November 2 marked the 10 year anniversary of the birth of the Hardcore Championship in the WWE/F. The title began as nothing more than a gimmick title to promote Mick Foleys reputation as a hardcore wrestler, but soon after grew a life of its own and thrived for the next four years. In its short existence, no title in wrestling history has had more title changes than the WWE/F Hardcore Championship and there is no denying that Hardcore has greatly affected Vince McMahon's product of wrestling. Let us first look at how Hardcore first came to the WWE, then we'll relive the history of destruction and chaos that was Hardcore Championship wrestling.
The Hardcore style of wrestling began because of two very important people/organizations in wrestling, ECW and Mick Foley. ECW began as nothing more than a small indy wrestling promotion, but soon developed among the most loyal fan bases in the history of wrestling, due to their unique and unorthodox wrestling style and rules, that would be no rules actually. ECW perfected the no-rules, straight up anything goes, nature of Hardcore; constant weapon use, interference and broken bones were very common inside the ECW ring, and their popularity soon began to grow because of this unique form of wrestling. WWE/F would've been dumb not to noticed the little train that could growing in size, and that it was all due to this new form of wrestling. The last thing Vince would've wanted was for there to be a legitimate third promotion in Vince's battle for top wrestling supremacy with WCW. So Vince in 1998 took the idea and made a title for it, a broken, glued together, old 1980's championship. An actually fitting look for a title, it embodied everything the Hardcore style should. It was the, other child, in Vince's wrestling and the title looked the part that many wrestlers who wore it must've felt, broken down and glued together. Now all Vince needed was to put it on somebody who could carry it. So he put it on the biggest, most Hardcore wrestler he ever took from ECW, Mick Foley.
Hardcore wrestling slowly began in the WWE/F when Mick Foley first debuted as Mankind in 1996. He began with a feud against one of the WWE/F's big stars, The Undertaker, and we slowly began to see the rules of wrestling lessen up. Slowly fading away were the 10 counts, allowing wrestlers to brawl more on the outside. These were the first steps that WWE were taking to begin to get their product outside the ring. Weapon use slowly became more and more common. A chair shot before was a huge thing in wrestling, now it was more common to see. Mankind and The Undertaker created and perfected some of WWE's best gimmick matches ever, such as HIAC, Boiler room brawl, Buried alive match, No-DQ; all in a way were tiny steps to see how the fans reacted to the more hardcore and no-DQ aspect of Hardcore wrestling and the fans loved it. Mick proudly embodied Hardcore in him and was the perfect choice to introduce the Hardcore Championship. But Mick's popularity soon propelled him to something bigger than the Hardcore Championship, the WWE/f Championship and the Hardcore Championship, which began as nothing more than a gimmick for Mick, took on an exciting life of its own.
Like most first year titles, the Hardcore title needed to find its place in the WWE/F. It began by giving the lower middle carders something to do. Al Snow, Big Boss Man, and the appropriately dubbed Hardcore Holly, all finally had more of a purpose in the WWE and they fought hard and proudly to make the Hardcore Championship look like an exciting and dangerous title to have. In its first year, the Hardcore title had exciting highs, such as Al Snow and Hardcore Holly literally using the term 'Falls Count Anywhere' that was included with the Hardcore title and fought all over Memphis, Tennessee, including in the Mississippi River at St. Valentines Day Massacre, but it also had painful lows, such as Al Snow and Big Boss Man's infamous Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven.
2000 saw the birth of a rule that would push the title to its greatest point, the 24/7 rule. Now the title was defended 24/7, providing someone had a ref around. This rule was made popular by one man, the very un-Hardcore looking Crash Holly. Because of Crash's size, he was the perfect man to get over this idea of the title always being defended, performing hilarious segments that saw him narrowly escaping with his title every time, including one of him escaping the Headbangers assault by running through Funtime USA, an amusement park in Brooklyn. With WWE's growing roster, more and more wrestlers were getting involved with the Hardcore title, and the 24/7 rule made it a good chance that they would see a title change at hand. Some could argue that the 24/7 devalued the Hardcore Championship, but i feel it made it more exciting to watch and didn't devalue any of the wrestlers who were more than determined to hold it for 5 minutes anyway. The boss's son Shane McMahon even held the belt, holding it for 6 days before losing it to Steve Blackman at Summerslam 2000.
2001 saw what has to be considered the Hardcore Championships most prestigious and biggest name wrestlers, among the names being, Big Show, Kane, Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, and The Undertaker. The title also had among its most exciting and thrilling matches, mainly due to all the big names who were holding the title. Jeff Hardy/RVD matches were sights to behold and the title was hotly contested due to the Invasion angle and everybody wanting a title. However, we also began to see the negative effects of the 24/7 rule, with the Hardcore title being thrown around more and more like a piece of meat, especially since alot more of the big names were holding the belt, which meant little to them compared to the WWE/F title. After Angle won the title, Austin ceremoniously threw him off the entrance stage ramp, only to throw RVD off as well on top of Angle so RVD could get the pinfall. Title changes were happening left, right, and center, a trend that would continue into the next year.
By 2002, the novelty of the Hardcore title was wearing off. Despite the title only lasting till the end of August, before being unified with the Intercontinental title, 2002 saw the most title changes ever for the Hardcore title. Many of the title changes happened at house shows and in most cases the original champion at the start of the show would get the title back by the end of the show. Raven, who started the year with 11 Hardcore championship reign, would have 27 by August. Crash and Steven Richards also joined Raven with 20 or more reigns. Bubba Ray Dudley and Bradshaw, who won the Hardcore title for the first time in 2002 in April and June, had 11 and 17 title reigns respectively in 2002. By this time, the value of the title was crashing by the weight of all the different title reigns and it was hurting from the Brand extension, limiting it to just being on RAW and left for the RAW superstars to fight for. On August 19, they removed the 24/7 rule, foreshadowing that it would disappear because the Hardcore title was the 24/7 rule at this point, it had nothing else. A week later they unified it with the IC title.
There is no denying that in the Hardcore titles brief 4 year run, it was been an influential part in WWE/F and has helped paved the way for many Hardcore wrestlers from ECW to come to WWE and have success, such as the Dudley Boyz, RVD, Raven, Rhino, Tazz. It has been influential in the making and development of many exciting gimmick matches, such as HIAC, broiler room brawls, buried alive, TLC, tables match. Hardcore wrestling was one of the many things that helped WWE turn the tables around on WCW and achieve such unbelievable ratings in the Monday Night ratings war. More than ever though, I think WWE needs to bring back a little bit of that Hardcore attitude they had at the turn of the millennium, especially with the WWE's decision to go PG. I don't know how they will ever be able to get that rough, badass image they had with the Hardcore style in 1999 with the PG rating they have now, but they need to try to bring some of it back. WWE shouldn't turn their back on the, figuratively, bastard child that helped bring in so many great kinds of matches and brought so much unexpected excitement to the WWE. 10 years of Hardcore, gone in PG.
The Hardcore style of wrestling began because of two very important people/organizations in wrestling, ECW and Mick Foley. ECW began as nothing more than a small indy wrestling promotion, but soon developed among the most loyal fan bases in the history of wrestling, due to their unique and unorthodox wrestling style and rules, that would be no rules actually. ECW perfected the no-rules, straight up anything goes, nature of Hardcore; constant weapon use, interference and broken bones were very common inside the ECW ring, and their popularity soon began to grow because of this unique form of wrestling. WWE/F would've been dumb not to noticed the little train that could growing in size, and that it was all due to this new form of wrestling. The last thing Vince would've wanted was for there to be a legitimate third promotion in Vince's battle for top wrestling supremacy with WCW. So Vince in 1998 took the idea and made a title for it, a broken, glued together, old 1980's championship. An actually fitting look for a title, it embodied everything the Hardcore style should. It was the, other child, in Vince's wrestling and the title looked the part that many wrestlers who wore it must've felt, broken down and glued together. Now all Vince needed was to put it on somebody who could carry it. So he put it on the biggest, most Hardcore wrestler he ever took from ECW, Mick Foley.
Hardcore wrestling slowly began in the WWE/F when Mick Foley first debuted as Mankind in 1996. He began with a feud against one of the WWE/F's big stars, The Undertaker, and we slowly began to see the rules of wrestling lessen up. Slowly fading away were the 10 counts, allowing wrestlers to brawl more on the outside. These were the first steps that WWE were taking to begin to get their product outside the ring. Weapon use slowly became more and more common. A chair shot before was a huge thing in wrestling, now it was more common to see. Mankind and The Undertaker created and perfected some of WWE's best gimmick matches ever, such as HIAC, Boiler room brawl, Buried alive match, No-DQ; all in a way were tiny steps to see how the fans reacted to the more hardcore and no-DQ aspect of Hardcore wrestling and the fans loved it. Mick proudly embodied Hardcore in him and was the perfect choice to introduce the Hardcore Championship. But Mick's popularity soon propelled him to something bigger than the Hardcore Championship, the WWE/f Championship and the Hardcore Championship, which began as nothing more than a gimmick for Mick, took on an exciting life of its own.
Like most first year titles, the Hardcore title needed to find its place in the WWE/F. It began by giving the lower middle carders something to do. Al Snow, Big Boss Man, and the appropriately dubbed Hardcore Holly, all finally had more of a purpose in the WWE and they fought hard and proudly to make the Hardcore Championship look like an exciting and dangerous title to have. In its first year, the Hardcore title had exciting highs, such as Al Snow and Hardcore Holly literally using the term 'Falls Count Anywhere' that was included with the Hardcore title and fought all over Memphis, Tennessee, including in the Mississippi River at St. Valentines Day Massacre, but it also had painful lows, such as Al Snow and Big Boss Man's infamous Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven.
2000 saw the birth of a rule that would push the title to its greatest point, the 24/7 rule. Now the title was defended 24/7, providing someone had a ref around. This rule was made popular by one man, the very un-Hardcore looking Crash Holly. Because of Crash's size, he was the perfect man to get over this idea of the title always being defended, performing hilarious segments that saw him narrowly escaping with his title every time, including one of him escaping the Headbangers assault by running through Funtime USA, an amusement park in Brooklyn. With WWE's growing roster, more and more wrestlers were getting involved with the Hardcore title, and the 24/7 rule made it a good chance that they would see a title change at hand. Some could argue that the 24/7 devalued the Hardcore Championship, but i feel it made it more exciting to watch and didn't devalue any of the wrestlers who were more than determined to hold it for 5 minutes anyway. The boss's son Shane McMahon even held the belt, holding it for 6 days before losing it to Steve Blackman at Summerslam 2000.
2001 saw what has to be considered the Hardcore Championships most prestigious and biggest name wrestlers, among the names being, Big Show, Kane, Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, and The Undertaker. The title also had among its most exciting and thrilling matches, mainly due to all the big names who were holding the title. Jeff Hardy/RVD matches were sights to behold and the title was hotly contested due to the Invasion angle and everybody wanting a title. However, we also began to see the negative effects of the 24/7 rule, with the Hardcore title being thrown around more and more like a piece of meat, especially since alot more of the big names were holding the belt, which meant little to them compared to the WWE/F title. After Angle won the title, Austin ceremoniously threw him off the entrance stage ramp, only to throw RVD off as well on top of Angle so RVD could get the pinfall. Title changes were happening left, right, and center, a trend that would continue into the next year.
By 2002, the novelty of the Hardcore title was wearing off. Despite the title only lasting till the end of August, before being unified with the Intercontinental title, 2002 saw the most title changes ever for the Hardcore title. Many of the title changes happened at house shows and in most cases the original champion at the start of the show would get the title back by the end of the show. Raven, who started the year with 11 Hardcore championship reign, would have 27 by August. Crash and Steven Richards also joined Raven with 20 or more reigns. Bubba Ray Dudley and Bradshaw, who won the Hardcore title for the first time in 2002 in April and June, had 11 and 17 title reigns respectively in 2002. By this time, the value of the title was crashing by the weight of all the different title reigns and it was hurting from the Brand extension, limiting it to just being on RAW and left for the RAW superstars to fight for. On August 19, they removed the 24/7 rule, foreshadowing that it would disappear because the Hardcore title was the 24/7 rule at this point, it had nothing else. A week later they unified it with the IC title.
There is no denying that in the Hardcore titles brief 4 year run, it was been an influential part in WWE/F and has helped paved the way for many Hardcore wrestlers from ECW to come to WWE and have success, such as the Dudley Boyz, RVD, Raven, Rhino, Tazz. It has been influential in the making and development of many exciting gimmick matches, such as HIAC, broiler room brawls, buried alive, TLC, tables match. Hardcore wrestling was one of the many things that helped WWE turn the tables around on WCW and achieve such unbelievable ratings in the Monday Night ratings war. More than ever though, I think WWE needs to bring back a little bit of that Hardcore attitude they had at the turn of the millennium, especially with the WWE's decision to go PG. I don't know how they will ever be able to get that rough, badass image they had with the Hardcore style in 1999 with the PG rating they have now, but they need to try to bring some of it back. WWE shouldn't turn their back on the, figuratively, bastard child that helped bring in so many great kinds of matches and brought so much unexpected excitement to the WWE. 10 years of Hardcore, gone in PG.