the 90s did not have much less main event talent than they do now; over the period the significant top guys were Undertaker, HBK, Bret Hart (not past 97) Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H (99+), Mick Foley
Yet if you count the amount of members active today in a main event scene with the amount of people able to properly contend for a world title, the numbers are still bigger.
Yes it was basically three of them for 99 with one or two other reigns. But it was basically three people for the whole of 2009 with the WWE title.....and that is with the brand extension, not much difference there. And besides that was only one year. And even if it had been over 10 years, it doesn't HAVE to be like that again, they could easily make it different.
Yes it's 3 people for the WWE championship during that period, but there were 5 different people contending for the World Heavyweight Championship during 2009, and yes I know perfectly well that John Cena was one of them, so putting the names together to those who were actually contending for it as a total, that would make for 7 people, over 2 titles, and that's double the amount of people that contended for the WWE championship in 99.
Seriously, you don't need to pick at every detail. My mistake, but he will be 40 in 5 months, good as. I didn't say HHH and Jericho didn't have years left in them, I said they DO, jeez. If you look I said in a few years, and in a few years HHH and Jericho will be 43 so their retirement will be nearing. And Batista we know will be going soon, so a spot in the main event will be open and Undertaker isn't far off either, there's another spot.
My apologies if you consider it "offensive" or "annoying" to have me picking at every single detail, I try to put forth a proper argument for my opinion, just like everybody else.
And that's very true, you did very well say a few years, but it still means that you expect them to be cleaning out the world championship scene in a few years, and therefore it would mean that in a few year's you'd consider it acceptable to have one championship, the only problem is that in a few years, those people will have been replaced.
So? They were still over, if WWE had chose to they could have turned them into singles competitors, but they were so popular as a tag team they kept them together for a while. Owen Hart could have been a solid main eventer, he was over, a fantastic wrestler and considered by most to be underrated. Same goes for Guerrero and Benoit, they were good enough to be main eventers anyway.
Owen Hart could've been a decent main eventer, but as I said, he would've only graced the championship I believe.
Edge and Christian, great talents as well, but I hardly believe at that point they had the proper drawing power or position in the company to deserve or to make worth of being in the world title picture, either way they were kept around the tag team championships, innovating the tag team division.
You didn't actually mention 98 - 99 specifically in that particular paragraph, I was trying to work out what time you were referring to as you only made a short mention of 99 which was only referring to one thing. Besides, you're wrong, Undertaker did hole the title in 99 and Shawn Michaels held it in 98, remember he lost it to Stone Cold at Wrestlemania before he retired for 4 years. The reigns were due to shock television mostly, not to establish talent.
Very well, and you're more than welcome to try and find depth into my posts, as well as any other is to yours, or mine.
Indeed Undertaker did, I must've overlooked that one, thanks for pointing it out, but it was still very short reign.
Shawn Michaels held it very briefly in 98 and didn't gain the championship during that time, therefore I consider the reign as a part of 97, but it just puts a shorter time for all the 17 championship reigns to have been changing hands, from Wrestlemania 14 to championship change for Triple H's 3rd world title January 3rd 2000, which is not counted as one of the 17 championship title changes.
I don't understand how you say they only had a few guys on top in the 90s and then you contradict yourself by saying they were trying to push other guys on top.
What I ment with establishing "new guys" were due to the fact that they were trying to establish The Rock and Stone Cold as strong champions with a lot of reigns, thereby putting focus on the whole shock television that they coughed up with a lot during the Attitude Era, many title changes.
And of course people would not like Cena to hold the title for more than 10 months, but I never said the longer reigns had to be like they were in the 80s.
You said a mixture of them could work, seeing as the world title averagely was held between 1 - 2 years every time the title changed hands during the 80's (with the exception of transactional champion The Iron Sheik) with the mix of championship reigns that lasted 1-2 months averagely, sometimes less (The Rock, Mankind, Kane, Triple H and Vince McMahon all had at least one championship that lasted under 4 weeks, Mankind actually had 2 that lasted below that) you'd automatically assume the mixture of that would be around 7-12 months time, at least I would.
You seem to exagerrate most things I say; I didn't say EVERY SINGLE reign had to be long, that would get predictable and boring. They don't even have looads of main event talent like you are making out.
Exactly, not every single reign has to be long, but it's quite obvious that the WWE won't be having many long title reigns as of late, not surpassing the 200 days mark, which the WWE championship hasn't done since Triple H's reign in 2008.
For the love of god, I acknowledged the whole Bret Hart/Triple H thing specifically because I knew you would say all that. Yet you said it anyway, practically repeating what I said. I also explained that Bret being there for the first half and HHH being there for the 2nd half added up to one constant; I did also say that HHH didn't become a main eventer straight after Bret left, but those guys combined were there for most of the 90s.
Not really no, they weren't, seeing as there was the 2 year gap that I mentioned, a year where Triple H indeed wasn't there, so the two of them combined wasn't there for the most of the 90's, now had you said Stone Cold instead, that would've been decent, but he's already one of the 4 consistent champions through the final 2 years of the 90's
Are you kidding? Why would they cut talent that draws rather than cut talent that isn't going anywhere? It would be increadibly stupid to do so. WWE can afford to have loads of talent now because they have tons of money, but they could easily get rid of a lot of them who won't ever be significant.
Because in order to not make the main event scene such a clusterfuck, cuts would have to be made somewhere I'd figure, and that is why we continue to have 2 world championships, 2 championships also draw money because it's two exciting feuds over a world championship, another reason to also continue to have 2 rosters on two different shows (hint hint to the Merge the roster thread) which would be yet another loss of money from the crowds that shows up on house shows.
You worry way too much about "clusterfucking" the title scene, but really it would not do that, as I've said there are plenty of easy ways to avoid that such as the Intercontinental title, Tag Team titles and non title feuds.
Yes indeed I do, because I don't want to see a giant, well you said it yourself, I'll say it again: Clusterfuck.
And giving the Intercontinental championship to a main event contender that isn't Chris Jericho (who's really just a upper mid-carder ready to step up when needed) would be absolutely ridiculous because it wouldn't make sense, while it may bring some prestige back to the belt, it's not needed, let the younger guys looking to be established do that, give them a scene to showcase themselves.
I can't even be kind about this point you made though. You said it is more profitable when Smackdown and Raw are seperate rosters because people pay to go to Smackdown and Raw tv shows. So what makes you think that one roster would change that!?!?! There would still be the Smackdown and Raw TV shows that people would pay to go to, they would just have one roster, wow.
One roster would automatically imply that the shows were getting merged if you ask me, it would have the same guys on the same shows all the time, which in the end would prove to be boring, or it would end up being exactly the same way as it is already, having the Smackdown guys showcasing on Smackdown, and the RAW guys showcasing of RAW, sometimes switching, but all in all, the "merged roster" would be serving the same purpose as already.
They do not take up enough time already, 15 minutes of a two hour show, that would be EXACTLY the same if it were one roster. The only difference would be that instead of the 15 minutes on Smackdown being for a seperate world title than Raw, it would be for the same world title. And where the hell did I imply that Smackdown is out the window? The answer is, I didn't. The main eventers would not take up the whole shows! They would take up the same amount of time they took up before the brand extension, which at most was 30 minutes. out of TWO HOURS. That means the rest of the talent would have THREE out of the FOUR hours television per week. And it functioned better when it was one roster.
Yet we have to remember when you cut down on the fact that there's commercials in between, the show isn't exactly letting you watch 2 hours, unless you're at the arena already, and then you'll just be watching more of a wrestling match, than the promo which takes up 10-15 minutes of the start of the show, the end of the show, the middle of the show, or wherever the people want to start popping up.
I've already addressed the whole "Smackdown out of the window" cause to me, merging rosters means merging shows, but that's just me I guess.
And just because two shows are getting merged doesn't automatically merge the championships, or make one of the championships defective.
Yes it would, they wouldn't have to put the mid carders over all the time. They can put them over by simply having a good match with them. the midcarders can win sometimes, but by no means do they have to win all the time or even most of the time to be elevated. In feuds, yes, they should gain a win sometime, but in weekly television matches, it is not absolutely necessary to put them over the main eventers every single time, they can still help to push them without it. There are more ways than the title to become a main eventer, Benoit was a main eventer before he won the world title. You saw how the crowd got behind Kofi Kingston during his feud with Randy Orton, having a feud with a main eventer, title or no title will help a lot.
Benoit was definitely not a main event before he won the world championship, he got there by winning the Royal Rumble, as a upper mid-card, in order to serve as a proper main eventer, you have to have done something in the main event scene, contended for world championships, and potentially won them before you can call yourself a proper main eventer.
As I've said before, letting the mid-carders elevate themselves, and fighting some of the upper mid-card guys, and a potential main event guy looking to do something, is the way they should get elevated, mainly through the championship that is the United States championship and the Intercontinental championship, which should remain active both, because just like the world championship, way too many people to contend for one at the time.
Why not? They did that before..... They could easily have long and short programs, it would not be as big of a deal as you seem to think.
They haven't had incredibly long feuds properly if you ask me, without tons of title changes continuing to change back and forth like when The Rock and Mick Foley contended for the WWE championship during the 98 99's and that left out the chance for others to properly contend for it, leaving them in different feuds that again would've been much more interesting if they were for a world title, Stone Cold's feud with Undertaker would've been more entertaining with a world title on the line for example.
Obviously they are larger now, but that can be reduced. Fair enough, if you feel so strongly about the US title staying, it wouldn't hurt but it wouldn't make much difference if it went either. One world title would really establish the very top of WWE than 2 world titles. If there were one it would be THE title, not one of the titles.
It probably wouldn't make much of a difference, except for the lack of people getting a title shot of the Intercontinental championship, and quickly failing to put over talent at the masses that both championships being around would.
THE title isn't exactly needed, seeing as one of the titles would serve for more people to remain significant and be able to prove themselves as the greats of the business and the greats of the company.
I already did the first time, but you corrected me assuming I got it wrong before I told you that they could merge the titles a different way.
I see.
Well they won't have continuous runs with the titles like the top divas do such as Beth Phoinex, Michelle McCool and Melina.
True that, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to get a title shot in here and there.
They didn't have the association because the WWE didn't need to create it as there were never Womens tag team titles. If there were they could have easily done it. People used to care about the division before they let it go, and they would again if they worked on it again and restored it.
There did actually exist women's tag team titles, not for very long, and it didn't prove successful I guess.
Either way, I believe it would be hard properly establishing talent to seem associated and proper tag team players if they were to make the titles.
And I have my sincere doubts the crowd will start caring for the women's division if they put tag team belts on them, they care for good wrestling, that's not good wrestling.
No, not every single title has to be about pushing the younger guys. I'm sure we could afford to have one purely for entertainment, the Hardcore title did just that. Plus it did help to push the younger guys, not as much as the other titles but it did nonetheless.
For the majority of times the titles are there to push the younger guys, unless we're talking the world titles, and the hardcore championship, even if it stuck around for entertainment, wasted time if you ask me, because it proved no significant thing, all it proved is "I could beat someone with a chair, and 5 minutes later I get pinned as well".
And they don't have to destroy the whole roster to be pushed. There are many ways to do it as we both said, it doesn't have to be a title or the monster thing. The Miz is one person though, they could do the thing where the guy pulls of so many upset victories until he gets to the top, a "boyhood dream" type thing that they did with HBK, they could do that with Kofi Kingston for example.
Shawn hated the boyhood dream.
The Miz pulling off upset after upset would prove to eventually become boring and lacking of a proper push if you ask me, because a lucky roll-up or something like that every now and then, doesn't make you seem strong, it makes you seem lucky, that's what an upset is about isn't it? being lucky.
Legitimately pinning someone, that's the way, and Miz can't legitimately pin every single roster member without being pushed legitimately through championships and some strong retainings.
