Devaluing a title.

[Tastycles]

As soon as Edge lost the title last night, people began to complain that the WWE title had become devalued because the title had changed hands at each of the last 4 payperviews. This completed a year where each of the major singles titles in both major North American titles had been accused of being devalued or having lost their prestige, here's a reminder of the standard whinges:

WWE Title - Changed hands 4 times in 4 months, it's design, the fact that Triple H has it all of the time.

World HeavyweightChampionship - CM Punk winning it, despite being on a losing streak and being CM Punk, Batista's 8 day return, Undertaker being stripped after Backlash, Edge's 8th reign.

ECW title - Given to Chavo Guerrero and Mark Henry, who couldn't buy a reign before hand, Chavo entering Royal Rumble 2008, Jack Swagger feuding with Tommy Dreamer and Ricky Ortiz and getting a shot on only that

Intercontinental Championship - It never being defended, Kingston winning it, perennial jobber Santion winning it, Regal winning it because he was at home,

US Title - Shelton never defending it, Shelton winning it for no reason

TNA Title - Samoa Joe needing Kevin Nash, the abomination that is Sting's reign.

TNA Legend's title - It's ******ed, Booker defended it against Shane Sewell,

TNA X Division Title - Bashir winning it so quickly, Eric Young's non-reign.

Personally, I don't buy a lot of the arguments, particularly the WWE orientated ones. However, I would like to know exactly what people think devaluing a title really means, and whether it matters.

 

[klunderbunker]

I don't think having the title change hands often devalues it at all. The way I see it, the more desperate people get to hold a title, the more value it has. When people are going crazy trying to get their hands on a belt, be it by attacking people, stealing victories etc, it makes me think that they'll do anything to get their hands on a title because it means so much to them. However, booking like Shelton is getting and Regal got is indeed awful. I flat out forgot who some of the champions were more than once, which is never a good sign. Same thing with the tag belts. The same teams hold them way too long. I'm not saying that making the titles change hands every week is a good thing, but lots of competition for them is always a good thing.

 

[agentmichaelscarn]

I don't think having the title change hands often devalues it at all. The way I see it, the more desperate people get to hold a title, the more value it has. When people are going crazy trying to get their hands on a belt, be it by attacking people, stealing victories etc, it makes me think that they'll do anything to get their hands on a title because it means so much to them.

Exactly, I dont really understand people's logic when they instantly think it makes the titles worse if they change hands often. Why? It still means the same thing and that is that you are the best in the company. Other wrestlers still care about it the same. It is still the focal point of the show and the vast majority of the time one of the championships ends the PPV. I could understand if wrestlers used the philosophy "I dont care about the championship anymore since everybody has held it" or something like that but they dont. All of them care about it just as much as they always do and go to the same lengths to get it as they always did. So I think a belt becomes devalued not by how many times it changes hands but how it is used or perceived. If the championship is suddenly put on the back burner and nobody talks about it or makes mention of it(kinda like how the IC title has gotten) or if the wrestlers start to act like they dont care about it then yes it becomes devalued but that hasnt been the case with the two main championships.

 

[Tastycles]

I'm definitely with the two of you. I fail to understand why the title changing hands often is a bad thing. If you think about it, it is perfectly plausible that the very cream of the company changes often. Compare it to boxing. Only one of the last 11 WBC Heavyweight Champions has defended their title succesffully more than 2 times. It stands to reason that if wrestling were legitimate competition then it would suffer the same thing.

Coming back to wrestling, there have been 4 changes in the last 4 months. That much is true, but between August 22 and September 1999 there were four changes in 5 weeks, as well as a vacation. One of the title holders was Vince McMahon. At this time WWE was as good as it has ever been, and the title was certainly very prestigious, so I don't see how four changes in four months matters.

Looking at the bigger picture, since the end of Wrestlemania XXIV there have been 6 WWE title reigns, and 8 World Heavyweight Championship reigns, as well as a vacation. That gives an average of 7 reigns for the WWE's top title in a year. Between Wrestlemanias XIV and XV there were 8 and a vacation, between XV and XVI there were 9, between XVI and X-seven there were 6. This was WWE's last golden age, and nobody complained that the title meant nothing then. It obviosly meant a lot to people that Foley won it for the first time, or that Austin got it after being shat on by Vince.

As for 8 reigns in 3 years for Edge. The Rock won 9 in just over three years, 6 of which were when there was only one title. IT DOESN'T MATTER how many title reigns someone has, or how short they are. The majority of Edge's month long reigns were significantly better than CM Punk's 3 month reign.

In my own estimation the only titles that have low value are the TNA title and the TNA Legends title. The TNA title because Sting is booked so horribly and is too old to be a heavyweight champion and the Legends title because it is literally the most pointless thing I've ever heard of, and I've heard of D'Lo Brown being re-signed.

The WWE midcard titles suffer through sporiadic periods of neglect. One of them should have a Helms-esque weekly defense, probably the Intercontinental as Raw has deeper resources for challengers. The other title shoul be used to promote feuds. It looks like Shelton and MVP are going to have a proper feud for it now, which is a relief, but after that have either MVP feud with Kendrick or even, or Shelton with R-Truth, Umaga or a returning Kennedy.

 

[The Rob]

Would you rather see the title change hands 4 times a year or once or twice tops? Despite the fact I'm a Cena fan, his 12 month title reign did get very boring and I was desperate for Orton to win at Summerslam 2007. You want the title to change hands every-so-often, it keeps it interesting, the WWE dosen't need to have superstars having 9 month title reigns anymore, people lose interest and won't watch because they will immediatly assume that they will defend the title and it won't be worth paying for. I fail to see why having the title change hands more often is a bad thing.

 

[Blade]

The changing between a few different people is probably the ultimate proof that the title is sought after. But the whole spinner thing has devalued the title, as it's now something that kids can actually play with....

the ECW title has been up and down in credibility. The first title reign being supposedly for Benoit, Big show's good reign, the Punk/Morrisson feud, Kane winning the battle royale and taking the title at Mania all helped.

But on the other hand, the title being given the Chavo who went from glorified jobber who for some reason has the ECW title to regular jobber who once beat CM Punk, Swagger being champion after a few months, ECW champion being in the rumble, and the biggest travesty to the title, which I think you forgot... Vince Mcmahon holding the fucking title...

Oh and one last thing, you technically shouldn't list the TNA legends title on a thread entitled "DEVALUING a title" cause last time I checked it never had any value, no one ever really gave a crap about it...

 

[Starchild]

I don't agree that the title changing hands often devalues it. We can look back as recent as the Attitude era in the late 90s and see that the title use to change hands quite a bit between Austin, Rock, Triple H, Mankind, and Taker mainly before Angle got involved and some other guys shortly thereafter. We just go through spells where a long reign is uncommon and for a while it changes hands quite a bit. I think the biggest problem people are having with it this time is because it's the same guys (save for Punk, Jericho, and Hardy) that lose it and win it back shortly after. Again it wasn't all that different in the Attitude Era.

This is also a different time we're in. People just hold on to the belt for longer than 6 months very often at all anymore. The TNA title has had a few consecutive long reigns which is even rarer to see. But I think the title changing hands every month for the past few keeps it exciting..and I don't expect that to continue past Mania. I expect the guys that win it there to hold if for a while (granted Orton only for 2-3 months as he might drop back to HHH at Judgment Day or ONS in some gimmick match to end their feud). But I think the whole thing was to keep us on our toes and a message from WWE saying that they can be unpredicatable if they want which is not at all devaluing a title.

Now what is devaluing the title is the case of the midcard titles. They are defended only in spurts and then there seems to be a months-long dry spell. And never do we see them defended on ppv anymore save Night of Champions. That coupled with not having in true storylines with the midcard champions and no promo time make it seem like WWE really doesn't care about those titles very much anymore. Same can go for the X-Division title in TNA not to mention that the people holding it are a joke when you consider that Joe, AJ, and Daniels use to fight over it. To get away from devaluing those you need to have quality champions and have storylines with them like there used to be, and have them defended on ppvs, particularly the big ones.