How do you make a title prestigious?

[Deadman]

Now I hear everyone complain about most of the titles in the WWE have lost prestige but I have to ask how would you if you were Vinne Mac make a title worth having. Now lets go ahead and kick out the obvious about the titles. The WHC and WWE belts are fine it is everything else that needs changing so please focus on those.

ECW: The ECW championship is suppose to be a World title. Well it is never treated like such in fact it is dis respected that the World Champ was in the RR to win a World Championship shot. So how can we fix this well lets make ECW champ not in a RR EC or MITB match for a different title. Instead why not at a PPV you end the card with the other world titles. Just a thought

The others are easy so I will let you make your ideas prosper.

 

[popupstoppa]

I think the ECW title was alright before when Vince and Lashley held it. When the Undertaker won the rumble he appeared before every World Champ to see who he would challenge at mania...I just think that now it has lost its prestige.

If they want people to start taking the titles seriously again then maybe they need a big name to hold it? I'm really not sure how they could revive it now since they just let it drift away so much.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

1) Have it defended on a regular basis. The IC, US, and tag team titles virtually never get defended on ppvs anymore, which makes it look like they don't matter enough to make it onto the card.

2) Have meaningful feuds between wrestlers that seem like they deserve that spot. If the IC and US titles are meant to be an upper midcard guy feuding with other midcarders, don't give it to someone that gets squashed by every single main event person in 4 seconds flat.

That's it. Its that simple. Don't give your title to people that are built to look like crap against everybody but the ONE person they're feuding against - and secondly, actually give them someone to feud with, as opposed to just have Regal beat a jobber for the title, then do nothing, until he loses it to Punk, who doesn't defend it either.

 

[Mr. TM]

You make the titles the most important thing on the show, in the champions lives, in the contendors dreams, and in the fans hearts. That is how you do it. The main feud should always be for the title, it is the reason these people are in wrestling, to be the champion. The mid card should always be highlighted by two or so men fighting over the title. The champion has to walk out every week with that IC belt around his shoulder or his waist and actually show that he will give his blood for the title. The contendor must not stop until he is the champion. The fans must cry, through great stories everytime the face wins that belt, and prodly puts it around his waist.

 

[TheOneBigWill]

1.) Stop placing the Championship on individuals you don't honestly plan to push into the next level someday. (ie. Santino, Benjamin, Regal) You need to focus on putting the title on your important Superstars. Be them Main Eventers, Mid-Carders, or Rookies whom you wish to make a big impact.

2.) Have those Championships defended in a meaningful way. (ie. not just randomly here and there) Build feuds for 'said' Championships again. When Santino was Champion, he at least gave a purpose for holding the title. I haven't seen anyone hold the Intercontinental Championship before that, that held the title for a purpose, since quite possibly.. Randy Orton.

It seems the title was always pawned off on someone with a remotely big name, yet not looked at as anything more than "an object they had".

Defend the titles in meaningful feuds, to build up both the Championship, as well as those who feud for it.

3.) Pay per view. Return the Championships to each Pay per view. Once upon a time, the company only had 3 titles. And each of them almost always got defended in a worthy match.

The last Intercontinental Pay per view match, I believe, was Santino/Beth Phoenix against Mickie James/Kofi Kingston. In which Beth Phoenix won the match, and as result WON Santino the I.C. title. That wasn't meaningful, it was a joke.

While we're beyond the days of Ramon/Michaels, Hart/Hennig, and Rock/HHH.. the days of MVP/Kennedy, Hardy/Hardy, and Punk/Mysterio could be what we need at the moment.

 

[Mr. TM]

1.) Stop placing the Championship on individuals you don't honestly plan to push into the next level someday. (ie. Santino, Benjamin, Regal) You need to focus on putting the title on your important Superstars. Be them Main Eventers, Mid-Carders, or Rookies whom you wish to make a big impact.

2.) Have those Championships defended in a meaningful way. (ie. not just randomly here and there) Build feuds for 'said' Championships again. When Santino was Champion, he at least gave a purpose for holding the title. I haven't seen anyone hold the Intercontinental Championship before that, that held the title for a purpose, since quite possibly.. Randy Orton.

It seems the title was always pawned off on someone with a remotely big name, yet not looked at as anything more than "an object they had".

Defend the titles in meaningful feuds, to build up both the Championship, as well as those who feud for it.

3.) Pay per view. Return the Championships to each Pay per view. Once upon a time, the company only had 3 titles. And each of them almost always got defended in a worthy match.

The last Intercontinental Pay per view match, I believe, was Santino/Beth Phoenix against Mickie James/Kofi Kingston. In which Beth Phoenix won the match, and as result WON Santino the I.C. title. That wasn't meaningful, it was a joke.

While we're beyond the days of Ramon/Michaels, Hart/Hennig, and Rock/HHH.. the days of MVP/Kennedy, Hardy/Hardy, and Punk/Mysterio could be what we need at the moment.

Well William, you seem to have missed two important things.

1.) When someone like I said prides himself on something, isn't that something then important? Santino Marella had been the only guy in years it seems to have actually prided himself on wanting that belt. Santino made the belt legit, even if he didn't win it for himself.

2.) Not ever IC winner can be a superstar. Santino may never be the WWE Champion, but neither was The Honky Tonk Man, and he was one of the most memorable IC Champions. The IC problem is not Santino's its who should have beat Santino. Ultimate Warrior beat Honky Tonk Man and went onto be great. The same should have happened to Santino. He should have lost the belt to a huge up and comer, and probably not William Regal.

 

[Christian Battlez]

I'll just list the ways I would bring prestige to the titles I think are missing it.

WWE Championship: This belt looks like a cheap toy. When I think of the Winged Eagle belt I think of Hulk Hogan. When I think of the Undisputed Belt I think of Angle, even Lesnar. When I think of the spinner belt. I think of John Cena. Cena isn't even fighting for this belt anymore. I know its a high seller but you can still sell the dam spinner belts even if they're retired. They did it with the Undisputed and old ECW belts. Get rid of the spinner its time for a change.

World Heavyweight Championship: Don't give one of the most prestigious belts in wrestling history to CM Punk and Rey Mysterio and you won't have a problem with its prestige. This belt has been held by Ric Flair and Triple H and Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. Don't spit on it by making it look like a bitch title. It should be on the same level as the WWE title. Right now it is but that level is pretty low.

ECW Championship: Is it really silver?? Really? The old ECW belt was very prestigious. But when Chavo and Morrison had it it screamed midcard belt. Swagger same thing. Make your Rey Mysterios and your CM Punks go for this belt. ECW was always about the little guy. These are little guys. Also treat it like a World Championship. Have the ECW title match as one of the last on the card. No competing for shots at other World titles. Also having the RR or MITB winner cash in on the ECW champion even one time would make the belt look better. Also change it back Silver is an ugly color. More extreme matches would be nice as well.

Intercontinental Championship/US Championship: They go together. Both are very prestigious and used to be thought of in the regard almost as good as the World Champion. The Intercontinental/US champ used to be the no.1 contendor. Now the title is a joke. More ppv defenses specifically WM and feuds over the title not just personal feuds with the title as an accessory would help.

Tag Team Championship: Just make more tag teams. With all the deadweight thats doing nothing WWE could make some awesome tag teams. Yet Vince wants to push away the tag team division. Miz & Morrison are single handedly carrying that thing right now.

Divas/Womens Championship: There is no point in having two. Cut your losses and unify the belts. Have the Women's title stay though as that gaudy Divas title is just plain awful.

 

[GameOver]

pretty easy generic solutions for the all titles

All Titles - Don't have title changes every month
All Titles - Title matches that don't all end in suss endings/DQ's/Run-ins etc.
All Titles - Storylines that last beyond a few matches title defence.
World/WWE - Don't just give titles to someone just to try someone out
World/WWE - Drop the constant i'm married to the GM crap
IC/US - Defend the titles on a regular basis not once a yr.
IC/US - is meant to be not quite main-eventers. # 1 contender short of who the champ was feuding with at the time and in general displayed the better wrestling matches. That worked
Tag - drop the brand tag champs when there's only 4 teams total anyway

 

[WrestlingHistorian]

How to make a title honored and credible........

Put it on a wrestler who DESERVES it and leave it on him for a as long as possible, by doing so you are making the title "eluvise", which means hard to get which would make people want it more. You cant put it on everyone, you need to space out your World Champions so the belt looks like it's an honor only given to the best in the world, you just cant have 12 former World Champions running around, it waters down the product and the champions don't seem so "larger than life" if everyone has been champion.

This can be debated all day and all night, but todays champion are NOT what they used to be and in my opinion true champions ended circa 1996 or so in favor of turning the titles into a prop.

 

[JohnnyTheAlphaMale]

I always thought that 2/3 world titles etc never made sense. How could there be 2/3 world champions there is only 1 world. It would make more sense to call the titles RAW, Smackdown, and ECW champions. They are basically TV show titles.

How to fix the problem:

World and WWE Titles: 1 title to rule them all! Have a world championship unification match and have 1 world title. Has to be winged or the World title version as these are the ones that scream prestige. The champ will visit all three shows and in turn create more prestige for the title itself, the champion, and the "entertainers" challengeing for it. They are so close to doing this with the tag titles and it currently works having the great Miz and Morrison on all three shows. I personally would choose the Undertaker. He has been a maineventer for the longest, garners the most respect, and has seen it all. Hogan, Warrior, Bret, Shawn, Austin, Rock, Trips, Angle, Lesnar, Batista, Cena, seen them all and is still kicking ass. Who ever beats him (Edge!) truly is the man!

World Tag Titles: Same as now, Miz and Morrison as champs.

I.C, U.S, ECW: Firstly, the ECW title has to be gold. Gold is first place and if I have to hear Todd say: "Swagger has the gold now" or words to that effect I will be forced to buy him new glasses. These should be the "TV /workrate titles". Should be defended in the main event more often than not and each respective champ should be treated as "the man" of the brand, regardless of his size. Can you imagine the IC champ winning a number 1 contenders match and then moving on to challenge the worlds champ on PPV. It would be awsome. Can you smell it, no, thats not the Rock cooking, thats prestige my friend!

Womens Title: Beth Phoniex with the goal of getting the belt on Natty eventually for a great fued.

This whole situation would create very intersting dynamics as e.g Beth has Santino on Raw and no friends on Smackdown and ECW. She is much safer on Raw and could even compllian on other shows about her treatment. Have a new male interest on Smackdown and make Santino jealous etc

We would have a "traveling" , "real" champ like the NWA and the "entertainers" picked as the champs would become fantastic workers, representatives and their great character develpment would be fantastic.

 

[TwistofRKO]

It's pretty simple, and it's been covered already. You put the belt on people you have plans for, or at least have prestige. ECW looked okay with Lashley and Kane. The I.C. belt looked great when Chris Jericho had it. You had Hardy and Johnny Nitro and Umaga going after it, then Kofi won it, then it took a big hit by letting Santino hold it. Regardless of how funny he is, it's a mockery to the belt.

You put the belt on deserving champions. Probably a right step giving it to CM Punk, but he should lose it to nobody beneath his level.

 

["Cool Guy" Jensen]

In my opinion, the E.C.W. Championship was fine until Vince McMahon held it. Even the E.C.W. Originals knew that the title would lose all its prestige, Tommy Dreamer, Sabu, Rob Van Dam, and Sandman all felt complete disgust by Vince's title win. Out of all the people who held the title after Vince lost it, the only people who could have added prestige to the belt was Kane and Matt Hardy, and as we look back at their title reigns, they didn't quite get the job done. More fueds over the title will add more than enough prestige back to the belt, always having one-on-one matches for a championship will make a title lose some credibility. Having Jack Swagger as the champ is a good idea as long as he fueds with more than one person (Christian, Finlay, Evan Bourne, Mark Henry, and Boogeyman could all fued over the title). Having more people fighting for the title will make the title seem like it's more prestigous, as everyone is vying to get their hands on it.

Having C.M. Punk as the Intercontinental Champion should be exactly what the title needs. A champion who can battle anyone. But, WWE is not allowing Punk to defend his title much, when there are plenty of people he could fued with, including Kane, Charlie Haas, Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston, or Rey Mysterio. I don't know if any of them would be money-making fueds, but having all of them competing for the title will help a lot. Same with the U.S. Championship... Shelton Benjamin, in his 8-month title reign should have defended the title plenty of times, but he hasn't. If he defends against people like The Brian Kendrick, Chavo, Festus, Great Khali, Hurricane Helms, M.V.P., Kennedy, or R-Truth.

 

[ThePeoplesChampion]

You give the belts to credible people.....believe santino is hilarous but he should of never held the title......cm punk is the perfect holder but he needs to defend it against rey, kofi, morrison, kane......regal we already seen....and if there was just the ic title and no us title it would help too make it defended on all three shows that would bring that up.....now the world and wwe titles hell throw in the ecw one too....unify them.....take the brand thing down instant crediblity cause the champ is the best not third or second....and have longer title runs...not the one month stuff its old now

 

[kiwis473]

Don't have as many titles, that way we can remember them all.

its hardly prestigious to win a title when half the roster has one.

 

[EVAN BOURNE=WWE Ledgend]

To make them prestegious there are 2 things that need to be done.

The other titles need to be defended at ppv events more regularily. Its been about 7 months since the USA title was last defended on a ppv. Since they aren't on ppv's people don't care about them and consider them lower card titles.

Another thing that needs to occur is to have more respected champions and more competition in these division. The ic champ is the only title following this currently. THere needs to be #1 contenders and divisions. with the tag titles, they need to be unified, so that there are more tag teams fighting for 1 title. THis makes the championship more rare and sought out. With the women, they also need to unify the diva and womens championship. Have the divas all compete for 1 title, which makes the one title more important. Lastly, they need more competitive and talented womans wrestlers, which will make the division like tna's knockout one!​

 

[TheGreatSPAMbino]

They actually need to create storylines revolving around the IC and US titles like they used to, create a way to people interested in these title matches and have the storylines and rivalries culminate on pay per view. Like its simple booking why the fuck cant they figure this out. Just throwing the belt on a big name doesnt make it better because that doesnt neccesarily create interest in the belt itself. Like when Chris Jericho had the IC title last year it didnt make the IC seem better at all cuz Jericho was rarely involved with it and he completely overshadowed it. Having a guy like Santino win the IC title doesnt neccesarily take away from it because people are interested to see where the storyline is going. God i remeber when there would be epic feuds and storylines revolving aorund the IC title and i still wish it were like that today. Some of these IC title rivalries actually carrie dover to the main event scene which is something that would never happen today. Rock and Austin are an example of this.

Also, there are just too many belts floating around some need to be unified in order to cut down on the number which will help them narrow their focus.

 

[My$terio_Fan]

I think by promoting the titles and building good storylines around the titles. Building up storylines around feuds that involve the title makes the title seem more prestige I think. Having random feuds for the sake of having the title defended or having feuds where the title doesn't even come into play devalues the title.

Take Punk for an example. He had a semi-feud with Regal over the IC title and now he's in the MITB match and the title seems non-existent. The same thing happened when Jericho and Hardy(his last run)had the belt. They feuded with people not even for the title and the title was obviously just for show. Half the time they weren't even built as IC champion or even carried the title, and this devalues the title and makes them seem useless.

But really people would bitch and complain no matter what the WWE did. Alot of people bitched and complain when Cena and others hold the title for a long time, saying that it makes the title seem worthless, but then people bitch about short reigns saying the same thing. Nothing is going to make people happy, so I don't know if the belts will ever seem "prestiges" again in some eyes.

 

[GameOver]

Taker as champion is gold for us fans, but unfortunately Vince in his infinate wisdom classifies Taker in the looks better chasing the title group.

Plus he's too crippled to work several days a week on a regular basis.

as for Womens championship, well noone really cares about that. but true that should be unified too. Diva title sais it all (we aren't wrestlers we are just eye candy so don't expect anything) and with the PG rating there's gonna be less eye candy soon ya'd think.

Natty hasn't wrestled since Victoria retired has she? she's a vallet on ECW. WHATS UP WITH THAT?

 

[Arrynboot]

Heavyweight
Intercontinental
Tag team
Cruiserweight
Womens

That's all the belts we need, have everyone questing after only 5 belts and then you get prestige, I only add cruiserweight in because people like Jamie Noble, Evan Bourne, Brian Kendrik etc. Need to showcase their talent and none of them are heavyweights

 

[Azamuth]

Well, if you want the IC or US title to become legit again you need to defend it at EVERY PPV. Besides that, the wrestler who holds it should be someone who you plan to push or someone who is a complete babyface or heel that can be used as a stepping stone for the individual you want to push. This way, the belt becomes more of a prize when won. The only other way is to have a main eventer hold the title after a bunch of successful defenses to get the crowd behind him or to hate him.

Now, I remember when Shane Douglas won the ECW TV title, he didnt give a damn about the belt. He used to drag it to the ring and toss it in the ring. I am not sure but I think he used to forget to pick it up after a match a couple of times. However, when someone almost beat him for the belt he went on a rant about how it was his belt and held it for a year after reclaiming it. After dropping the belt he went on to win the Heavyweight title. That was the most recent memory of a mid card title that made me care for the belt.

 

[SuperSwanton]

You say that the WWE and WH titles are fine, and that's because they are recognized as the top titles on their respective brands, but they are changing hands so frequently and for no particular reason that it doesn't spark much interest. This is where a plus side of individual PPVs comes in. They announce their matches with what... 2-3 weeks until the next PPV?(not including the rumble set ups and such.) They seem to make things personal every time, but ending the feud after about 1-2 PPV's and having defenses in both of those matches makes these frequent storylines blurred memories, thus sparking less interest.

Bottom line: Make us care more why the superstars are fighting for the title, and give them legitimate feuds to work with instead of random defenses here an there.

 

[GameOver]

The thing though is what they supposedly care about, is nothing else other than being a champion. Big Pay Day and Braggin rights, it's got nothing to do with i'm fighting this guy cause he bitch slapped my wife and he just happens to be a champ

The personal part is merely a way to further set agression levels towards each other to build up the physicality that will take place, however in most cases after a few PPV's suddenly there's no fued anymore.

Now in the old days fueds lasted for yrs, but in those days there was only PPV's every 3 months so they had plenty of time to space out the interactions.

And during the Attitude era there was really only a 6 guys going for the top spot and they were always in each others face. Easy set up in other words.

Best bet defend the title and have clean finishes most of the time, even if it means a heal gets over a face and not title changes every month.