Hart Murmurs # 104 by Bruce Hart
Greetings. I’ve been intrigued with the recent epidemic of title changes in the WWE, as of late, which seems to have reached epidemic proportions, as of late, with over ten title changes in the past few months, including: the United States title (four times), the Intercontinental title; both RAW and SmackDown tag team titles; the RAW women’s title and the SmackDown women’s title.
I’m not sure what the ostensible rationale is for having so damn many title changes – probably the “more is better” mindset that the WWE seems to have adopted, but to may way of thinking it’s counterproductive overkill, which only serves to diminish the meaning or the magnitude of the belts.
Back in the day, it used to be a big deal in the WWE or WWF (as they used to be called). For example, from the early 60’s to 1990, a span of nearly thirty years, there were only four significant championship runs – those being Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund and Hulk Hogan. The Intercontinental title also changed hands far less frequently, as did the tag team belts, which were usually held by only elite teams, such as the British Bulldogs, the Legion of Doom and the Hart Foundation.
Aside from having far fewer title changes, if and when the titles changed hands, with the possible exception of the infamous Montreal Screw Job, most title changes were pretty straight-forward, with no run-ins, contrived technicalities and other illicit crap, which tends to cheapen the perceived legitimacy of the titles.
One of the lamest title changes I’ve seen in a long time was the recent charade involving the SmackDown Women’s championship. Initially, Charlotte Flair and Asuka had an incredible title match at Wrestlemania, which was hard fought and compelling, in which Charlotte went over, right in the middle – all of which served to get the title over. Only a few days later though, the WWE orchestrated this idiotic storyline where two NXT nondescripts came out and accosted Charlotte, double teamed her and left her lying in the ring. Subsequent to that, Carmella suddenly hit the ring and announced she was cashing in her “Money in the Bank” contract and pinned the battered and unfit to defend herself, Charlotte, to win the title.
Afterward, the WWE, which shouldn’t have allowed such a travesty to transpire in the first place (regardless of whether it’s perceived to be a work or not), had their announcers congratulate and inter-view the new champion – Carmella, which made the WWE look either like flaccid wimps, for having allowed such an egregious miscarriage of justice or, even worse, like the misbegotten misfits who were responsible for orchestrating the whole abortion, in the first place.
I shouldn’t be having to remind the powers that be in the WWE that it isn’t what’s best for business to cheapen the integrity of their title belts with illicit horseshit such as that. It’s especially frustrating that, for years, the women’s division in the WWE was hard to take seriously and was mostly about thinly veiled sexploitation, but in recent years, it had improved by leaps and bounds, due to the hard work of great workers, such as Charlotte, Asuka, my niece Natalya, Sasha, Alexa and Becky, but this ill-conceived fiasco seems to have negated all of that hard work, which is a damn shame.
On that note, I’ll call this a wrap, but will look forward to catching up with you all next time for my candid takes on the wrestling scene.
