Will Cena wear the Big Gold Belt on Sunday?

[Brushfire]

Spoilers for the 14/07/2014 episode of Monday Night RAW ahead.

For those that saw Raw last night, you'll have seen that when John Cena came to the ring during the main event, he handed over the Big Gold Belt to Ric Flair, who posed with it. When Flair went to give it back, Cena said "you keep it" and proceeded to the ring with only the WWE title.

Is this WWE's way of unofficially retiring the Big Gold Belt? Many have speculated that when WWE changes their logo to match the WWE network logo, that we may see a new belt design to reflect this rather than the current two titles being used to represent the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Perhaps this may happen if Brock Lesnar is to win at SummerSlam as rumoured.

Or was it just a nod towards Ric Flair's time in WCW, and Cena was just paying tribute to Flair's successes and I'm reading too much into it?

EDIT: After making this thread, I see there are already articles discussing this on the main page. Apologies, I posted this here before checking there, but I'd still like to hear people's opinions of it here.

 

[Creepy Old Man]

Looks like it's officially retired since they're removing graphics of it on the official site.

If The Undertaker is truly done, then it would be sweet if they'd reintroduce the Big Gold Belt as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and put Sting in a match for it at WrestleMania against a guy with WCW pedigree. Not sure if Hogan or Flair can still go, but Flair would be a great referee. Goldberg is probably the best option, or maybe Jericho if they can re-build his main event credibility (we've never seen that match). Booker T or DDP would be a stretch at this stage but they're WCW legends and fans could be reminded of that. Big Show? Hmm, hopefully not. Nash? Hall? Steiner? Foley? I'm reaching now. If none of that works then The Rock and Kurt Angle are technically former WCW Champions and could certainly draw money with Sting. Or you could pay megabucks to Austin, a former WCW star who worked with Sting and always speaks highly of him.

Just a thought.

 

[Slash-LN]

I love the title and all but if it's gone I'd be okay with that. I think must of us on here were expecting them to get rid of it at some point.

With the new logo debuting soon I'm curious as to whether or not they're going to debut a new title. I know the current one hasn't been around long but it's just a giant logo and it would be kind of weird to have your top title's logo not match up with the company logo.

Last night could have possibly been a low key way to retire the big gold belt. Especially in the eyes of the non internet fans. They see Cena handing the belt to Ric and telling him to keep it. If they don't go online and look it up then that's the end of the belt in their eyes.

So while it remains to be seen what happens at Battleground I'm under the impression that Cena will just come down to the ring with the WWE belt.

 

[Mudlup50]

Hopefully it's gone, if they're keeping the titles together as an undisputed championship then one belt is better in my eyes. I'd like them to split the belts to give more guys a chance but it's not the end of the world. This is the best situation, subtly remove the extra dead weight.

 

[WarroBODFan]

I know it's a bit of a non-issue, but I hope they drop the WWE World Heavyweight Championship name and just go back to the WWE title. Assuming the big gold is now retired.

For what it's worth, and I don't know how long it's been like that, but the big gold is listed as a retired championship on WWE.com now. If that was put on the website when the titles were unified for the Cena V Orton TLC match, my apologies.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

To be perfectly honest, if WWE is still going to refer to the title as the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, I wouldn't mind seeing them debut a new championship design that's sort of a combination of the Big Gold and Big Logo Belts. They could have the plate designs matching the contours of the Big Gold Belt, keep the gold leaf aspects of the design on the main plate, have the new WWE logo that they're going to be debuting soon in the center to replace the globe & crown, change the lettering to read simply "WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION" and have the side plates be changeable for each champion. Or, use a slightly altered design of the Big Gold Belt, keep the traditional side plates and have the champ's name plate along the bottom.

It'll be kinda sad to see the Big Gold Belt go away altogether, if that's what they ultimately intend to do. It's an iconic design and I always thought it was just flat out majestic looking. I especially thought so with the 80s version because, if I'm not mistaken, the center plate was significantly larger than the current design, it looked as if Ric Flair's entire mid section was covered by the center plate back in the 80s.

Also, is it just me or does the fact that it looked so shiny make it all that much better looking? For whatever reason, whenever I see a picture or image of a championship, car or whatever that's under good lighting and shines, I just HAVE to look at it just like seeing a gorgeous woman glistening with oil....ummm...screw it, I like shiny stuff and the belt's pretty.

 

[J.J.]

I always loved the look of the big gold belt, it's unfortunate if it truly is gone. But all good things have to come to an end, right?

I'm kinda in favor of a new design too. Although the current design of the WWE title was just introduced year and a half ago.

I'm in agreement with Jack-Hammer on how the next title should look

 

[kadroan]

Looks like it's officially retired since they're removing graphics of it on the official site.

If The Undertaker is truly done, then it would be sweet if they'd reintroduce the Big Gold Belt as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and put Sting in a match for it at WrestleMania against a guy with WCW pedigree. Not sure if Hogan or Flair can still go, but Flair would be a great referee. Goldberg is probably the best option, or maybe Jericho if they can re-build his main event credibility (we've never seen that match). Booker T or DDP would be a stretch at this stage but they're WCW legends and fans could be reminded of that. Big Show? Hmm, hopefully not. Nash? Hall? Steiner? Foley? I'm reaching now. If none of that works then The Rock and Kurt Angle are technically former WCW Champions and could certainly draw money with Sting. Or you could pay megabucks to Austin, a former WCW star who worked with Sting and always speaks highly of him.

Just a thought.

Oh wow, I had no idea they'd actually retire it but it makes sense. Carrying two belts only brought more confusion, especially in ladder matches.

Great gesture by the WWE to give the belt to Flair. I'm hoping they get a new design of the title, not really a fan of The Rock's version of the WWE Championship, but atleast it's better than the spinner version

 

[Catacomb]

I thought cena was retiring it on raw, it makes sense handing it to flair, the guy who introduced it to wwe in 1991. im glad its retired, just opens the door in the future to bring it back as a separate title than the wwe whc

 

[Reflection]

There goes my dream of seeing the two titles split up again! I think John Cena will drop the big gold, start coming with the WWE title, and very soon they will drop the "World Heavyweight" from the name and start simply calling it the WWE Championship again.
I'm telling you, this is a wrong decision they are making. Guys that would normally not be given the main title, could get the #2 world title instead. For example, Bray Wyatt, Cesaro, Dean Ambrose, Rob Van Dam (before he retires), Bad News Barrett etc., along with demoted stars like Sheamus and Mark Henry. Too many guys looking for one title- most will be booked in random storylines and get lost in the shuffle.
Also, history has shown that guys that were tested with the WHC before getting the WWE title (Randy Orton, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan) generally went on to become better WWE champions than those who got the latter first (Sheamus, Alberto, Miz)... So it will also be risky to give an un-tested guy like Rollins or Cesaro to give the ONLY title, and WWE might be apprehensive about it, thus maybe choosing to stick with Cena and Orton.
Now there are reports that the two mid-card titles will also get merged. That is a wrong decision as well, but not on the level of this.

 

[Brushfire]

If The Undertaker is truly done, then it would be sweet if they'd reintroduce the Big Gold Belt as the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and put Sting in a match for it at WrestleMania against a guy with WCW pedigree.

It seems that they're going for some kind of WCW-related storyline for WWE 2K15 this year so it would make sense to keep that hype going with having something WCW-related in the current programming also. I think after so many years of Big Gold Belt being referred to as the World Heavyweight Championship it would be confusing to some viewers for it suddenly to be referred to as the WCW championship again though. Unless they went all the way with it and "brought back" WCW, but I don't think that's gonna happen for a number of reasons.

I also don't think a championship being involved makes a match against Sting any more or less important.

To be perfectly honest, if WWE is still going to refer to the title as the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, I wouldn't mind seeing them debut a new championship design that's sort of a combination of the Big Gold and Big Logo Belts.

I don't think they'll do this, but I'd like this a fair bit actually. I'm a big fan of the way that the Big Gold Belt looks and always thought that just seeing it on a superstar added prestige.

I'm telling you, this is a wrong decision they are making. Guys that would normally not be given the main title, could get the #2 world title instead. For example, Bray Wyatt, Cesaro, Dean Ambrose, Rob Van Dam (before he retires), Bad News Barrett etc., along with demoted stars like Sheamus and Mark Henry. Too many guys looking for one title- most will be booked in random storylines and get lost in the shuffle.

Now there are reports that the two mid-card titles will also get merged. That is a wrong decision as well, but not on the level of this.

Personally I'm of the opinion that it's the right decision. What needs to be done now is to push the IC title and make that the unofficial upper-midcard title that the WHC title was during the end of it's run. I'd have no problem seeing the IC title on any of those mentioned (although I don't think Wyatt needs gold) and as long as they are given good storylines I don't think it matters too much what championship they are holding.

Unifying the two midcard titles would be a huge mistake though, there are far too many people on the roster that warrants having both of those titles around.

 

[Welshy95]

I wouldnt be surprised at all if we were to see the return of the World Title back around the Survivor Series ppv. If Lesnar were to win the WWE title at summerslam, its common knowledge that he'll defend it at Night of Champions against Cena in a re-match, and i doubt he'll lose the belt right away. It would also be the perfect time to bring back Flair as the general manager in the build up to survivor series (he is supposed to return full time afterall) and to battle against the authority while also bring back the big gold belt in some kind of elimination match while lesnar remains off tv?

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The WCW argument makes sense... there is a hunger amongst older fans for WCW content and this could help solve the PG issue... A WWE Network version of WCW, aimed at older audiences would certainly hook more subscribers and Sting is a good way to introduce that.

However that is fantasy time... reality is that the belt is retired...and they did a VERY deliberate thing that I think 99% of people missed by handling it as they did.

I think this was more than a "cool way to retire the belt onscreen", it was a private and personal message done in code from Cena to Flair...

Cena handed Ric Flair the belt and said... "Keep It"... To me that is saying one thing... "This is yours... the record is yours... keep it..."

Vince may not have the same view, there may be a time where it's considered Cena must have the belt... but John put out there loud and clear and in front of the world that he doesn't WANT to break Ric's record...he knows he doesn't need it now.

Very subtle, but unmistakable... and Flair got the message, you could see it.