World Heavyweight Title: TOP Prize or Consolation?
Photo Credit: WWE
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On Monday Night Raw, Triple H debuted a new WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Triple H explained that Roman Reigns negotiated a contract to work lesser dates so he will keep the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship and the World Heavyweight Champion will be determined in Saudi Arabia at Night of Champions. As usual, with any major WWE announcement, wrestling fans had a visceral reaction to the announcement. Some were positive, as fans have been clamoring for a new title ever since Roman Reigns unified the WWE Championship and Universal Championship at Summerslam with a win over Brock Lesnar. Others, and as usual, the loudest, buried the idea for a multitude of reasons, the most prevalent were the detractors saying the new title is a consolation prize and that someone should have defeated Roman Reigns for the title.
If you’ve read anything I’ve written in the past or listened to me on my YouTube channel, The Slam Sessions, you know that I have a disdain for wrestling fans who feel that they know more than everyone, despite never working in the wrestling industry or something comparable. This announcement is no different, as Twitter exploded with a multitude of accounts, most of which have zero experience in a wrestling capacity, burying the idea of the introduction of a new title, despite most of those same accounts complaining that Roman isn’t a “Full-Time” champion. Once again, fans ask for something and then they get it, but their reaction is “I wanted this, but not like THIS”. Wrestling fans have been vocal in their displeasure for years as it pertains to everything WWE does, even when they do what the fans want. And this is no different. Triple H even framed the concept of the new championship in a way to appeal to the more hardcore audience, citing that WWE needs a fighting Champion, a full-time champion, someone who will defend the title monthly. Yet, the fans still rejected the idea, citing their old tropes of WWE booking not doing what they wanted.
The reactions seem to be centered around this Championship being a “Consolation Prize”, as no one can defeat Roman Reigns for the championship. However, if WWE is smart, they will trace the lineage of the new World Heavyweight Championship back to the old World Heavyweight Championship, which was also linked to the WCW World Championship to add prestige to that title. By associating that title’s lineage with the “Big Gold” World Heavyweight Title, they can say that the title that is being fought over has been held by legends of the industry like Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, the Rock, and Triple H. This immediately makes it look less like the lesser title, and more like the introduction of an older championship that was fazed out when plans were set in motion to do so. However, we are living in unprecedented times. We haven’t had a champion hold a World Title for this long of a time since Brock Lesnar’s 504-day title reign in 2017-2018. And that title run, while absolutely impressive, lasted HALF the amount of time as Roman’s current run (Well, we’re almost at 1,000 days and it’s pretty clear Roman will reach that plateau). No one has been able to defeat Roman Reigns for the Championship, and there are plenty of talented wrestlers who deserve to be Champion, but with Roman having a strangle-hold on the titles, a plan needed to be put into place to make USA and FOX happy by having a World Champion represent their brand. We forget that a lot of what we see on WWE television isn’t decided specifically due to storyline reasons, but also there is pressure from outside sources to make these decisions. WWE recently merged with the Endeavor group, which also owns the UFC, and they may also eventually have input on some decisions made in WWE. However, we haven’t even seen how the title will be booked or who will win it. If someone like Seth Rollins wins the title and defends it often and it’s presented as a major title, that’s all we need.
Before we move on, let’s first address the elephant in the room. I’ve seen a multitude of people state “WWE has 3 World Titles now!?!”. No, they don’t. Roman Reigns has been billed as the WWE Undisputed Universal Heavyweight Champion since defeating Brock Lesnar for the WWE title at Wrestlemania. It is now one title, despite Roman carrying 2 championships. The matching graphic even called it a title Unification match on WWE.com. Unlike the WWE Tag Team titles, since Roman unified the titles, all of his matches have been for both titles. Roman has never defended a championship individually since he unified the titles. Essentially, there has only been one WWE Championship in WWE since Roman defeated Brock and earned both titles. The aesthetic of seeing Roman with both titles adds to the gravity of his title run, similar to when Chris Jericho became the first ever WWE Undisputed Champion. Jericho came out with both the WWE and WCW titles, and no one seemed to mind, or think that the titles could be defended separately. Randy Orton similarly did the same after he unified the titles, which led to the historic image of Daniel Bryan holding 2 titles over his head at the end of Wrestlemania XXX. For some reason, logic has seemed to escape the wrestling fan base once again, as many can’t wrap their heads around this concept.
This isn’t the first time that a new title was blasted when it debuted. When Brock Lesnar (Somehow the introduction of a new title always seems to have Brock’s fingerprints all over it) decided to take the WWE Undisputed Championship to Smackdown exclusively, WWE decided to bring back a clone of the WCW “Big Gold” Championship and rename it the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Eric Bischoff presented the title to Triple H, without Triple H earning the title at all. Immediately, fans rejected the title, saying that it too was a consolation prize. Yet, it didn’t stop them from caring about the booking of the Championship once it was being defended. Similarly, when the WWE combined the WWE and World Heavyweight championships and then decided to introduce a new title, the WWE Universal Championship debuted in Brooklyn. Upon the championship being announced, the live fans booed loudly in disapproval and the Twitter reactions were far worse. Fans buried the title design itself and the decision to introduce a new title, despite Brock Lesnar being a part-time champion at the time and the fans demanding they have a champion they can be proud of. Sound familiar? This is the first reason why I feel that the fan reaction to this title is just the usual wrestling fans getting upset over something because it’s not how they would have done it. As soon as it was revealed that Finn Balor and Seth Rollins would be the two men that would challenge to become the first-ever Universal Champion, all of a sudden, all the accounts bashing the new title stopped talking about how much they hated having a new championship but started talking about how happy they were that they would have a full-time champion to be proud of. You know, almost exactly like what Triple H said on RAW when debuting the new World Heavyweight title. And that’s why I have a hard time taking any criticisms about WWE seriously from Twitter wrestling fans. The internet has become a place to complain about everything before we know what’s going to happen.
A lot of discourse is also centered around Roman Reigns and his holding of the WWE Title and Universal Championship, and retaining him in the main event of Wrestlemania. A general feeling amongst fans is that if Cody Rhodes defeated Roman Reigns, WWE wouldn’t have an issue. Cody could have been the guy to win and vacate one of the titles as a babyface because he wants others to have the opportunity to earn it. Or, Cody would defend one title and lose, so there is a champion for each brand. Except, those are terrible ideas in so many ways. Roman’s run at the top started with the Universal Championship. If Cody vacates that title, either by WWE officials making him do so or of his own volition, it automatically devalues that title, making it seem the lesser of the two. The same goes for the WWE title. And if you beat Cody too soon, that devalues his title run. I can write a separate article about why WWE not pulling the trigger on Cody at Wrestlemania was the best idea, but for now, I’ll just say that Cody being constantly screwed over before he wins the WWE Championship will make the day that he eventually does win it all the more special. But it would also derail Roman’s run at the top. Barring another (and believe me, I’m not hoping for this) global lockdown, we won’t ever see WWE or pro wrestling operate how they have during the Pandemic. Roman was appointment viewing at that time, and there didn’t seem to be a person to slow him down. And it was the perfect time to start this historic run as champion. We’re in the middle of history, and WWE is doing everything it can to build Roman (and Bianca Belair, another talent who is being taken to task by Twitter because she’s had the title for a long time) as a Mega-Star as they did for Hogan, Austin, and Cena. There’s no going back. Once Roman loses, that’s it. And WWE is looking to make this run as historic as they can.
The most ironic thing about the announcement has been the fans’ assertion that the champion should be on every TV program and defend the title every 30 days. This kind of thinking is a new-age thought process. When Hulk Hogan was champion in the ’80s and early 90’s, there was no weekly WWE television outside of the Superstars, a one-hour, pre-taped show. It was rare that you saw the champion on these shows and if they did appear, it was a live or pre-taped promo and they rarely wrestled. WWE only had 4 Pay-Per-View offerings at the time. There would be the rare title defense on Saturday Night’s Main Event, but all other title defenses took place on the House Show loop. The idea that a World Champion needs to be on the show every week is a new concept, devised when WWE and WCW were going head-to-head and needed to feature every one of their talents weekly to win the rating war. The fact that we don’t see Roman Reigns every week is a call back to the old-school champions who were looked at as larger than life and more important than anyone else in the company, therefore when you saw the champion, it was a big deal. The NWA didn’t have separate World champions in their territories for a long time, the champions would cycle to all the NWA towns and defend their title against their top wrestlers. Most of the time, if you went to see a wrestling show, there was little to no chance you would ever get to see the champion. Also, Triple H gave us a kayfabe explanation of why Roman isn’t on the show every week, stating that he negotiated fewer dates in his newest contract. Even when given all the information, fans seem to have this notion that they deserve to have the WWE booked in a way that would only make them happy, because if they like it, everyone else must like it too, right?
Personally, I love the idea of the new title. I think it was the best way to ensure that Roman continues to make history, while other wrestlers now have the opportunity to become a World Champion without having WWE undo the amazing amount of work that went into making this Roman Reigns title run as historic as they could. It’s been all over Twitter that the unification of the WWE and Universal Championships was a mistake, but I think it was a great move. It solidifies Roman as THE guy of this generation, and the most celebrated heel World Champion, possibly of all time. Ric Flair and Triple H are the only other 2 heels I can think of that held World titles as heels and had a run that is even closely comparable to Roman’s current run. The other part of the Unification of the titles everyone seems to be missing is that if they kept 2 World Champions, there is little to no chance that Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens defend the WWE Tag Team Titles in the Main Event of Wrestlemania this year. Either Charlotte and Rhea would take that spot (like they almost did), or the other World title match would take place in that spot. Sami and KO got their moment because they earned it and deserved it, but they were also blessed with great timing. The new World Championship also gives guys like KO and Sami the opportunity to challenge for a World Title, and not have to face Roman, something we saw with Sami once and 3 times for Owens. And there is a much better chance of seeing someone like Sami, who many have said won’t ever achieve a World Title in WWE, have the opportunity to prove the naysayers wrong. If Kofi Kingston could do it, Sami can as well, especially with someone like AJ Styles or Seth Rollins being the inaugural World Heavyweight Champion. I’m excited to see the World Heavyweight Championship’s progression and how it’s treated. Let’s all do our best to not judge something before it happens.
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