Greetings.
The last time I looked, the WWE was choosing to flog ten major titles, including: the WWE World Championship, the WWE Universal Championship, the WWE Intercontinental Championship, the WWE United States Championship, the WWE Raw Women’s Championship, the WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship, the WWE Cruiserweight Championship, the WWE Raw & SmackDown Tag Team Championships. On any given pay per view, which, these days, seems like its about every other week or so, there are usually about five or six title bouts, which, to my way of thinking, is going to the damn well far too often.
Putting things into perspective, if the NFL or the NHL were contesting the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup on a monthly basis, or they were having the Masters golf tournament or the Wimbledon tennis championships every few months, or the Olympics or World Cup of soccer every six months, or, perhaps, the World Boxing Association was having the world heavyweight boxing champion (whomever the hell that is, or if there even is one, anymore) defend that belt every few weeks, none those supposedly iconic championships would mean much.
Adding insult to injury, most of the title matches I have seen lately seem to invariably involve swerve finishes, such as interference, run-ins, contrived technicalities and assorted other bullshit, which only further serves to diminish the ostensible legitimacy or credibility of the titles. Need I remind those responsible for all the excessive overkill that them that many of those titles are still pro wrestling’s equivalent of the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup or whatever else, and, as such, should be treated accordingly.
Not to be casting aspersions, but contrary to what WWE the WWE would have you believe, there are far fewer bona fide, A list superstars on the scene these days to justify having all these new, supposedly auspicious titles, which only serves to diminish their magnitude even more. I can recall, back in the day, when the NWA world champions, such as Lou Thesz, Dory Funk and Harley Race would come to the different territories, such as our Stampede Wrestling promotion, to defend their titles and it was always a really big deal, which you hyped and built up for weeks or months.
Such is, sadly, not the case anymore, which, contrary to what the ubiquitous French philosopher, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, is not what’s best for business.
Far be it from me to be telling the enlightened despots in Stamford, Connecticut how to be running their business, but from my perspective, the way to go would be addition by subtraction – by that token, I would get rid of several of the relatively meaningless, extraneous titles and also cut back not only on the number of title matches, but also the number of illicit finishes. To my way of thinking, that might help to restore some semblance of legitimacy to the titles – which, they shouldn’t be having to be told, would serve a good purpose, given that image is everything, as Andre Agassi used to say.
In closing, I’ve said it before on a number of occasions, but, nonetheless, feel compelled to note, that professional wrestling must truly be a wonderful endeavor to have survived and thrived for as long as it has, given the number of times it has, and continues to, shoot itself in the foot and invite derision and ridicule upon itself with ill-conceived and illicit crap. Having said that, one can only ponder how much better it would be if the powers that be had more respect for the business and endeavored to have it cast in a more favorable light.
On that somewhat reticent note, I’ll call this a wrap, but shall look forward to catching up with you all next time.
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