Should the WWE and World Titles be merged?

[MINISTRYrising]

i think the wwe should only have the one world title. and have the world champion, tag team champions and womans champion as the only ones allowed on both brands as far as the ic and us titles go you should have on for raw and one for smackdown so each brand has there own individual title and champion if you really wanted you could bring back the european championship and have that defended on main event so the low card guys have something to fight for.

 

[The Fabulous Rougeau's]

Great idea, and I think I have a good idea for how it should be handled along with other main event matches. This also gives the WWE the perfect time to introduce a new title design and get rid of Cena's garbage. Warning this will be a somewhat lengthy post and cover the time from now till SummerSlam with some post SummerSlam stuff included:

Starting with the following Raw:

Vince comes out and announces some major changes. First he states that the world titles will be unified in a one day four man tournament to crown the new champ. He states that this will change the MITB match to only one instead of two and that the winner of the briefcase can't cash it in until the title in unified. Also whoever walks out of MITB with the two titles will automatically be invovled in the tourney. As for the MITB match itself it would consist of the 4 guys mentioned on Raw, plus 2-3 other guys.

MITB PPV:

At the PPV one of the contestants (not Cena, Show or Jericho) would be taken out backstage setting up a suprise entrant who would be Barrett and of course he goes on to win the briefcase. Then whomever Punk and Sheamus face at the PPV they would retain their titles.

1000th Raw:

This is where we get the return of Brock and he finally accepts the match against HHH at SummerSlam. Also announced would be the two matches to fill the final two spots for the title tourney at SummerSlam. The matches would be Cena v Jericho and Show v Bryan. Show would cost Cena his match and Cena would return the favor and do the same for Show. This would add Jericho and Bryan to Punk and Sheamus for the tourney. After the 2 matches it is announced that at the end of Raw they will have a live draw to determine the matches. With all four men in the ring it is announced that the current champs cannot meet in the semis. The draw would reveal that Punk would face Bryan and Sheamus would face Jericho. Also on the Raw following the 1000th one Cena and Show would be announced as some sort of gimmick match (either HIAC or last man standing).

SummerSlam:

For the show itself it would consist of the 5 main event matches (3 tourney matches and Brock/HHH, Cena/Show) and a IC title match, tag title match and divas match (US title match on pre-show). I would stack the card as follows:

IC title match
touney semis match #1
tourney semis match #2
tag title match
Cena/Show
divas match
HHH/Brock
touney final

This is how I would see the main event matches playing out. I would have Punk and Sheamus move on but stress how during there matches against submission specialists like Jericho and Bryan each man moving on is weakened by there foes submission attack. Then for the Cena/Show match I would have Show win and use it as the reason why Cena is away while he takes care of his legal issues. For the HHH/Brock match I would have Brock win which would give him the steam necessary to carry him to WrestlMania. Have him decimate HHH to the point where he is HHH is off camera for a while and then recruits Taker to take Brock out at WM 29.

Then for the title match I believe Sheamus is good enough in the ring and has enough stamina to go for 30 minutes with Punk in a classic technical v strength matchup. I would have numerous near falls and decisons with Punk kicking out of 2 brougue kicks and SHeamus' running Razor's Edge and Sheamus kicking out of the GTS and reversing one Anoconda Vise and then reaching the ropes on another. For the last spot I would have Sheamus go to the top for his sholder tackle. Punk would cut him off and look to set up a superplex. SHeamus blocks that and sets him up for a white noise off the top for the win.

As Sheamus is presented the new title, I would have the credits go on which usualy signify the end of the PPV, then Barrett's music hits and he cashes in the breifcase. You see a look of dispair on Sheamus and Barrett quickley puts him away to end the show.

Aftermath:

My main goal after this would be to set up a Barrett/Sheamus program that leads to the SummerSlam rematch at Survivor Series. To bridge this time I would have guys like Punk, Bryan and others get in Sheamus' way claiming one way or another they deserve the shot. If Barrett is getting major heat (which I suspect he would) I would have him walk out of Survivor Series champ, if not then you can put the belt back on Sheamus.

 

[Boston Made Mark]

No. No. No.

From a business standpoint: what would WWE gain with only one heavyweight champion? Maybe more prestige to the one title but that's all. It won't increase the ratings or PPV buys and like someone else said two titles are necessary for house shows. WWE gains more financially from two champions and Vince loves $. Plus it hurts WWE's ability to give a title to superstars who normally they wouldn't pull the trigger on. If Ziggler is having a hard time now getting a WC, imagine if there was only one.

There's also still prestige in the WHC.

All in all if there was only one championship we wouldn't of had champions like Daniel Bryan or Mark Henry. More championship= More excitment

I agree with some, if not most of this, as well as what TempestH had to say in their first post.

The title unification is something that I have debated often with people and as it has it's pro's and con's, I think they should go for it. If it does happen to crap out, it's not like they can't split them back up (I think they've done that before...). So here's what I've debated with people going back a few months (right around the time they began looking more and more toward merging the brands, which is why I initially got on the subject):

I do feel that they should unify the titles. If they are merging the two shows into one, then they should only have one title for their brand as opposed to the two titles for their two brands. I had begun my debate by saying that the title should be merged and the four main players in that merger should be Punk, Bryan, Sheamus and Ziggler (which is eerily similar to the way things are playing out right now so I'm kind of excited to see where this storyline goes, because I'm a dork and love when I guess something and it comes out that way).

As to the reasoning again, one title should define one WWE/World Champion for one brand. I find it odd that they try to make both titles just as prestigious as the next in some instances but make it well known to everyone that the WWE Championship is superior. Essentially, the WHC is the equivalent of the IC title back in the days of Hart, Perfect, Piper, etc. which is great for the WHC, but it lacks what it desires. They can do one of two things here, merge the two titles and increase the prestige of the IC title to the days of old or just flat out show that the WWE Championship is the title of all titles and the WHC is what it is, the stepping stone that the IC title used to be.

My thought is they should merge them, the four mentioned wrestlers above should be the ones in the fold and then they can see where they want to go with it from there. The champ would wrestle on both shows so both shows have a champ (as they already have been doing for months) and it can broaden the spectrum for many of the mid-card guys that should move up the ranks (Barrett, Kingston, Rhodes, Ryder) to vie for the now-prestigious IC title and also make room for more emotional, non-title driven storylines for the other main event players and shift back to that real-life based feuds that we love and miss.

And I said I wasn't going to ramble on and on...

 

[Uncommon Sense]

I believe they should merge them. The original purpose behind 2 titles was for each brand to be represented by a champion. Now that the brands are over it comes natural for there to be only 1 champion.

In my opinion the biggest positive of having 1 title is that there would be more contenders for it. That means that there would be more opportunities for different match ups and as a result we wouldnt see as many redundant feuds. And of course having 1 main title instead of 2 would make it more prestigeous.

On the other hand I am fine with both US and IC title being around. I dont see anything wrong with having 2 midcard championships with the amount of talent that WWE features on TV on a weekly basis. There are more than enough of people to contend for both of them, they help put the younger talent over and are a nice addition to feuds.

 

[Radical]

They ABSOLUTELY should merge the WWE and World Titles, while they are at it get rid of the US Title (retire it, whatever) but then I'd like to see another title brought back like the Cruiserweight title or Light Heavyweight title. They won't bring in a TV title because TNA has done it and WWE would never want to look like they are taking ideas from TNA.

But about a year or two ago it was eaiser for all of us, I assume, to deal with the two top tier titles and two mid-card titles because the brands were mostly very separate. Very few Smackdown Superstars would appear on Raw and vice versa. So it made sense then for both rosters to have a middle and top prize to strive for.

But now there really is zero brand separation for Superstars. I remember going on WWE.com and they would list the Superstars and you could view them by brand and see the champions of each brand. Now there litterally is no separate roster for Raw or Smackdown.

So it is DEFINITELY at the point now where they need to merge the top titles, and the mid-card titles and leave room for possibly bringing in or bringing back another title.

It makes no sense having two top titles right now. Plus a storyline of merging titles is a great one for Pro Wrestling.

The titles that should remain are:

WWE Championship
Intercontinental Championship
WWE Tag Team Championship
Crusierweight Championship (or Light Heavyweight Championship)
Divas Championship


Doing that would make every championship have SO MUCH more prestige and should help build better storylines and make for better matches.

And as we have seen with John Cena, if a Superstar is popular enough they don't even need to be in a feud that has to do with a title chase. Or they could be and then feuds could be more heated based on everyone trying harder to be that #1 contender. So you could potentially see a #1 Contender match for any of the titles perhaps as a main event of a show or even a PPV match.

If it is a full year from now and they haven't merged the WWE and World Title, kept the IC title, retired the US title at the VERY LEAST I'll be pretty dissapointed.