Having time to ponder some heavy philosophical and theological questions while being a soda merchandiser for work, there’s been a question that’s been burning a major hole in my mind for many of shifts, and that question is: Why have the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship became meaningless in the WWE today?
The reason why I’ve been thinking about it is, it seems like a lot of men my age and older are having troubles accepting John Cena’s tenth WWE Championship reign (twelve times including the World Heavyweight Championship). I’ve been vocal on my blogs for CCB that I’m not a Cena fan either, and I’m not happy that he’s the champ again.
I’m not happy Cena’s champ again because it always seems that Vince McMahon and whoever else is in control on determining who will be the WWE (or World Heavyweight) Champion, they never give them enough of a chance to see if they’ll draw as champ. They didn’t do that for CM Punk and they didn’t do that with Alberto Del Rio.
[adinserter block=”2″]There is some hope though, and the hope is Mark Henry. Depending on when this goes up, as of me writing this, he is the current World Heavyweight Champion. Do I think he’ll hold the title past WWE Hell in a Cell? I surely hope so! If Vinnie Mac decided to give the title to Mark Henry for fourteen days and take it off of him, I feel like Vince has officially lost it. Yes, Vince has lost it.
What Vince has lost is being able to build up younger talent into making them the future of the company. I don’t think Vince has made any new talent to take over the company since 2002-2004 when he signed Randy Orton and John Cena.
What is my suggestion, you may ask, to make the WWE and World Heavyweight Championship mean something again today? It will take probably three to five years to make it mean anything anymore, but I would suggest keeping it on someone for more than nine months at a time. It was probably five years ago now where John Cena held the WWE Championship for thirteen months and was about to drop it to Randy Orton at that year’s No Mercy PPV but injured himself that Monday before the show. But one thing I respected about that title run was when they put the title on Orton for the first and second time that night, it meant something.
If Vince and the WWE head creative would decide to do that, that would give them a few years to help build up the next generation of main eventers. They could build up Alberto Del Rio, they can build up CM Punk. Who knows, they could build up more guys as well to take over. The Miz could use a few more years developing his character to become the next main event star for years to come (random fact: Miz is the first guy to stop Cena’s streak of either winning or retaining a championship at WrestleMania).
One guy I feel like Vince and the Creative Team did great on (even though Dave Meltzer from WrestlingObserver.com says he’s worse drawing champion, even worse than Diesel) was John Bradshaw Layfield. The reason why I feel like they did great on him was I remember people being angry on how he’d retain the WWE Championship at every pay-per-view finish.
The way he won the title against Eddie Guerrero at the Great American Bash PPV in 2004 in the Texas Bullrope match was amazing, having Smackdown General Manager Kurt Angle come out and reverse the decision because the camera angle was off. His matches with the Undertaker, with Booker T, with Kurt Angle, and with the Big Show, people were angry that JBL retained the title by the skin of his teeth. What greater champion is there than one who makes people wanna turn in to see?
If the WWE could make Cena or Orton a must-see WWE/World Champion like JBL was, people would start caring about the storyline, and most importantly, they’d start caring about the biggest title of the business again.
[adinserter block=”1″]Philosophical Corner: In the end, I feel like if the WWE would slow down on the title changes and quit wetting their pants on changing the title every pay-per-view (or every few), and not change it until I really means something, then I believe the fans would start caring once again about the product and about the championship. I remember Eric Garigulo talking once on a Pro Wrestling Radio episode that when he was a kid, he could name off the last five WWE Champions and what town they won it in, but couldn’t d that anymore (this was a few years ago, and if memory serves me correctly, I may have been the caller he was talking too).
I even kept a journal on the history of the WWE title but quit around the title Cena and Orton were feuding because I felt it was pointless to pull out that history journal every month and update it on how each champion one the title. Let’s slow down on the champions and build up new stars, making a new title change actually mean something! I am Eric Darsie, chillin’ on a beautiful 70 degree day here in Minnesota, until next time, you can find me here, downtown.
Follow Eric on Twitter @edardar and check out his sites http://www.vintagedarsie.wordpress.com and http://www.writerscafe.org/Darsie/writing/
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The Miz was not the first person to prevent Cena from winning/retaining the title at Wrestlemania. Randy Orton did this in a triple threat match that also involved Triple H.
XDustinEFLX, thanks for pointing that out. I totally forgot about that. For me, Mania 24 was a one-match Mania, and that's the Flair Retirement match against Michaels. Thanks for the correction.
canucklehead: I don't feel like that's a legit excuse why the WWE/World title needs to change every pay-per-view. Heck, look at the WWE title since WrestleMania…the WWE title changed hands 7 times since Mania! 7 TIMES! That's at least once a month (if not more)! That's crap!
I thought it was like 7 times since MITB alone. Before that, it only changed hands once.
While it may not be legitimate it may well be a reason. Especially if VKM and the rest of the creatives suffer from the same affliction. Said it before here and I will say it again that there seems to be a distinct lack of a longer term vision here and this appears to be one of the results
In this instant, microwave, on demand world we now find ourselves in, people have the attention span of a gnat