For What It’s Worth: The Hot Potato Title

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The most coveted prize in the business is the World Title, we’ve heard it from every wrestler in every “Desire” piece, every autobiography, and every Triple H interview since the beginning of wrestling time. Holding the belt means that you are the top guy in the business, the biggest draw and the person the company will be pushing down the fans’ throats until somebody else comes along and makes the crowd pop even louder. Just ask John Cena.

But remember back to the ancient times referred to as the “Monday Night Wars” between WWE and WCW? Everyone from the Internet to the WWE themselves have marketed the glory days, back to a time when WWE and WCW combined to draw nearly (and sometimes over) 10 million viewers every single Monday night.

The year 1999 seemed to be the peak of business, as RAW’s ratings soared into the 6’s and 7’s. Obviously for the popularity to be so astronomically high had to depend on one of the greatest individual champions of all time, the guy holding the belt carrying the entire company on his back, right?

Wrong. In the fabled year of 1999, more specifically between November 15, 1998 and November 15, 1999 there were 13, count ’em, 13 title changes. During this period stars like The Rock, Mankind, and even Triple H were born as all held the championship for the very first time during this one-year period.

The title does make you the man, so why not make lots of men and have them all battle for the belt? Over the past 3 years, the WWE Championship, now defended on RAW has changed hands only 7 times. Since the World Heavyweight title was introduced in 2002, it has only changed hands 11 times – 5 of those to Triple H.

I’m not saying hand David Arquette a Championship and flood the market with championships like both WWE and WCW did towards the end of the Monday Night War. Over saturation is bad, but it doesn’t mean that we need to have title reigns that last over a year, every time.

For me, the reason I tuned in to RAW every Monday night was that I felt that if I missed one show I could miss something huge. They used to do it to us all the time, whether it be a sudden heel turn or a realistic possibility that a title, even the World Title could change hands on live TV. I can’t even count how many times RAW formulatically opened the show with an interview that set up a main event for the WWE Championship and I actually believed it could happen, and sometimes it did, just ask Mick Foley and his fans.

The WWE seems to like to build for their pay-per-views, and I can’t fault them for wanting to make money. They might as well make the fans plop down $34.95 and make them hunger for title matches, but why not at least tease them for free? The Elimination Chamber match was announced SIX WEEKS before the pay-per-view, it was a 99.9% fact that John Cena was NOT going to lose the title before New Year’s Revolution, what’s the fun in that?

Now is as good of a time as ever to “tease the titles” as Kurt Angle and Edge are both red hot and each have numerous potential opponents on both RAW and SmackDown! Mix that with the Royal Rumble match and the fact that one brand will be without an automatic #1 contender, SmackDown! has the No Way Out Pay-Per-View, in March is the debut of Saturday Night’s Main Event, and the next few months the company naturally picks up steam on the Road to Wrestlemania.