Is it really necessary for guys like Cena and HHH to have well over 10 world titles?

[Creepy Old Man]

Sure, it's not the 1970s, and you see these guys all the time. But is it really necessary for Cena to have 15 titles? Triple H and Orton to have 13? Edge to have 11?

Pay-per-views went monthly in 1995, and Raw had been weekly since 1993. Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker lived through that era into the 2010s and have four and seven world titles respectively; they are both widely argued as the single greatest professional wrestler in history.

I don't get why the title has to be thrown around like it is. I remember in 1997 when Bret Hart had an incredible five world titles. Now Cena has fifteen. It's just horrible and makes the title look like tacky sh!t.

 

[Mudlup50]

I agree 100%. I miss long title reigns, but at the same point you can't put the title on someone who's not ready for 4-5 months at a time

 

[Reflection]

Yes, definitely. The first criteria that comes to mind when we think of a legendary wrestler or best wrestler of an era is how many world titles he has won. If everyone had 6 or 7 world titles, then the difference between them would only be our subjective opinions about their qualities, and not their accomplishments. In the kayfabe world of pro wrestling, world championships are the determinants of how big a superstar you are. There are some exceptions, but generally the more you have of that, the bigger you are. Its as simple as that.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Generally speaking, the title isn't being thrown around like it one was. A few years ago, it wasn't at all unusual for the title to change hands, 6, 7 or even 8 times over the course of the year. Since January of last year, there've been four guys who've held the title: The Rock, John Cena, Randy Orton & Daniel Bryan. Had Bryan not gotten injured, he'd have the title until, at the very least, SummerSlam.

Was it really necessary for WWE to play hot potato all these years? I don't see how but, again, I was another adaptation they adopted to remain on equal footing during the Monday Night Wars. WCW had a faster pace in their matches and WWE had to follow suit, titles changed hands on an almost monthly basis in WCW so WWE followed suit. I don't think it was at all necessary, but Vince did and it's only been within the past 12 months that we've seen WWE make real progress in moving away from that sort of strategy when it comes to all the titles. A few guys have had shorter than expected runs due to injury and some runs didn't really need to happen at all, such as the New Age Outlaws having one last run.

However, in all honesty, playing hot potato with the titles is nothing new in wrestling. Go to wrestlingtitles.com and it has a comprehensive listing of just about every relevant wrestling championship in history, including lists of champs, when they won it, where they won it, how long they held it and who they dropped it to. Nearly every NWA title fro every territory is listed and they changed hands extremely often. When it comes to champions having extremely long runs, that didn't happen the vast majority of the time. During the 60s, 70s, & 80s, there'd be a comparatively small number of titles that changed hands only 2 or 3 times a year.

 

[OmniSavant]

Yes, it is necessary when you have a dearth of stars and star power, "old" guys like Cena have to step up and keep WWE alive. That's why Cena is the Champion. It's WWE's fault really, they don't know how to build Superstars.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

The thing about Cena and Orton's numbers of World titles held is they're spread out over two distinct belts from a single promotion that are both being called World titles...that is a bit of cheating, IMO, particularly since there's rarely been a time that both titles were considered on par with one another. The importance of one has always overshadowed the other. However, whenever the lagging belt needed to be given a boost, it was always given to guys like Orton, Edge or even Cena in this last run of the Big Gold Belt.

I think you're going to see more high number title reigns as time goes on in part because there's only one real promotion in town anymore, and they've got to highlight a lot of guys. I've little doubt that Wyatt, Reigns, Ambrose, and Rollins will all probably get their chance to hold the belt in the coming years, and if any of them are truly breakout stars, they may get to hold it multiple times. If anything tempers it, it'll be that supposedly Triple H is pushing for longer individual reigns.

 

[123NewChamp]

Honestly no. But folks mainly look at and put pride on the number of reigns vs the longevity of the reign. In a sport like wrestling, How many reigns you win is not as important as teams winning NBA Titles. For Example: The Lakers and Celtics franchises had won over 10 NBA Titles a piece. Bill Russell was an 11 time NBA Champion. Now that's something to be proud of and brag about. But when you a 15 time Champion, you need to be reminded that Cena lost that belt 14 times. To me what makes a great champion is someone who can hold and successfully defend a title hanging on to it months and years at a time, not the number of times you become champion. That's not a championship look for WWE. The only reason these folk are 14 and 15 time champs is either to establish the stars as the face of the company or to sale merchandise and draw the company money. But it don't take that many reigns. A good 3-5 reigns.

 

[thc1967]

"Transitional champion". If you're going to put the strap on a heel, you need to have it on a face to get it there.

Also, the championship is just an element of story-telling. It doesn't mean the person holding it is the best wrestler or talker or anything of the sort. It means that the person holding it is holding it to advance the story. That's it.

In that regard, it's brilliant to put it on Cena because people will pay to see him lose it.

 

[GOOZEKING]

Honestly it doesn't matter to me how many times a person can hold the title.... Hell they could have only made cena a 2 time champ and he would still be consider one of all time great. What matters to me is the journey to the title and their reign. If someone has at least 1 significant fued or moment with the title in my book that makes you a great.

 

[theblasterkid]

"Transitional champion". If you're going to put the strap on a heel, you need to have it on a face to get it there.

Also, the championship is just an element of story-telling. It doesn't mean the person holding it is the best wrestler or talker or anything of the sort. It means that the person holding it is holding it to advance the story. That's it.

In that regard, it's brilliant to put it on Cena because people will pay to see him lose it.

You just gave me another perspective on this topic because I never thought about it that way. It may be why WWE used him as a transitional champion so many times as well. In my opinion, I think that the WWE trolls what call the "IWC". When you listen to Triple H's promo he says many things that a lot of people say on the Internet about the WWE and himself.

 

[TM Punk]

Honestly, if you really think about it you can contribute the amount of title reigns of the characters in question to one thing, longevity. The list of double digit champions isn't a lonh one: Flair, Hogan, HHH, Orton, Edge (?), and Cena. If I'm missing anyone please correct me. Bret Hart was a 5 time champion not because the title didn't change hands, but because his run lasted 4 years. During which he was never legitimately thought of as THE guy. I know it's hard to digest, but Cena's run on top is going on 10 years. Of that time hhh was the 2nd or 1.a babyface, and Orton and Edge were the top 2 heels. I don't think it is because of anything out of the ordinary. These 4 guys carried 2 shows for the better part of a decade. They had really good feuds, and whether they're liked or not tjey deserve every championship they won. I blame it on these guys being really good (even Cena) for a really long time. And up until recently, they have been head and shoulders above everyone in the company. These guys are the Hogan, Flair, Harley Race, and Dusty Rhodes of our generation. Punk and Bryan are Bret Hart.

 

[Trill Co$by]

Yes... yes it is necessary, because if they didn't then you would bitch and moan about them not putting anybody over. And don't say that wouldn't happen, because Cena barely touched the title at all over the past few years and as soon as he won it, people were already clambering on and on about how it's the same main event. Giving people more reigns gives more faces with the title. You can say it devalues the title, but in the Attitude Era the title frequently changed hands on a Monday Night Raw and people still clamber on and on about that being the best Era ever (though it really isn't).

 

[Pedigree1]

Given since last Jan like JH said,only four guys have held the Strap! The Rock,Cena,Orton,Daniel Bryan. Had DB not been injured which sucks balls BTW,he likely would be champion till IMO survivor series at the earliest.. Playing hot potato with titles is nothing new,at all.. It happened quite a bit in wrestling history,given Ric Flairs 16 reigns,at least 4 of those reigns were the Hot potato variety..

True we are in the old days,where titles only changed hands if that 2 or 3 times a year max.. yes of course i long for those days,but if the business calls for it then so be it.. Remember the Monday Night wars? WCW played Tag with the titles,so WWF then,had to keep up.. As far as Cena 15 title reigns goes,yes its necessary!! Any athlete is always compared to how many titles they have won..

But getting Cena to 16 which will happen before the summer is Out IMO,and he will break Flairs record at the NOC,which coincidentally is the 6 month subscription of the network runs out!

 

[d_henderson1810]

Generally speaking, the title isn't being thrown around like it one was. A few years ago, it wasn't at all unusual for the title to change hands, 6, 7 or even 8 times over the course of the year. Since January of last year, there've been four guys who've held the title: The Rock, John Cena, Randy Orton & Daniel Bryan. Had Bryan not gotten injured, he'd have the title until, at the very least, SummerSlam.

Was it really necessary for WWE to play hot potato all these years? I don't see how but, again, I was another adaptation they adopted to remain on equal footing during the Monday Night Wars. WCW had a faster pace in their matches and WWE had to follow suit, titles changed hands on an almost monthly basis in WCW so WWE followed suit. I don't think it was at all necessary, but Vince did and it's only been within the past 12 months that we've seen WWE make real progress in moving away from that sort of strategy when it comes to all the titles. A few guys have had shorter than expected runs due to injury and some runs didn't really need to happen at all, such as the New Age Outlaws having one last run.

However, in all honesty, playing hot potato with the titles is nothing new in wrestling. Go to wrestlingtitles.com and it has a comprehensive listing of just about every relevant wrestling championship in history, including lists of champs, when they won it, where they won it, how long they held it and who they dropped it to. Nearly every NWA title fro every territory is listed and they changed hands extremely often. When it comes to champions having extremely long runs, that didn't happen the vast majority of the time. During the 60s, 70s, & 80s, there'd be a comparatively small number of titles that changed hands only 2 or 3 times a year.

You mention 4 champions, but what strengthens your point even more is that there have only been five champions since late 2011- the four you mentioned, plus C.M. Punk, who held the title for 14 months.

How many title runs you have doesn't necessarily mean that you are a better champion. As pointed out one time by RVD to Ric Flair, when they were feuding in 2002.

Ric Flair:- "I am a 16 time World Champion".
RVD:- "Wow! So you lost the World Title sixteen times, then?"

More title reigns means more defeats in order to lose those titles.

Hulk Hogan holding the title for three years straight, or Bruno for six years means more than someone holding it fifteen times.

Do you know that every women's and divas champion combined, hasn't held the title as long as the Fabulous Moolah's 28-year title reign?

 

[gaggletop]

Yes, it is. The reasoning is vince picks a horse and rides him til he retires. He did it with Hogan, Sammartino, Backlund, Hart, Michaels (first time) Austin, Rock, and now Cena. When any of those guys were in their prime, they were the face the entire time. If Cena was in the 80's he would have been a 1 time champ for 6 years. It is a lot more interesting to see the title change hands now as opposed to before when guys held it for 8 years, 5 years, 3 years, etc. However, at the end of the day, Cena is his current horse and Orton is his number 2 horse. Just like he has always done, Vince will keep his prized horse in the show until they are too old to run. He just has a new method of showing them now.

You always know the people that post this stuff grew up in the attitude era or later, because the golden era and before would have bored them to death. Imagine an 8 year title reign followed by a 5 year, followed by a 3 year. Then it would be "Why can't somebody else be champion?" Hulkamania never would happen today because people would say "Quit shoving Hogan down our throats". The reason wrestling is huge today is Hulkamania, therefore today's fans would have killed wrestling if they lived back then. Think about it.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

You always know the people that post this stuff grew up in the attitude era or later, because the golden era and before would have bored them to death. Imagine an 8 year title reign followed by a 5 year, followed by a 3 year. Then it would be "Why can't somebody else be champion?" Hulkamania never would happen today because people would say "Quit shoving Hogan down our throats". The reason wrestling is huge today is Hulkamania, therefore today's fans would have killed wrestling if they lived back then. Think about it.

I grew up back in the Hulkamania era, and when it started, there was one major wrestling event a year -- WrestleMania. (Actually, more if you watched the NWA, but keep things WWE for now). Many feuds would last the course of several months, and the marquee feuds would last til WM, or maybe, Saturday Night's Main Event.

You have to take account for time compression that happens in today's wrestling because of RAW and 12 PPVs a year. Hulk Hogan could have a feud with Paul Orndorff that would last for 9-10 months. Today, that would occupy only 3 months of time.

 

[gaggletop]

I grew up back in the Hulkamania era, and when it started, there was one major wrestling event a year -- WrestleMania. (Actually, more if you watched the NWA, but keep things WWE for now). Many feuds would last the course of several months, and the marquee feuds would last til WM, or maybe, Saturday Night's Main Event.

You have to take account for time compression that happens in today's wrestling because of RAW and 12 PPVs a year. Hulk Hogan could have a feud with Paul Orndorff that would last for 9-10 months. Today, that would occupy only 3 months of time.

You are correct, and thats part of my point. The business has changed. Hogan and savaged fueded for a year before they fought. That happened 1 time in recent times and it was rock/cena and people complained about the long build. Times change, and 12 ppvs a year means 12 title defenses a year minimum when there is a legit chance to change hands of the title. That means either give everybody a turn as champ or you are going to have multi-time champs. Now that the titles are unified they number of reigns from here on out will be halved until they split up again.

The alternative would be long reigns. If cena is super cena now having lost a championship on 15 occassions, how super would he be undefeated for a 5 year reign. Either way, when vince has a face, he keeps said face until they are of no longer any use.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The genie is well and truly out the bottle but I think they will be careful from here on out. The positive is that the guys close to Flair's record are all guys who don't "need" more reigns. Cena could easily stay at 15 for a long time, Orton can stay at 11 and Trips defo won't get it again now. As the plan is for new guys to hold it they can be more picky and those like Edge or Taker with higher numbers of reigns won't be adding to them.

Time compression does matter but the reality is that they locked into "the conveyor system" after Savage and never got out of it. This is a mindset that has damaged a lot of careers and let to these large numbers of reigns. If you don't win the World within 2 years of your first IC, you are generally a failure and not "main event". It's led to a lot of guys getting World titles who had no business ever having one at all and a lot of talent who could have being overlooked. There was no reason for Matt Hardy not to get a WWE title reign other than others were ahead on the conveyor belt, they couldn't pick every single one so some get missed... Barrett is likely to suffer the same fate.

Time compression works in reverse also for the time for a guy to win that first title... its still as above but now if someone isn't main eventing within 2 years OF BEING ON THE ROSTER AT ALL. They are failing... Bret was on the roster for 8 years before he won the World title, Shawn was there for 7... Mark Henry was on the roster for nearly 15 years before he got the title! How many guys would EVER get that kind of chance? None, never again (unless they gave Dustin a brief reign as a reward) cos they can't invest that kind of time... they can't invest 3 years now...cos there's a conveyor belt of new faces to try from NXT...

Reigns seemingly will do it in two and a half, about the same time Cena, Orton and Batista did...way too soon, he will bomb and they all will until they realise that it's quality... Bray Wyatt would be better not holding the belt for 8 years until the right time came rather than a rushed reign now that kills it... Taker got an aborted title run of 3 days and didn't win it for another 6 years... Kane had a long break too... both benefitted from not having the belt for that time but nearly got destroyed cos they got it too soon... Diesel definitely got destroyed by it...same for Yoko, Brock and everyone else they have "pushed to the moon".

The upshot of it all is, anyone any good will get multiple reigns, short while the company changes it's mind and the belt will become more diminished.

 

[wwesux]

I rather see Randy Orton win the title a few more times than john semen Orton is a technical wrestler and not a 5 move paper champion like semen

 

[FlairFan2003]

Yes, it is necessary when you have a dearth of stars and star power, "old" guys like Cena have to step up and keep WWE alive. That's why Cena is the Champion. It's WWE's fault really, they don't know how to build Superstars.

Funny thing is WWE doesn't build Super Stars...they build themselves, always have. Do you think for one minute that Jim Neidhardt had the ability to do what Brett Hart did ??? There is a long list of blond muscle heads in the annals of wrestling, yet none of them ever reached the heights of Hulk Hogan....Shawn Michaels & HHH have had great careers copying from Ric Flair, yet it didn't work out nearly as well for Buddy Landell....

Its true there haven't been a lot of big time Super Stars produced recently outside of Randy Orton (Batista but he quit for Hollywood, maybe Lesnar but he quit too). That has less to do with WWE's ability as it does with the lack of talent out there right now.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Time compression does matter but the reality is that they locked into "the conveyor system" after Savage and never got out of it. This is a mindset that has damaged a lot of careers and let to these large numbers of reigns. If you don't win the World within 2 years of your first IC, you are generally a failure and not "main event". It's led to a lot of guys getting World titles who had no business ever having one at all and a lot of talent who could have being overlooked. There was no reason for Matt Hardy not to get a WWE title reign other than others were ahead on the conveyor belt, they couldn't pick every single one so some get missed... Barrett is likely to suffer the same fate.

Time compression works in reverse also for the time for a guy to win that first title... its still as above but now if someone isn't main eventing within 2 years OF BEING ON THE ROSTER AT ALL. They are failing... Bret was on the roster for 8 years before he won the World title, Shawn was there for 7... Mark Henry was on the roster for nearly 15 years before he got the title! How many guys would EVER get that kind of chance? None, never again (unless they gave Dustin a brief reign as a reward) cos they can't invest that kind of time... they can't invest 3 years now...cos there's a conveyor belt of new faces to try from NXT...

.

The business in terms of storyline development moves way faster now than it did years ago due to the monthly production of PPV events and need to fill main event caliber matches on live TV every Monday. In 1987 for instance Flair was champ almost all year except a two month window from late Sept to late Nov. He took no significant time off, wrestled in the neighborhood of 250 matches, yet how many actual feuds did he have ? Nikita Kolloff was a carryover from 1986 (Oct 86-Feb 87), Barry Whyndham (late Jan 87-April 87), Jimmy Garvin (May 87-July 87) and Ron Garvin (Aug 87-Dec 87). There were occasional matches against the likes of Dusty Rhodes and Ricky Morton, older feuds from previous years, but he essentially was the No. 1 guy for an entire year and had only 4 opponents, one of them a hold over from the previous year. Today the champ can have 4 opponents in just 6 months, maybe 7 depending on time of year (stories move faster in non peak times away from mega events like S-Slam, S-Series, etc). With that titles are going to change hands faster because the stories are progressing faster. How many fans were upset after the 2nd Cena-Wyatt PPV encounter saying they wrestled twice, Cena won, move on ?

The old WWE was very similar, with a "Title by attrition" approach rewarding those who had been good soldiers and popular with runs whenever Hogan wanted time off. Again, things moved slower back then so they got longer runs during Hogan's sabbaticals. Its just the evolution of the business from a media presentation side. The reason Hart waited so long for a title run was when Hogan was taking time off in 1988 & 1990 he was a tag team wrestler and not a viable singles star, unlike Savage or Warrior (or Slaughter for that matter). Hart kind of lucked into the title when Warrior injured Flair and got fired, right after Savage took himself off the road. He proved his worth moving forward however. HBK wasn't even as big as Hart for most of his time in WWE, a mid card tag team at best (compared to The Hart Foundation, alongside The Road Warriors, British Bulldogs, Midnight Express, and Rock & Roll Express as the most popular teams of the era) and his singles run started 2-3 years after Hart's did. He simply wasn't ready. However Yokozuna & Kevin Nash got title runs very early in there careers in WWE back at that time, as did Steve Austin (though Austin had been a major star for a decade, he was in his Stone Cold act in WWE only 2 years before winning the title). Therefore the idea of giving new guys the ball and letting them run isn't something new in WWE.

As for NXT, they don't get nearly as much talent from there as they were getting in the 80s and 90s from WCW, AWA, ECW, World Class, & UWF. WWE & Vince McMahon routinely pillaged other established company's talent on a regular basis in the 80s & 90s for a constant turnover in their roster. Starting from the early 80s and into the mid 90s just look at WWE's stable of stars ...Roddy Piper (NWA), Hogan (AWA), Flair (NWA), Ultimate Warror (UWF), Savage (Mid South area, worked for his father's promotion), Ted DiBiase (Mid South), Rick Rude (NWA & World Class), Jake Roberts (part of Paul Ellering's stable in the NWA), Road Warriors (AWA & NWA), Kevin Nash (WCW), HBK (AWA), Scott Hall (AWA & WCW), HHH (WCW), Undertaker (WCW), Sid Justice (Mid South & WCW), Jerry Lawler (Mid South), Jeff Jarrett (Mid South), Steve Williams (Mid South/UWF/NWA), Austin (Mid South & WCW), Mike Rotunda (Florida/NWA), Boss Man (NWA), the list goes on. NXT doesn't contribute near as much to roster turnover or the desire to move guys quicker into title contention as the McMahon's pillaging of rival promotions used to.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

It is professional wrestling. It is not necessary and therefore anything that happens during it is not necessary. But I will say this, if we are going to casually throw around the word 'necessary' then I will say that all of Cena's, HHH's, and Orton's title wins and reigns were a billion more times more 'necessary' than anything Ziggler or Swagger did around the belt.

 

[Sundar]

Cena deserves it. Nobody else, not even Hulk Hogan has been the face of the company for as long as Cena has. HHH and Orton, not so much. I think HHH was given so many title runs simply because of who he was and to somehow project him as a legend belonging to the same class as guys like HBK, which he isn't and Orton was given so many runs simply because HHH liked him.

 

[BadGuy]

Cena deserves it. really?
Cena shouldn't be a face of this organization and he is/was worse than HHH.He won some tittles because of his gimmick,which was/is great for kids and it gives them many money.

HHH is in McMahon familly so he was pushed many time during his career.

WWE rely on the same rights as real life:connections,luck..........

 

[Mudlup50]

So BadGuy you're trying to tell me Cena doesn't deserve it when every single person has an opinion on him, he is the most over superstar and he deserves the success he has gotten based on that alone. Let alone he breathes the WWE and has committed 100% to the company for a decade