.  Nonsense, what has gone so far has only been a practice run, believe me.

 

The title should stay with Triple-H (a heel Triple-H, mind you) for most of the year.  When Rocky returns, 'The Chase' will be the most important period in wrestling for some time.  And when The Rock finally wins, he should hold that title for a long time, even allowing for future movie schedules.  If he's off shooting somewhere, a weekly satellite video interview is easy enough to organise, and one day a month for his mandatory Pay-Per-View title-shot is not too much to ask, for the wrestling/movie publicity axis will work both ways.

 

The talk of glass celings or people being held down is nonsense.  The champion should stand head-and-shoulders above everyone else in the promotion.  He should be a recognisable face and representative of the sport at every level.  When your figurehead is, in a sense, above the business - that is only good news for the careers of every single worker on the roster.

 

Steve Austin's day genuinely has been and gone, as has The Undertaker's, Ric Flair's and Hulk Hogan's.  This is not to say they do not still have roles to play because they do.  Very important ones, just not as promotional figureheads.  People like Rob Van Dam, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit or, particularly, Kurt Angle may well assume The Rock's mantle in the future.  But I don't see that happening for a long time.  The Rock, even a semi-present Rock, will lead wrestling into its next golden age and he will do so wearing a WWF World Championship which has genuine prestige.

 

Thank you for staying with an overworked deputy's ramblings.  I live in hope.

[Guest]

Hello again, SmarksForum.  Apologies if the following post is a little long, I have several points I'd like to make.

 

I have to say that I disagree with MrRant when he says it is way too difficult to build to a championship match with just four shows.  The WWF did exactly this from early '97-late '99 when Raw was their only two-hour flagship show.  They did very good business in this time period.

You also have to factor in that the WWF didn't have a roster so big.  Not to mention almost twice the angles since the split.

 

It am not saying it cannot be done... it can certainly be done with a great storyline, but the type of stories the creative team are giving out now are decent, but not good enough to get to the "boiling point" that I believe is needed for a WWF Championship match.   In general that is the selling point of the card and has been since wrestling was created.  

 

Case in point the feud between HHH and Hogan.  To me it feels like it is only half ass.  There actually hasn't been much interaction other than "I can do it myself" and " I will run you down."  .  A good point to that though is the interaction of Jericho and Hogan and I applaud the creative team with trying to build that up now, so we are looking at about a 6 week build-up to the blowoff match possibly.  They need more of that.

 

They need to plant some seeds early.  Not wait till the 2nd RAW or Smackdown when there are only 2 weeks left to the match.  There isn't I believe enough time to get fans interested enough in the match.

 

Perhaps it isn't only the WWF title that needs to mean something but they need to re-invigorate the Intercontential title.  RVD is a good start.  If you look back to 2000/2001 the people feuding where Angle, Benoit, Jericho, HHH (I think it somewhat helps to have a top-tier guy hold it here and there) and the like.   Test the waters with the IC title here and there, a good example is Booker T.  But try and make it seem like when you hold the IC title you are just a break away from WWF Champion.

 

Wow that was long.

[Guest caboose]

As long as the belt doesn't find it's way onto Hogan's shoulders the WWF title will look strong.

Hogan's a legend and all, but it won't look good if a 50 year old geriatric takes the title from 'The Intense One'.

Longer title reigns and less defences add to the prestige of the belt.

When the WCW title spent most of 1996 and 1997 around Hogan's waist, Sting's and even Luger's title wins meant a hell of a lot.

I say keep the belt on Triple Intensity until SummerSlam at least. And when he drops it, he should drop it to someone new like RVD. This way the belt doesn't just become a prop for guys like Austin, Rocky and Triple H.

[Guest]

I don't think taking the title off of hhh and putting on the the taker is such a smart idea.  taker deserves one last title reign before his career is over but hhh should be jobbing his title the the undertaker.

 

if it is going to be defended at ppv's only or something i would be all for that as well

????

 

Are you saying that HHH jobbing to Taker is a good or bad thing? Personally , i don't see the problem with it as everyone in the back loves big Mark anyway...and besides, Taker would kick ass as the champ! (spare me the work rate cracks)

 

Although...Angle as champ would be a pretty damn good thing...better than anything Triple H can pull off anyway..

 

This has been the Taker Mark

 

VOTE #1 - TAKER FOR CHAMP

[Guest]

[You also have to factor in that the WWF didn't have a roster so big.  Not to mention almost twice the angles since the split.]

 

The split has brought the two respective rosters down to a more managable size, with more time to focus on feuds and issues, and less necessity for meaningless matches just to keep everyone busy.

 

[it am not saying it cannot be done... it can certainly be done with a great storyline, but the type of stories the creative team are giving out now are decent, but not good enough to get to the "boiling point" that I believe is needed for a WWF Championship match.   In general that is the selling point of the card and has been since wrestling was created.]

 

That's something the writing team really need to sort out.  They don't need inane angles involving lucy the dog's broken leg and divorcing couples insulting each other's genitalia to hype pay-per-views, they need believable and meaningful contests between great workers.  

 

And while HHH vs. Hogan isn't exactly a shining example of that, I do believe they are heading in the right direction.  RVD-Guerrero and Tajiri-Kidman making it onto the Backlash card are proof of that.  During the WWF's last boom between 98-99, the roster was filled with sub-par workers.  Their strength was in, dare I say it, Vince Russo's writing.  

 

This time their strength lies in the workers.  Good storylines can certainly enhance the programmes no end, but it's not the be-all-and-end-all.  Good, solid matches based around the pursuit of championship gold (whether it be the World, Intercontinental, Tag Team, Hardcore or Cruiserweight titles) is a simple, winning formula which, if done right, is all the WWF needs to turn around their decline in ratings.

 

[They need to plant some seeds early.  Not wait till the 2nd RAW or Smackdown when there are only 2 weeks left to the match.  There isn't I believe enough time to get fans interested enough in the match.]

 

I agree wholeheartedly.  They need to start promoting the central championship match to the next pay-per-view immediately after the one that has just passed in order to sustain interest and momentum.  With it being the only title-match for 30-days, that match will automatically begin to take on the "boiling point" proportions that ultimately generate the buy-rates.  I live in hope.  Squalor also, but mainly hope.

[Guest Austin3164life]

I truly believe that for the all consuming "Attitude" era to fully end, and for the "Desire" era to kick into full force, a young, highly talented star should go over a Champion Steve Austin at a Main Event in the next Wrestlemanias.  It's becoming more apparent that Austin's time is coming to a close and this is the beginning of the end of his career (a damn great career I might add).  He represents the "Attitude" boom from 97-99, and he still signifies that era.  We have been in this "attitude" era for about 4-5 years.  We've seen intruiging moments, matches, and storylines, mainly concentrated around Steve Austin.  He came back from spinal surgery to carry the company one last time throughout the duration of 2001.  His time now is waning for younger stars such as The Rock and Rob Van Dam are wildly popular figures and others such as Jericho and Angle have the necesary talent to become #1 heels.  If this is Austin's (possible) last year in his wrestling career, the Undisputed Crown should go to him.  I know, some of you might be thinking "He's already established".  You're right, he is.  Giving him (not Hogan, who had his last hurrah two years ago) the greatest honor in wrestling is basically giving him a great goodbye present for all of the great wrestling and drama he has provided the WWF and it's fanbase.  If Wrestlemania 19 (possibly 20) is to be Austin's last, he should go in as the champion and probably job his title to The Rock, REALLY passing the torch, because The Rock has been made to look like Austin's running buddy for a long time, and Rock deserves the rub.  Once Austin leaves the WWF (on a good note) that's when they'll begin a new era in pro-wrestling, the "Desire" era......

[Guest Caliban]

Some excellent points in this post - mine is far smaller.

 

After Backlash, we will already know the main event for Judg(e)ment Day. When was the last time we knew the main event of a PPV this far in advance, discounting WrestleMania? Not for a while, surely.

 

WWF are pulling their act together, and it's good to see.

[Guest Mik at Cornell]

Ok maybe not now...

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Hahahaha... the WWF title sure does mean something now, eh? Actually, the irony is that Hogan is such a name that now all the marks and even some of the people outside of the wrestling community care about the WWF title and who holds it.  Even though every single one of us hates it, and rightfully should, the WWF title does indeed mean something more than it ever has.