Title Changes

SlickRic

Hunter 14-time champion.
Randy champion at least half a dozen times.
Cena champion at least half a dozen times.
Edge 10-time champion.

the title is meaning less and less by the month imo.

there's no suspense in any of the build ups. you know a feud is generally going to have a couple of title changes within it. it's just a prop that gives people something to fight about. there's no prestige to it for me anymore.

long title reigns, when done right can be awesome. Stone Cold, Bret, HHH etc. even JBL. it can build unreal heat for a heel for example.

this is a very incoherent rant, but what are people's thoughts?

more or less title changes? do they just not trust anyone to carry the company?

Bubs101

You left out Flair 16 time champion. Flair had a **** load of booking power when he was with the NWA and a few of his title changes were short jokes but nobody remembers that and only thinks of the 16 time champion. Same will happen to the likes of Superhunter

flahavaj

Agreed. Take the example of ROH, in the 7 years the company has been in existence theres only been I think 7 or 8 champions. In general the title reigns are long and tell a story over time. Because of this the title is viewed as important, title changes seems like significant events and the prestige of anyone who holds the title or indeed anyone who pushes the champion close is raised by being associated with it.

To me every WWE title change seems like afalse dawn and just when I think they're gonna give us a long term championshuip reign to sink our teeth into, the title is passed over again at the next PPV. Drives me mad to be honest.

flahavaj

Also with regard to HHH and Flair's multiple reigns, I think Edge's are the most laughable, not one of them has been in any way meaningful to be honest. At this rate he's gonna hit Ric's total WAY before Hunter!

SlickRic

Bubs101 wrote: »

You left out Flair 16 time champion. Flair had a **** load of booking power when he was with the NWA and a few of his title changes were short jokes but nobody remembers that and only thinks of the 16 time champion. Same will happen to the likes of Superhunter

oh i know.

the only reason i left out Flair was because i was referencing current WWE.

indeed, some of it was a joke.

Penn

Edges are by far the worst. Not only because most of them are so short, but because in a few of the cases, he wasn't even supposed to be in the match that he won it.

Survivor Series - Wasn't meant to be in the match - Won title
Armageddon - Lost title
Royal Rumble - Won title
No Way Out - Lost title - Entered other title match which he wasn't meant to be in - Won title
Wrestlemania - Lost title
Backlash - Won Title
Judgement Day - Defended title :eek:
Extreme Rules - Lost title (And when Hardy won it that night, he lost it a few minutes later)
The Bash - Won tag team titles - Wasn't meant to be in the match


Its absurd. It really is. I like Edge, but this is just nonsense

Bubs101

Edge's reigns tend to be extremely effective in getting the face over. Don't think that just because they're short they're farcicle. he's earned every one by being such an outstanding cowardly heel

flahavaj

Naw, Bubs, maybe the first four or five times that was true. After that it was just repetitive overkill.

Think of a new way to surprise us ta f*ck.

Penn

flahavaj wrote: »

Naw, Bubs, maybe the first four or five times that was true. After that it was just repetitive overkill.

Think of a new way to surprise us ta f*ck.

Exactly. Edge coming back at Survivor Series was unreal. Complete shock. But then losing the title, winning it back, losing it again, then the huge clusterf*ck of him taking Kingstons place at No Way Out, only to lose the title the next month, then regain it....

Seriously. When it done right, its brilliant. When its overdone, its just stupid

rossie1977

this is another case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"

cannot compare roh and wwe, for one roh don't put out 6hr of wrestling action a week on tv 52 weeks a year or 14-16 ppvs a year, have 2 world title belts, even then i heard alot of people saying they were bored of mcguinness' reign well before it concluded

remind me again of how the iwc and older males in the audience reacted to the last long wwe title reign.....

between November 15, 1998 and October 8, 2001, what most fans describe as the most exciting period in wwfs history:

the rock won the wwf title 6 times
austin won the title 5 times
HHH won the title 4 times
Mick foley won the title 3 times
Kurt angle won the title twice

there were 25 wwf title changes in a little over 3 years during that period but people loved it

regarding prestige; the big gold belt lost any prestige it had in wcw when vince russo, david arquette held the belt, never mind stuff like the fingerpoke of doom and jarrett laying down for hogan, wwe have worked hard at bringing some prestige back to the belt in recent years but its image was damaged beyond repair in wcw imo

rossie1977

flahavaj wrote: »

Naw, Bubs, maybe the first four or five times that was true. After that it was just repetitive overkill.

Think of a new way to surprise us ta f*ck.

edges title loss and title win at nwo this year was fantastic booking and none of us seen it coming at the start of the night

Cactus Col

Thought this was interesting ... shows the combined length of time people have held the titles, as well as the number of reigns. (taken from wikipedia)

World Heavyweight Championship
Rank Name Reigns Length
1 Triple H 5 616
2 Batista 4 507
3 Edge  5 295
4 Chris Benoit 1 154
5 CM Punk  3 140+
6 King Booker 1 126
7 Rey Mysterio 1 112
8 John Cena 2 105
9 Goldberg 1 84
10 Kurt Angle 1 82
11 Chris Jericho 2 69
12 The Undertaker 2 67
13 The Great Khali 1 61
14 Shawn Michaels 1 28
14 Randy Orton 1 28
14 Jeff Hardy 2 28


WWF Championship
Rank Name Reigns Length
1. Bruno Sammartino 2 4,040
2. Hulk Hogan 6 2,185
3. Bob Backlund 2 2,138
4. Pedro Morales 1 1,027
5. John Cena 4 794+
6. Bret Hart 5 654
7. Triple H 8 539
8. Steve Austin 6 529
9. Randy Savage 2 520
10. Shawn Michaels 3 396
11. Diesel 1 358
12. Brock Lesnar 3 355
13. Randy Orton 4 335
14. The Rock 7 297
14. Kurt Angle 4 297
16. Billy Graham 1 296
17. The Ultimate Warrior 1 293
18. Yokozuna 2 280
18. John "Bradshaw" Layfield 1 280
20. The Undertaker 4 238
21. Edge 4 139
22. Eddie Guerrero 1 133
23. Ric Flair 2 118


(the lists were formatted better!)

Degag

To me, it sounds alot better to be a 1 or 2 time champ than a 16 time champ because to be a 16 time champ you must also lose it 15 times!

gimmick

In Edges defense, he has pretty much always been very effectively booked as a transitional champion. And in doing so, he got himself more over as a heel each and every time. This does however lead credence to the "prop" assertion though. All his runs, no matter how short, have been entertaining. He deserves a good dominant run though.

cannot compare roh and wwe, for one roh don't put out 6hr of wrestling action a week on tv 52 weeks a year or 14-16 ppvs a year, have 2 world title belts,

Thats down to WWE overkill. There is no need for 2 world title belts, and there is certainly no need for more than 12 PPVs (there should be less that that even, but thats another story). That being said, Cena had a great 12 month + run in 2007. Great in that it was booked to make both he look strong and the belt seem like a major deal.

rossie1977

gimmick wrote: »

Thats down to WWE overkill. There is no need for 2 world title belts, and there is certainly no need for more than 12 PPVs (there should be less that that even, but thats another story). That being said, Cena had a great 12 month + run in 2007. Great in that it was booked to make both he look strong and the belt seem like a major deal.

as long as wwe continue making money on each and every ppv (in terms of buyrates and dvd sales) they won't cut back on the number of ppvs

on the 2 world title thing, it does have its bad points but it also has its advantages, it has given guys like punk, hardy, jbl (and to a lesser extent edge) and a few others the opportunity to showcase what they can do at the top of the card, with one world title belt none of those guys would ever have a chance of breaking the cena, orton, hhh, batista stranglehold and would be confined to midcard for years, i remember heymans spiel during one of the ecws ppvs to jbl "the only reason you are world champ is because hhh didn't want to work thursday nights", there is only so many spots available at the top table, four are already taken, taker and michaels that makes 6, wwe have never had more than 6 main-eventers at one time on their card fighting for the same belt

gimmick

Then that is lazy booking. A fella can look really strong and main event without ever holding the title. Look at the stars of yesteryear like DiBiase, Rude, Perfect etc. None of these men ever held the gold in WWE, but they always looked like they could. In fact, they went through their entire stays in the company without ever being the top dog. That gave an element of prestige to the World Title that does not exist today.

You should not have to have a belt to be over, these guys proved that. Not everyone who is a success needs to have held the top belt.

Bubs101

gimmick wrote: »

Then that is lazy booking. A fella can look really strong and main event without ever holding the title. Look at the stars of yesteryear like DiBiase, Rude, Perfect etc. None of these men ever held the gold in WWE, but they always looked like they could. In fact, they went through their entire stays in the company without ever being the top dog. That gave an element of prestige to the World Title that does not exist today.

You should not have to have a belt to be over, these guys proved that. Not everyone who is a success needs to have held the top belt.

HBK has been doing that for at least 4 years now

rossie1977

gimmick wrote: »

Then that is lazy booking. A fella can look really strong and main event without ever holding the title. Look at the stars of yesteryear like DiBiase, Rude, Perfect etc. None of these men ever held the gold in WWE, but they always looked like they could. In fact, they went through their entire stays in the company without ever being the top dog. That gave an element of prestige to the World Title that does not exist today.

You should not have to have a belt to be over, these guys proved that. Not everyone who is a success needs to have held the top belt.

thats a good point but rude and hennig were intercontinental champs back in the day which was second only to the wwf title or equivalent to the big gold belt these days or the title HHH is not going for

edge, punk and jeff and if we go back a bit jbl and eddie were booked like perfect, rude, dibiase back in the day, they would put up a strong fight against the real main-eventers like cena/hhh/batista but ultimately either fluke a win or fail in their quest, just like hennig/dibiase or rude would if they faced hogan (well they wouldn't fluke a win )

digital pimp

this isnt new
the championships titles lost credibilty in 1997 onwards when the ratings war began.
WWF and WCW switching on their tv shows to bump ratings.
the trend for short reigns began in '97.
the title are just a prop now.

flahavaj

Jake Roberts

/thread.

gimmick

rossie1977 wrote: »

thats a good point but rude and hennig were intercontinental champs back in the day which was second only to the wwf title or equivalent to the big gold belt these days or the title HHH is not going for

The IC strap is still about. No reason why the "80s" modl cannot still be sustained. Thats where the laziness continues - "as long as the world titles are okay, screw the rest" has been an all too prevailing attitude it seems in the last 10 years.

Snakeblood

gimmick wrote: »

Then that is lazy booking. A fella can look really strong and main event without ever holding the title. Look at the stars of yesteryear like DiBiase, Rude, Perfect etc. None of these men ever held the gold in WWE, but they always looked like they could. In fact, they went through their entire stays in the company without ever being the top dog. That gave an element of prestige to the World Title that does not exist today.

You should not have to have a belt to be over, these guys proved that. Not everyone who is a success needs to have held the top belt.

You can look at it the other way though. DiBiase was supposed to get the belt because he was so over, but Macho got it instead, and he got the Million Dollar Belt as a consolation. I think there was talk of Perfect getting the belt from Hogan after winning the Rumble (except it didn't happen like that). The reason they didn't get the belt was because Hogan had it, or Warrior had it, and that's the way the company was at the time. There was One Big Star and everyone was fed to him.

Now there's no Hogan who is utterly dominant for years at a stretch, because there's more tv\ppv so people get burned out on a top star faster. As a result you've got Orton, Cena, HHH, Michaels, Batista all percolating around the same level (And yeah, it gets really boring when they always face each other), and the 'lower tier' of Smackdown's upper roster, like Punk, Undertake, Edge and whoever, who get bumped up to Raw when they get nuclear hot. You've still got over midcarders like Finlay, Kane, Morrison, who are over without the belt.

Riddle101

TBH it's now just the World championships that are the problem the WWE dosen't put much emphasis on any of Championships anymore. All they care about are storylines and that's it. I mean the US champion Kofi Kingston hasn't had a proper title defense in ages, he always seems to defend his title in matches with more the 3 people, never in one on one matches, how is he supposed to be a strong champion when he get's them through overcoming the odds, it's not right for a face to be booked the way Kofi is. When is he going to feud with someone for it. Although i think it's good that Kofi has been champion for a while now but unless he defends it properly and at PPVs, it's useless. The I.C championship seems to be improving but i've still yet to see if WWE will continue building it strongly. In the last two years the US/I.C championships only seemed to be put on the line whenever they were about to change hands, and almost no storylines revolve around the championships. The Tag championships are doing well now because Jerishow are doing a great job in building the tag division, but in the past the championships were useless and I lost a lot of faith in the tag division over the last 4 years. As for the World Championship, well it really all depends on the wrestler tbh. I hated John Cena's year long title reign because he was a boring champion and stuck down our throats by Vince McMahon so much. It was a nice refresher to see edge win it off him even if he did have short title reigns. Personally I think it's not so bad if the championships change hands a lot during the year, just as long as they don't change hands within a month. Jeff Hardy and CM Punk's title reigns have annoyed me a lot because they seem to hold it for about a month.

Red Sleeping Beauty

rossie1977 wrote: »

between November 15, 1998 and October 8, 2001, what most fans describe as the most exciting period in wwfs history:

The WWF title changed hands 7 times in 1997 (well one was HBK vacating it). I'm pretty sure it was that year that it started changing hands at the drop of a hat. Before that year it was kinda taken serious save for the odd Bob Backlund match here and there.


+1 ont he Shawn Michaels comment. Surprised he hasn't held one of the two belts more since coming back in 2002. Roddy Piper was another one that never really needed a belt. He had the IC title but only to put Bret over and his tag title with Flair doesn't count.

DM_7

rossie1977 wrote: »

this is another case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"

cannot compare roh and wwe, for one roh don't put out 6hr of wrestling action a week on tv 52 weeks a year or 14-16 ppvs a year, have 2 world title belts, even then i heard alot of people saying they were bored of mcguinness' reign well before it concluded

remind me again of how the iwc and older males in the audience reacted to the last long wwe title reign.....

between November 15, 1998 and October 8, 2001, what most fans describe as the most exciting period in wwfs history:

the rock won the wwf title 6 times
austin won the title 5 times
HHH won the title 4 times
Mick foley won the title 3 times
Kurt angle won the title twice

there were 25 wwf title changes in a little over 3 years during that period but people loved it

Good points Rossie.

The volume of TV time plays a big part in the reasons for the title changes. Title changes also make PPVs more important. If title reigns were long then I think PPV buy rates would fall off as when things don't change and move people lose interest.

I like to watch a good wrestling contest that draws you me and once it does that the outcome of the match isn't that important, a title change doesn't do any harm.

Tht title changes are not to everyones taste but I think they serve a purpose.

flahavaj

rossie1977 wrote: »

this is another case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"

cannot compare roh and wwe, for one roh don't put out 6hr of wrestling action a week on tv 52 weeks a year or 14-16 ppvs a year, have 2 world title belts, even then i heard alot of people saying they were bored of mcguinness' reign well before it concluded

remind me again of how the iwc and older males in the audience reacted to the last long wwe title reign.....

between November 15, 1998 and October 8, 2001, what most fans describe as the most exciting period in wwfs history:

the rock won the wwf title 6 times
austin won the title 5 times
HHH won the title 4 times
Mick foley won the title 3 times
Kurt angle won the title twice

there were 25 wwf title changes in a little over 3 years during that period but people loved it

regarding prestige; the big gold belt lost any prestige it had in wcw when vince russo, david arquette held the belt, never mind stuff like the fingerpoke of doom and jarrett laying down for hogan, wwe have worked hard at bringing some prestige back to the belt in recent years but its image was damaged beyond repair in wcw imo

The comparison betwen the amount of TV time and PPV's that WWE have compared to ROH is a good and valid point. But the overall point I was making still stands. Surely making the title seem important by having a long term champion who elevates the title by holding on to it for long time and eventually making the loss of the title all the more important is still a valid and laudable booing tool?

Its all well and good moving the title around between Main Eventers when you have a cast of the calibre of the men you've named in your list, as WWE had at the height of Attitude. And lets face it, its not the quick title changes that had people clamouring to watch in those days , it was a coimbination of any number of factors, most importanty hot properties like Austin. In the current environment, when business is not half as good, nor is that cast of characters, WWE could do far worse than return to the basic principle of long, memorable title reigns IMO.

flahavaj

Alan Rouge wrote: »

+1 ont he Shawn Michaels comment. Surprised he hasn't held one of the two belts more since coming back in 2002. Roddy Piper was another one that never really needed a belt. He had the IC title but only to put Bret over and his tag title with Flair doesn't count.

Michaels himself has no interest in holding the title at this stage of his career.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Just on the reference to the Attitude era there, at the "height" they really only had two or three guys who could carry the show - Austin and Triple H (along with The Rock) . Backing these three up they had Taker and Foley working some main event scenarios and Mr McMahon taking part the odd time.

Surely now they've got enough decent wrestlers to carry a show without having to resort to dropping belts every other week ?

Rjd2

DM-ICE wrote: »

Good points Rossie.

If title reigns were long then I think PPV buy rates would fall off as when things don't change and move people lose interest.

Tht title changes are not to everyones taste but I think they serve a purpose.

John Cena's lengthy reign in 2007 did not exactly kill the business did it?
In fact looking back it was possibly the best title reign of the last few years, the PPV matches were mostly superb and he established himself as the dominant force in WWE today.

DM_7

Rjd2 wrote: »

John Cena's lengthy reign in 2007 did not exactly kill the business did it?
In fact looking back it was possibly the best title reign of the last few years, the PPV matches were mostly superb and he established himself as the dominant force in WWE today.

In fairness I was referring to the number of title changes in recent times. Punk losing to Jeff for example helped him become a bigger star but also a bigger heel.

A lengthy reign will help some people (Mainly a face) and it won't help others (A heel). Cena benefitted as he was the crowd favourite especially and it was important to solidify his status.

Heels can't be dominant forces when it came to titles so they are likely to be involved in title losses to keep the crowd happy as it means the face will be successful.
Heels are usually booked as cheats or chancers who just about get by and they can't be lucky for too long or the crowd become unhappy.

Faces on the otherhand get longer acceptance as champions from the audience.

Red Sleeping Beauty

DM-ICE wrote: »

In fairness I was referring to the number of title changes in recent times. Punk losing to Jeff for example helped him become a bigger star but also a bigger heel.

A lengthy reign will help some people (Mainly a face) and it won't help others (A heel). Cena benefitted as he was the crowd favourite especially and it was important to solidify his status.

Heels can't be dominant forces when it came to titles so they are likely to be involved in title losses to keep the crowd happy as it means the face will be successful.
Heels are usually booked as cheats or chancers who just about get by and they can't be lucky for too long or the crowd become unhappy.

Faces on the otherhand get longer acceptance as champions from the audience.

Ric Flair , Yokozuna, Triple H, Undertaker, Kurt Angle, JBL all held the WWF title as heels and were dominant. I'm sure heels held the WCW title in the NWO camp and were dominant, then again the NWO ran the show

DM_7

Alan Rouge wrote: »

Ric Flair , Yokozuna, Triple H, Undertaker, Kurt Angle, JBL all held the WWF title as heels and were dominant. I'm sure heels held the WCW title in the NWO camp and were dominant, then again the NWO ran the show

I know what you mean and when older fans were the target it was easier to have long title reigns.

I'm talking about today in the WWE that is aimed at kids, Kids want their team to be the best in team sports and they want there favourite wrestlers to be the best in wwe.

Times have changed. I'm not saying I prefer it this way. Its just heels don't make you enough money if the likes of cena, HHH or Jeff (Now gone i know) are not getting big victories over them on a semi regular basis.

rossie1977

Rjd2 wrote: »

John Cena's lengthy reign in 2007 did not exactly kill the business did it?
In fact looking back it was possibly the best title reign of the last few years, the PPV matches were mostly superb and he established himself as the dominant force in WWE today.

it did alienate older male fans though so much so that often i would see stuff like "i ain't watching wwe again till cena loses the belt", "ffs cena beat [insert name of midcarder here], i can't believe it"

that long title reign on raw was only possible due to a number of factors as well, ortons injury, trips lengthy injury leaving only really cena as the main guy on raw and michaels who didn't want the belt, vince wasn't going to put the belt on the likes of umaga, khali or lashley at the time

The Cannibal

There was WCW in 1997 where Hogan reigned as a heel champion for 1 year 4months if you take out a 5 day break where Luger briefly held the title. All during this reign you had Sting in his new crow gimmick appearing up in the rafters and looking ominous while Hogan pretty much wiped out everyone on the WCW side. It was built up for a full year that Sting was the only one who could stop it and they teased it and teased it and then delivered it at Starcade to monster business. Of course, they botched the whole thing up with the match itself but the build and the business done out of it with Hogan being a dominant champ was huge.

They do need to unify the world titles again. It gets a bit ridiculous when HHH wins the Raw title, wears out his welcome there and then jumps to Smackdown, does the same and jumps to Raw again.

Red Sleeping Beauty

A lot of them older fans switched to UFC/MMA and in UFC there's all kinds of carry on with the belts . You get guys holding a title once, then they bugger off to have a contract dispute, there's an interim belt, an undisputed belt and then it's "unified" with the first guy, wash , rinse and repeat. Different ballgame I know but still... pain in the arse all the same.

There was a time when you could've listed off just about all the WWF and WCW champs without even thinking and now you've gotta think about ye know, that one day that Edge held the belt or the weekend Batista had it before he had to go have surgery or some rubbish.

davrho

Alan Rouge wrote: »

Ric Flair , Yokozuna, Triple H, Undertaker, Kurt Angle, JBL all held the WWF title as heels and were dominant. I'm sure heels held the WCW title in the NWO camp and were dominant, then again the NWO ran the show

You could debate some of that.
Yokozuna had Mr. Fuji hitting folk with his stick and throwing salt in people eyes and generally interfering during his title reign. Did it not take the whole heel card to help Yokozuna beat the taker at the rumble years ago for the title?
Flair- The dirtiest player in the game?
Taker-Did he not have a 6 day title reign as a heel?
JBL -He had a few terrible wins like crawling out from under the ring in a cage match(hell in cell maybe?) when he had been slammed through it and such. I remember everyone moaning about him sneaking wins again and again.

rossie1977

davrho wrote: »

You could debate some of that.
Yokozuna had Mr. Fuji hitting folk with his stick and throwing salt in people eyes and generally interfering during his title reign. Did it not take the whole heel card to help Yokozuna beat the taker at the rumble years ago for the title?
Flair- The dirtiest player in the game?
Taker-Did he not have a 6 day title reign as a heel?
JBL -He had a few terrible wins like crawling out from under the ring in a cage match(hell in cell maybe?) when he had been slammed through it and such. I remember everyone moaning about him sneaking wins again and again.

wwe rarely book dominating heel main-eventers, a rare example is brock lesnar (between april 2002 and november 2002)

davrho

rossie1977 wrote: »

wwe rarely book dominating heel main-eventers, a rare example is brock lesnar (between april 2002 and november 2002)

True. Thats why i was suprised at yer man mentioning some of these guys as dominating.

Red Sleeping Beauty

rossie1977 wrote: »

wwe rarely book dominating heel main-eventers, a rare example is brock lesnar (between april 2002 and november 2002)

Triple H's win at WM2000 had to be the biggest surely ? Off hand though I think most title changes at WM since have been faces going over. can anyone correct me on that ?

Penn

Alan Rouge wrote: »

Triple H's win at WM2000 had to be the biggest surely ? Off hand though I think most title changes at WM since have been faces going over. can anyone correct me on that ?

Not sure if WM17 would count. Although Austin was a face, he turned heel at the end of the match