For people who complain...

[Guest Your Olympic Hero]

It's impossible for a title to mean something nowadays.  Why? Because feuds are blown off in a month, and there are TV shows that you have to be on and defend your title on every week. There's no way that a guy could hold a title for more than 3 months unless he was never on TV.

[Guest Special K]

Well, I think that's a little bit backwards, seeing as one of my pet peevs is short feuds. With so many titles, they can keep a couple stable at a time. Still think RVD losing the belt was ridiculous, though I love Eddie.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

A guy could keep his title without defending it every week, whoever's booking just thinks the title needs to be defended. I think the champ should stay away from getting his hands dirty for special feuds that are going to last for a long time. Other than that, I think title shots should be treated as a privelege, and not a right. Long term booking would help the WWF a lot.

[Guest papacita]

These days, I think solid 3 month title reigns would do a lot to increase the credibility of some titles. The whole problem is that they've got a bunch of belts that are just there with almost no competition for them. I mean...aside from the World Title or the Women's Title, when was the last time you heard a wrestler cut a promo about how badly he wanted a title? Back in the day you used to have guys like Michaels, Rick Martel, Razor and the British Bulldog fighting just to see who gets an I-C Title shot, much less the title itself. That kinda thing does a lot to make fans care about titles, and it damn sure does a lot better than just having your champions fight meaningless matches week after week after week. And then RVD loses the I-C belt last week and just goes on about his business like nothing happened. Shit, I'm going on a rant here, but the WWF could do so much to increase the value on their titles that they don't even seem to be trying to do. There are times where they seem to have this mentality that whatever happens outside of the main event doesn't matter and it makes it really frustrating for me to watch WWF TV sometimes. Oh well...you read...so now I'm leaving. BYE!!!

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Three month title reigns would be nice, but stronger booking and writing so that people care about the titles (has anyone other than D'lo and Al Snow ever cared about the European title?!) is more necessary.  While people losing the title every other week back and forth would get annoying (although possibly more realistic), if it was worked in so that the feuders/title-traders got more and more angry each time up to a huge PPV blow-off that would be the "final title match", it'd be worth it.

[Guest Caliban]

If Austin could have a nice 5 month WWF title reign last year, then I see know reason why they can't show some restraint on the other titles.

 

The roster split has helped, but there are still too many meaningless title changes - the Hardcore and European titles don't mean shit, but they are a lost cause anyway.

[Guest mickberna]

(has anyone other than D'lo and Al Snow ever cared about the European title?!)

Well, before they buried him, there was Christiaaaannnn!!!... Champion of Europe!

 

That angle kicked ass, they should have kept it going.  He was so happy to be the European Champ.

[Guest papacita]

I don't even think the bookers themselves care about the Euro title. The thing is really worthless now. I mean, I can name the complete history of Euro Champions out of the top of my head and can't even remember who has the damn thing right now. That's bad.

 

Seriously...who has the title?????

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

Spike Dudley has the Euro title. I think a long title reign should be easier to pull of since there are supposed to be two seperate rosters.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Right now, Lil' Spike Dudley has the Euro title.  When did it originate, though, and why? It does seem to have always been a token title and more useless than all the other belts.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

It originated in 97 I think. Shawn Michaels had the title and basically forfeited it to HHH on a RAW where they were supposed to fight each other for the belt. They managed to put themselves over with a funny match while burying the belt. The belt actually seemed like it was important when Michaels and Bulldog fought for it at an England PPV. The match with HHH did just as much to make it look worthless.

[Guest papacita]

Right now, Lil' Spike Dudley has the Euro title.  When did it originate, though, and why? It does seem to have always been a token title and more useless than all the other belts.

I really didn't start following wrestling on the net until late 99 so I can't tell you why they made the belt, but I do know that on a Raw in February 97...1 week after ECW's "invasion" of the Manhattan center and 2 weeks after CHYNA made her 1st WWF appearance [sighs], The British Bulldog beat Owen Hart in the finals of the European Title tournament to become champ. They were Tag Champs at the time, and it seemed like they were headed for a break-up, so the story there was that Owen was jealous of Bulldog because he had 2 belts and all he had was a belt and a Slammy...that is until the 97 Slammys when he stole Bob Backlund's best bow-tie award, which gave him a belt and two Slammys. Eventually, this all lead to the formation of the Hart Foundation, Bulldog made his 1st title defense in June and held the belt until September, where HBK beat him and barely defended the title, losing it to HHH via fluke. IMO, the only Euro Champs that actually did something the elevate that belt were D-Lo, X-Pac, Angle and maybe Eddy...even though I didn't like his reign. Damn, I have a good memory, don't I? :-)

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

What about Shane McMahon and Mark Henry? They elevated the title to the stars! Remember when HHH was telling the Rock that there were other titles he could chase besides the Heavyweight Title? He was telling him that he could lose his love handles and go after the LH Belt or go after the European Title (he turned to Shane and said, "you held that didn't you?) instead of facing him at Wrestlemania.

[Guest Special K]

They say one of the real reasons to create the Euro championship was to appease Michaels, making him the 1st 'Grand Slam' Champion, as they were promoting Hart for a while as the only person to do it all in the WWF, and do it twice (2x World IC and Tag champ). Hey remember when the WWF gave a shit about that stuff? I mean, I think CJ's the only one to hold all the belts (besides CW and Women's) and they didn't even mention it in passing. I think they never should have broken Angle's Eurocontinental belt up. Too many singles are a bad thing. Well, at least we don't have all those WCW belts mucking things up.

[Guest Caliban]

I really think the European championship was a way to cash in on he European market. In the UK we saw the whole tournament, a special programme, before it was on Raw in the US. The European championship was then the main event of One Night Only, the first UK PPV (which I attended, BTW. And it ruled.)

[Guest The Wicker Man]

As previously stated, there is just too much too often.

 

Bring back Jobbers I say, and only have the 'superstars' fighting at PPVs.

 

Belts meant alot more in the past... they were only defended once or twice a year.  

 

Royal Rumble - featured no title matches for the 1st few years

Wrestlemania - always featured a title match

Summerslam - Mostly featured a title match

Survivor Series - featured no title matches until 91.

 

there were a few defenses on saturday nights main event, but mostly they werent to do with any running angle at the time.. although there were a few memorable title matches now and then. The champ VERY RARELY even appeared on Challenge or Superstars unless it was in an interview promoting an upcoming PPV.

 

So, as you see... twice a year maximum the belt was defended in a Big match. Now belts change hands every other week in one way or another.

 

The WWF just needs to cut down its TV time... its not as if they do anything useful with it anyway.

[Guest Your Olympic Hero]

I liked Al Snow as European champion when he would come to the ring as someone from a different European country every week.  Also, D-Lo Brown claiming he was European and traveling in Europe was gold.

 

I think they might have originated the title simply to further the dissention between Bulldog and Owen, and to have another title floating around hoping it would mean as much as the others.  Bulldog and Owen had a classic match in the finals of that tournament, but the Bulldog face turn never happened.  HBK won the title from the Bulldog in  the MAIN EVENT of a PPV in England.  Imagine that, the Euro title in a PPV main event.  HBK and HHH ruined the title within a year of it being created when HBK layed down for HHH.

[Guest]

In my opinion, if you want to see a wrestling organisation where titles have CREDIBILITY look no further than Japan...

 

Titles are defended roughly 3 to 4 times a year, as they are percieved as far too important for any 'normal' wrestling show, they are only defended on supercards put on by Japanese wrestling organisations..

 

Although in America this would simply not work, as the WWF title is a way of catching some much needed ratings/buy rates for shows so i understand Vince having the title on the line fairly often...

 

However i do agree that a credible champ should ensure that the belt be represented in a certain way, maybe we could start with the actual belt, the thing now is far too small and doesn't look very significant at all. WWF titles have always been fairly big belts, why the change?

 

This has been the Taker Mark.

 

TAKER FOR CHAMP!

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

The WWF isn't interested in titles, its interested in "superstars", and god forbid it might build to the future.

 

As I posted elsewhere, Eddy shouldn't have got the IC title off RVD so soon.

 

Bizarrely, BillyChucky have had the tag titles for some time now, and even more bizarrely its working for me.