Bush-leaguing the Belts

Remember back in the day when the secondary title of a promotion actually meant something?  You don’t?  It’s ok, it’s easy to forget.  The major promotion in the United States, the WWE, has 2 world championships.  So, theoretically, if a main eventer can’t get a shot at the world title on Raw, then can simply move over to Smackdown somehow to go for their title.  Usually, there will be a main event feud for a title, and then another main event feud.  Which is fine.  The problem is, this happens on two shows.  So instead of 4 top level guys being occupied, it now becomes more like 8, being spread over two shows.

So, instead of top level guys numbers 5-8 going after the Intercontinental or United States titles, they are fighting each other.  This leaves the once prestigious secondary titles to fade into obscurity, instead of having main eventers fight over them.  Remember when Steve Austin and the Rock were killing each other over the IC title back in the day?  Hell, Austin threw the title off a bridge just to piss the Rock off!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQEoErNbH00]

Can you imagine Kofi Kingston doing that to piss off Wade Barrett?  Didn’t think so.

Lets take a look at one of the all time greats, Bret Hart.  Hart was a 5-time World Champion in the WWF.  But then he went to WCW, and before capturing their World Title, he won the WCW United States title, four times…FOUR!!  Here’s a clip of 2 guys fighting over the United States title, but I can’t quite make out who they are.  Oh wait, isn’t that Bret Hart and Sting?  Why yes it is.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2G2ysnIcjw]

At the time, Bret Hart was a 5 time world champion.  Sting was a 6 time world champ.  And here they are fighting over the secondary title of the company.  Also around this time, the US title was being fought over by Lex Luger, Goldberg, Diamond Dallas Page, and Scott Steiner…former world champs.

Remember the Montreal Screwjob?  Sure you do.  Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart for the WWF title.  Everyone knows this.  But what people forget is that Shawn Michaels was also the European champion at the time.  That’s right, the European champ, not even the IC!  One of the greatest of all time was holding the company’s third title as he won the companies main belt.

Lets not forget our friend ECW and their Television title.  I’ve always been a fan of the TV title, probably because its supposed to mean you are the best wrestler on TV.  That, and Steven Regal was probably the best TV champ of all time in WCW.  I can’t tell you how many times I watched him retain the title by time limit draw.  What a great heel he was.  But back to ECW.  Their TV title was an awesome secondary belt, but it really wasn’t until Taz held it in 1997 that the belt really became powerful.  Taz would defend that title with his life, and because of his success and length of his reign, he would begin to say it was more important than the ECW world title.  Quite ballsy.  Then there is RVD, who held the TV title for 700 days!  Almost 2 years of amazing matches, and the only reason he dropped it was because he legitimately broke his leg.  RVD had countless great matches over those 2 years, but his bouts with Jerry Lynn will always stand out as instant classics.

I think having upper card guys feud over secondary titles adds relevance to those titles.  The counter point to this is that when these upper card guys don’t fight over these tiles, it frees them up to be taken by up and coming guys.  If Randy Orton and Rey Mysterio were the IC and US champs, then what would be left for guys like Dolph Ziggler, Wade Barret, Kofi Kingston, and Cody Rhodes to do?  My solution to that is to still let them win these secondary titles.  If Cody Rhodes were to beat Randy Orton for the IC belt, it would mean a lot more for Cody and for the title than if he beat, oh let’s say R Truth.

A few years ago, the IC title was being fought over by the likes of Jericho, Mysterio, and JBL.  Having them hold the title and defend it added importance to it, even if it was for a short time.  I look back at the some of the DVDs the WWE has released, mainly the History of the Intercontinental Title, Allied Powers, and the best of the Ladder Match, and watch how people used to kill themselves over the secondary titles.  Now, they can’t even find their way on to a Wrestlemania card.

In his DVD, Chris Jericho said when he was younger, all he wanted to do was be Intercontinental champion because Ricky Steamboat was.  Do you think kids today will want to be Intercontinental champ because of Drew McIntyre?  Didn’t think so.