Hi Scott,
Long time reader, first time emailer....just wanted to get your opinion. With the WWE world title situations locked up for the next year or so, isn't this the PERFECT time to try to legitmize the ic, us and tag team titles? There is about 15 mid to upper card wrestlers with next to nothing to do (basically everyone in the team laurinits/ team teddy match at wrestlemania and the new guys coming in, and punk, show, cody...etc) they have plenty of wrestlers to bring those titles back to prominence/
There's not really any magic formula to it. You put the title on a guy you want to push, and then he defends the title against other top guys in a featured position on the show and wins some matches. Like Cody was IC champion for months, but never defended it. So when Show suddenly wanted the title, no one cared. Or like during that period was Orton beating both Cody and Dolph in one week and coming right out and saying he didn't care about the belts. Having secondary titles on a top guy is not a crime, but they treat it like it is.
Still trying to figure out why Ziggler and Swagger haven't got a run with the tag titles yet.
ReplyDeleteI think they would solve a lot of their midcard/young talent problems by making the Tag Team division relevant for the younger guys. Tag team wrestling is easy to get over, it gets the young guys over and creates belts people can be interested in for the weekly TV shows.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many countless examples of main event guys being groomed through tag teams (HBK, Bret, Edge, Jeff Hardy, the Miz, etc. etc.) that it should be a no-brainer.
They already have a very over singles midcard belt - it's call the World Heavyweight Title.
What I can't stand is when they break up a tag team and then don't do anything with either guy. The Hart Dynasty was over and successful as a tag team. Then they split them up and did nothing with either guy. Who benefitted from the break up?
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget that the last really great period of undercard goodness - the Smackdown Six - primarily came out of the tournament for the new tag titles and variations of matches involving the Guerreros, Edge, Mysterio, Angle & Benoit
ReplyDeleteIt's depressing to think that was nearly ten years ago. Even more depressing when you think 2 dead, 1 retired, 1 no longer in a big fed, 1 broken down and Mysterio. Rey's the only one still in a good place
They did attempt something with both guys. The problem is they gave up after a week.
ReplyDeleteI would argue about how "over" the Hart Dynasty was. DH Smith might be the most boring wrestler in the history of the world.
ReplyDeleteA lot of fans do treat it like a crime if a top guy holds a secondary title. Countless people thought it was pointless when Triple H was IC champ, and just as many thought it was dumb for Big Show to be now holding the IC title.
ReplyDeleteBig Show spent months chasing after the World Heavyweight title after having it stolen by Daniel Bryan, with the Royal Rumble being the most recent attempt at regaining it. So all of a sudden, winning the seldom defended Intercontinental title brings tears of joy from him at Wrestlemania? It makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteYup. Plus, tag team wrestling helps a young wrestler learn psychology and timing. If you make up a tag-team, give them a tag-team name and a tag-team finisher, you can merchandise the TEAM when/if they get over.
ReplyDeleteAnd when it's time to do the inevitable split down the line, you can have two bona fide stars (or at least one) that the fans have been invested in.
I think part of the problem is that when they put a tag team together and push them, they instantly have to win the tag belts. There's nothing wrong with a chase or a feud with another tag team in the meantime. Look at the Hart Foundation. They won the tag belts in 1987 and kept over via various feuds and great matches until they won their second set of titles in 1990.
Is it me, or are they actually trying to legitimize the US Title? I know that we as the IWC treat Santino as a joke, but they have him defending the title every other week pretty much. Yes, his competition sucks (Otunga, etc.), but he has more defenses than Cody did in his entire reign.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, if you were ever gonna re-merge the US/IC titles, now is probably the time. The brand split doesn't seem to matter for title defenses, so it seems pointless to have both.
That's a bit of the problem, isn't it? When they do something to make the title seem important we tend to think it's stupid.
ReplyDeleteAnd I include myself in that group.
What they did with Ryder and the US title really made it seem like it was important. Losing his shot at that title came off like someone losing their shot at the WWE/WHC. He was absolutely heartbroken over it and that made it seem like the title matters
It wouldn't be hard to have someone else do a heel version of that storyline with Big Show right now.
Hell, make it Drew McIntyre. How hard would it be to have him attack Big Show and then cut a promo saying how it's his "only chance" to make it?
I actually agree with you for the most part. But his matches are so short and bad that I don't know how well it's working.
ReplyDeleteBut a champion fighting and winning matches on a regular basis is always a good thing to get a title and a guy over.
But on a quick side note, I think having so many non-titles matches is really fucking stupid. I notice they do that a lot nowadays(and it usually means the champion is going to lose) But I just had to point out how gay that is. When the champion fights, it should be a title defense.
Thats one of the things I always liked about WCW. Even though they had been World Champs, guys like Sting/Flair would have runs w/the US Title. It always made the US Title look important
ReplyDeleteYou wanna legitimize the U.S. title, start by bringing back the old WCW-style belt. No one is going to take a belt seriously if it looks like the champ bought it at Toys R' Us.
ReplyDeleteThey were definitely over. A lot of it had to do with being associated with the pink/black of the Hart Family's legacy, but so what--over is over. Besides, that's part of the advantage of tag teams: You're not rooting just for people, you're rooting for a team, a brand, like a sports franchise.
ReplyDeleteRoad Warrior Animal by himself is kinda' silly, Hawk and Animal together as THE Road Warriors are a badass street gang. Similarly, Tyson Kidd and DH Smith, neither ready for a singles push, are together the HART DYNASTY, a concept, an idea, a team that people could get--and got--behind.
Agree 100%. The tag team division should be like the AAA of the roster (as it historically was). You've got three types of teams in the tag division:
ReplyDelete(1) Young guys not ready for the limelight, either as workers or as charismatic ring presences (The Rockers, The Hart Foundation, Edge & Christian, Hardys)
(2) Veterans who would probably be aimless mid-card fodder if not for the tag team gimmick (Dudley Boys, Road Warriors, New Age Outlaws, Midnight Express)
(3) Upper card guys keeping busy in between singles feuds (Rock n' Sock, Mega Powers, Undertaker and Kane, DX)
All three valuable. Like bignasty said, it's such a no-brainer it's practically willful negligence of the WWE to ignore it.
I've always wanted to re-book the late 80s through today's lens just to show how idiotic some of the WWE's modern practices are. Instead of getting Bret over via The Hart Foundation over the course of 4-5 years, instead we'd probably get the following:
ReplyDelete1. Bret and Neidhart join up;
2. One month later, they win the tag team titles (before they even evolve to the point where they're wearing the iconic pink; at this point they're probably still in the baby blues and bland, without the signature moves or personality);
3. They lose non-title matches to the Killer Bees and are squashed in a handicap match against Hogan;
4. They job the titles to whoever, unceremoniously, on the B show;
5. Next week, Neidhart turns on Bret;
6. Neidhart and Bret blow-off on the B-show two weeks down the line;
7. Bret is cut for being "boring," Neidhart sticks around for a few months as a C show bully and B show jobber.
8. All over by 1986.
For years the secondary titles have pretty much just existed to denote who the company's top jobbers are. Guys like Shelton Benjamin or MVP would hold a belt for months and months without ever actually winning a match. I guess the logic is "Oh, Joe Shit beat the Intercontinental Champion, he must be good" but the IC champion clearly sucks as he has not won a match in living memory so who the hell is getting over? And why are these damn kids on my lawn?
ReplyDeleteYeah. The thing with jobbing the champs in non-title matches is just....so weird.
ReplyDeleteOk you say they are over, but what is your proof? I don't remember them getting huge reactions outside of Canada. The WM crowd sat on their hands when they beat up Vince.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't we just shut the whole company down? [/dougie]
ReplyDeleteIf they wanted to they could put the tag belts on Santino/Brodus immediately and restore the belts to prominence but they don't. It's as simple as that. They just don't care.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair that beat down was just so...bad. It wouldn't have mattered who was out there killing Vince the crowd was going to be shocked by Bret's inability to move regardless.
ReplyDelete(I agree though, I never gave a shit about the Hart Dynasty either)
Am I the only one whose comment section doesn't come up on Chrome or Firefox? I'm using Explorer.. the only way I can see the comments. Any help?
ReplyDeleteAs a non american, I obviously don't feel super patriotic about your country, but that WCW belt was so fucking awesome, I was proud of America having a belt that cool. I mean just compare them...
ReplyDeletehttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7KjC1WDHzVc/TdwOha_xfsI/AAAAAAAAARs/35nTMNjQEZ0/s1600/wcwus.jpg
http://www.highspots.com/images/images_125/belt_wwe_unitedstates.gif
Come to think of it, the WCW titles always looked better than the WWF ones...with the exception of the WCW tag titles. They looked way too small.
Rey's knees will tell you that he isn't in a good place.
ReplyDeleteThis made me sad.
ReplyDeleteImportant to channel one's inner Dougie ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd they're also incompetent. But I'll watch next Monday anyway because it's still better than most sitcoms that are now all female-oriented. It's the only show other than sports and MMA that at least seems to want me to watch.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only person who wishes they were calling themselves ZigSwag?
ReplyDeleteI'll show myself out.
True, but even if we've seen the last of him, his story is a pretty happy one by wrestling/athlete standards. Having bad knees sucks, but it beats being in a wheelchair or having CTE or, yknow
ReplyDeleteDying, is how that sentence should end. Can't figure out how to scroll and edit on iPhone on this blog.
ReplyDeleteI think this might actually be the biggest reason I still watch wrestling aside from the DVR: ain't shit else on a Monday night. Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Workaholics, South Park, Parks & Rec, Always Sunny, Archer...everything I watch is Tuesday-Thursday.
ReplyDeleteNo, I tried making them a team on WWE 12 and wanted to use that name, they wouldn't let me put Ziggler on a team, I guess because he's the US champion
ReplyDeleteI prefer Swaggler.
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of Jack Dolph.
ReplyDeleteI've always sort of liked the WWE US title design, but I agree that WCW has always had Vince beat with the belt designs aside from tag team straps. I don't even hate the new belts that look like giant pennies.
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing it on Firefox, but it looks ugly with this new Disqus 2012 shit. Not Scott's fault, just something Disqus is forcing on us because like all web companies, their web designers need to justify a paycheck so they keep fucking with simple layouts (coughhackFacebook). I left a negative comment on their feedback link.
ReplyDeleteI honestly wouldn't have kept watching all these years if the big wrestling show of the week was on a different night. Raw being on Monday just works perfect. You have all weekend off, and then you tough through a day at work on Monday but you know at least on Monday night you have Raw to look forward to. If it's a really good Raw or I'm really anticipating it, it can make a shitty Monday easier to get through because I have something closer by than the weekend to look forward to. Even now that I have a job I actually like, it still helps shake off the Monday blahs. Even better, back when I used to always work weekends, usually at various different jobs I'd always work the weekend and Monday and then have Tuesday and Wednesday off, so Raw on Monday was like my kickoff for my days off. Perfect night to have Raw.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be when a champion jobbed in a non-title match it was the start of a title program, now it's just another day in the office.
ReplyDeleteIt may hv already been mentioned but how bout hhhh as ic champ n stone cold as hvy weight? Or when jericho after winning the unified title to later proudly rocking the ic title? (typed from phone)
ReplyDeletePart of me is starting to believe that they've thrown up their hands with Ziggler, Kofi, Swagger etc and are just going to graft FCW onto the midcard. Not that bad of an idea, though if you can't make Dolph Ziggler a mid card star, then the problem's on you. Seriously, you can make Billy Gunn and Road Dogg work, but not Dolph Ziggle?
ReplyDeleteI will say that Damien Sandow's gimmick seems tailor made for a long classic IC champ run. Arrogant heels make the best IC champs and he could be a new Honkey Tonk type of Champ.
Looking at those 2 pics I realized it's not the design that bothers me, but how the WWE belt just looks like it's made of much lower-quality materials. The WCW belt looks really sold, like it would actually do real damage if you hit someone with it. The WWE belt looks like it's made out of really thin plastic with metallic paint on it. If the point was to make it look just like the cheap souvenir belt you can buy, mission accomplished.
ReplyDeleteHas the US TITLE meant anything since Goldberg had it?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I like the current US-title, also.
ReplyDeletei hate to tell people this but the hart dynasty werent over.
ReplyDeletethe bret music and association helped a ton but once bret left and the music was over people were sitting on thier hands or going to the bathroom. i liked both guys. i like nattie but they werent over.
but jericho has never been seen as a top guy. he has heen sabotaged so much since 99... its just not for him. outside of the rock making him look like a threat and hbk booking thier second program.he has always been seen as a step behind the austins and hhhs... therefore he could rock the ic title and.not look out of place. whereas when hhh rocked the ic belt in 01 it was pure angle.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Saturday used to be a great wrestling day as well, with WWF Superstars, WCW Worldwide, WCW Power Hour, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, WCW Saturday Night and even the laughably bad UWF Fury Hour and later Warriors Of Wrestling all airing on Saturdays in my neck of the woods.
ReplyDeleteThat, combined with Weird Science and Duckman on USA, the big Saturday Night premiere on HBO and Joe Bob Briggs' Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel made Saturday THE must-see TV day of the week back in the early-to-mid 90's.
Even in the late '90s-until about 2001, it was still pretty solid, with WWF LiveWire and Jakked, WCW Worldwide and Saturday Night, David McLane's Women Of Wrestling (that show was many levels of awful, although Riot was pretty good. I wonder what happened to her.), ECW Hardcore TV, NWA Wildside and XPW (another godawful show that somehow is still better than Impact currently is), with awesome shows like Hercules, Xena, Profiler and Relic Hunter crammed in-between those shows. Not to mention MonsterVision on TNT to wrap up the day.
Man, now that I'm thinking about it, when the hell did TV execs quit caring about Saturdays? It used to be an awesome day for TV, nowadays it seems like Showtime's the only channel out there that puts any effort into Saturdays anymore.
That's weird. Did you try doing that in Universe mode? Because you can easily take the belt off of him in Universe mode if that's the problem.
ReplyDeleteFantastic game, BTW. I really love the Universe and Create-An-Arena modes.
Hopefully they don't screw up this model in next year's game like they screwed up the excellent 2010 model on the horrible 2011 game.
Agreed. When I said Rey was in a good place I should have said "comparatively"
ReplyDeleteJoe Shit could have gotten over huge in the Attitude Era. Russo might have just pushed Joe Shit vs. Bull Buchanan all the way to the main event.
ReplyDeleteSlight Threadjack: But I REALLY hate FX's setup of seasons. I hate the fact I gotta wait 10 months for 13-15 episodes of Always Sunny/Sons of Anarchy.
ReplyDeleteI'm having the biggest Always Sunny withdrawl and the Seinfeld-like repeats aren't helping, i've seen those episodes bunches of times. Le sigh.
Yes, I was having that same issue last night. But it seems to be rectified now.
ReplyDelete#heelteam
ReplyDeleteI suppose we're arguing fan reaction and memories here, but I remember them getting pops. Absolutely, like you said, a most was because of the Hart Family association, Bret Hart hanging around, and Natalya (who was always the most over of the three). But that's how you protect young talent, that's the whole point of gimmicks and managers and mentors and valets.
ReplyDeleteYou protect Kidd and Smith with all that, and as they compete in the tag division over 2-3 years they marinate and mature as wrestlers and entertainers.
But, to the main point, I remember them being warmly received. Of course they were never CM Punk or even modern day Santino, but I'd say they were as over as someone like the Big Show or Kofi currently is.
That feud was awfully booked. Remember also Vince thought it'd be a good idea to have the family line up against Bret (which turned out to be a wholly unnecessary double swerve). So they're not going to get a face pop when joining the heel's side.
ReplyDeleteSpoke too soon
ReplyDeleteTeach me how to Dougie...
ReplyDeletei would beg to differ, those guys are/were way more over currently than the harts ever werem even with bret.
ReplyDeleteI fear that between last season's general suckiness and Charlie Day getting more famous for other things, and Rob & Kaitlin having a growing kid, plus the fact that Danny DeVito is getting really old, means Always Sunny might end up finishing up before too long. Nothing lasts forever I guess, and I'll always have my DVDs.
ReplyDeleteAlso, despite making all the shows I like, fuck FX for cancelling Terriers.
Sadly, I give Sunny 2 more years. imo Last Season wasn't too bad but it wasn't up to par with all the other seasons, so maybe it was an indication that their running out of ideas.
ReplyDelete