Three champions, or 1 championship cut in thirds?
When WWE announced a three-way “champion of champions” match for Cyber Sunday, one thought flashed across my mind: REUNIFICATION! However, common sense shattered that thought mere moments later.
TODAY’S ISSUE: All for one, and one for all.
I realize Vince McMahon believes that promoting more pay-per-view events annually under the flimsy guise of different “brands” (but averaging less buys per show) is better than promoting fewer shows while maximizing buys by making them bigger, better, and more appealing to fans. Therefore, a recombination of the rosters will not happen any time soon. Vince loves his brand-only shows sandwiched between the “big four”. However, watching the RAW Homecoming/Family Reunion show Monday night made one thing clear; a combined roster would ensure much better shows on a consistent basis.
Take SmackDown!, for instance. Last week I wrote about the ups and downs we fans have to endure each Friday night. But if the rosters were combined WWE could replace some of the less entertaining stuff on SmackDown! with longer matches featuring skilled performers like Shelton Benjamin, RVD, and CM Punk.
As far as I’m concerned, there would also be room for DX’s sophomoric shenanigans on RAW if they were followed up by, for instance, a hot tag team match. Imagine the combinations we could see in the ring if there were only one tag division. London and Kendrick versus two Spirit Squaders would be quite a fun affair. Test and Mike Knox banging it out against Cade and Murdoch would be a good, hard-hitting brawl, and guys like Charlie Haas, Rob Conway, Sylvan Grenier, Matt Striker and Stevie Richards could thrive in tag team combinations.
Speaking of fantasy booking, think about the hot television shows and ppvs WWE could promote if they did unification tournaments for all the titles. Considering the World Heavyweight Championship, one set of Tag Team champs, and reunified US and Intercontinental titles spanning all the WWE talent, they’d have storylines aplenty. Hell, how hot would a best-of-7 unification series between current US Champ Chris Benoit and IC Champ Jeff Hardy be? That alone could span three or four months, including upper-card matches on multiple pay-per-view shows.
Speaking of all those titles, the overabundance of pro wrestling champions waters down the product. WWE has a total of 11 champions (counting the tag champs on both brands as one each, both secondary titles, the cruiserweight and currently-vacated women’s title which will be won by a new Diva shortly, and the ECW world title). How can you be considered the best, the most talented, or call yourself champion when there are 10 other people in the company who make a similar claim? Fewer titles would simply mean the ones that survived my proposed reunification would automatically become more important, more valuable, and more indicative of the best heavyweight, tag team, and secondary grapplers in the company.
I can’t imagine too many fans are buying the “brand split” in the way it was intended from the days of the InVasion. That is, for WWE to create it’s own competition to simulate the success of the Monday Night War, while monopolizing the industry.
There is so much cross-promotion between the three WWE “brands” that fans can’t look at them as separate brands at all. The current state of affairs on RAW, SmackDown!, and ECW is more about “one company” than ever before. As soon as a fan starts to take one brand seriously as its own sub-promotion under the McMahon umbrella, what happens? We’ll take ECW as an example. Ric Flair, DX, King Booker, John Cena, Edge and others “visit” during ECW events almost weekly. This completely removes the effectiveness of promoting under different banners because nothing about it feels like an independent effort. It feels like another hour of WWE programming rather than a new “promotion”.
The same holds true on both Monday and Friday nights, not to mention the intentionally inter-promotional events like Saturday Night’s Main Event and the recent RAW Homecoming/Family Reunion. The mystique of the brand split has been completely exposed because there appear to be no lines between the three subdivisions of WWE. The only thing the split has successfully accomplished is to water down and weaken each show.
Do you remember what a huge deal it was back in the WWF vs. WCW days when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash showed up on Nitro, seemingly on orders from Vince McMahon? It set in motion one of the most successful angles of all time. Sean Waltman’s jump back to WWF the night after WrestleMania XIV was just as shocking, as was Lex Luger’s appearance on the inaugural Nitro. These events were special for one reason: their rarity. Wrestlers didn’t just jump to the competition that often back then, so it seemed like a momentous occasion whenever it did occur.
In today’s environment, however, it was so naturally assumed that the loser of the Umaga vs. Kane “loser leaves RAW“ match would show up on SmackDown! later in the week, that I saw Kane’s appearance as a mystery opponent for MVP coming from a mile away. John Cena signed a storyline deal to move to SmackDown! just in case he couldn’t beat Edge in a bling-belt title match and then stuffed that contract in his back pocket, just in case. I guess he must have simply torn up that SmackDown! contract when he DID defeat Edge. “Sorry Teddy. I guess I won’t be coming back after all”.
And now Mr. Kennedy is openly lobbying to be traded to RAW. But what if RAW doesn’t want Kennedy? Why is it assumed that any wrestler released from brand A will simply sign on with brand B tomorrow? It makes the brand split that much less effective when you realize a jump to the supposed competition is merely a lateral move, and is therefore no big thing. Take the guy’s bio off the red page and move it to the blue page.
If Vince were to recombine the roster, all three weekly shows would be extremely deep considering the available talent pool, and the result would be solidly entertaining shows on a consistent basis.
With so many talented performers at their disposal, WWE would be in the enviable position of trying to figure out how to squeeze all the good stuff into their 5 hours of original programming each week, instead of trying to figure out how to fill two hours each of RAW and SmackDown! and one hour of ECW with the limited talent pools available in each “brand”.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.
p.s. — Never forget that you’re a special, unique individual. Just like everybody else.
