World Title Hot Potato

[Suneeboy]

WWE Champion since WM 24 (9 Title Changes)

Orton
HHH
Edge
Hardy
Edge
HHH
Orton
Batista
Orton

World Heavyweight Champion since WM 24 (12 Title Changes)

Undertaker
Edge
CM Punk
Jericho
Batista
Jericho
Cena
Edge
Cena
Edge
Hardy
CM Punk

Is the ME scene boring because no one can hold onto the strap for an extended period of time? Do we keep getting the same matches, because of the constant title changes? If someone held on to the strap for at least 6 months, they would be able to end feuds and move on. Should they just have Orton and Punk hold on to the belts until at least The Survivor Series so that they can create some freshness into the Championship matches?

 

[Bud78]

I completely agree with you on this. When Cena had his lengthy title reign people bitched and moaned endlessly about how boring it was to have the same guy hold the belt. Well news flash fans, after the attitude era and what has happened in wrestling today it was the first different thing that had happened in a while, having John hold on so long. I thought it was interesting because he had so many title defenses and always found a way to pull it out. It was fun tosee someone fight and defend their title and not have to see a different champion one month at atime. Here is another thought, the titles don't have to all be defended at every pay-per-view. Damn, give the champ a break at some point. This would also open up some spots for midcarders on ppv.

 

[Hacksaw Highway]

And back when Cena had his huge reign, it was exciting to see who would dethrown him. Nowadays, Edge wins/loses the title every few days and it makes it less exciting. You know he'll lose it soon, usually to the first guy he feuds with, so it loses the prestige. Say what you will about the ECW belt and it's limited appeal/value, at least it has a shorter list of champs since WM 24.

Kane
Henry
Hardy
Swagger
Christian
Dreamer

They need to do to the big belts what they did to the ECW belt: focus on less title changes and more variety of champions.

 

[AzLunchbox]

It's stupid little title reigns like this that make it so Batista and Orton officially have the same ammount of world titles within WWE as Bret Hart!

I mean Batista is a 5 time world champion....in only a few years....what the hell!?

 

[Lee]

Bret Hart won five championships in five years, Batista has won five championships in four years, not much of a difference really.

So lets get onto the championship 'hot potato' lets go to 1999, wrestlemania XV up until June 2000 (the same amount of time)

Austin, Undertaker, Austin, Mankind, Trips, Vince, Trips, Big Show, Trips, The Rock, Trips, The Rock. So that's 12 changes in the same amount of time, I would hardly say that the 'hot potato' thing has come as recent, it's been the case for a while now, so don't worry about it

 

[Suneeboy]

A title is going to mean less if its always changing hands. You can blame creative for that. There have been a lot of title changes that have made no sense. Why did Edge lose to Cena at Mania to win it 3 weeks later? Why did Orton lose to Batista to win it the next week? Why did Jericho lose to Batista at Cyber Sunday to win it back the next week on RAW?

I say give someone a good long run, let Orton go until Survivor Series at the earliest! I preferably would want him to go on until Wrestlemania. The title needs to stop changing hands, and this is why no champion seems as "credible" as past champions. Hell even Cena and Batista can't hold the belt for longer than a month or two anymore?

 

[Paradox100]

Bret Hart won five championships in five years, Batista has won five championships in four years, not much of a difference really.

True, But Batista was a wwe wrestler since 2002. Known as Deacon Batista. It took him less than three years to get his hands on the World Heavyweight Championship. It also took him seven years to get 5 world titles since earning his first win. Seven years in the World Wrestling Entertainment.

Bret Hart, on the other hand, joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1984. He and Jim Neidhart paid their dues as a tag team, and worked their asses off. Bret, went on to win the Intercontinental Championship in 1991. It took him 7 years to win the I.C. title. The following year, he won the World title. 8 years it took him. By the time Bret won his last WWF belt. He was with them for 13 years. He Earned his spot. Unlike many people do today. It seems like newer wrestlers take 2 to three years, and their main eventing.

Difference is, Guys in Bret's era, worked their asses to get where they were. Sure, the newer kids do too, but they get it much faster. So don't compare Batista to Bret Hart.

 

[klunderbunker]

The title changing hands has never been the problem. The problem here is simple, at least to me. Evolution broke up in 2005. The feud that is going on and has been going on since 2005 is still around and is headlining the Bash this Sunday: Orton vs. HHH. That sums up the whole thing right there. It's fine to have an extended feud where the title changes hands a lot. Hell the Rock vs. HHH feud in 2000 blew everything away and it was about two guys. The thing is, at the end of the summer, the feud was over and everyone moved on. They didn't keep them feuding for 2 more years. That is the thing that's hurting the company in my eyes: overuse of feuds. Look at SD. They change things up constantly and it feels far more fresh with all the title changes. So you see, it's not about the title changing. It's baout the people going after the title not changing.

 

[Age of Orton]

True, But Batista was a wwe wrestler since 2002. Known as Deacon Batista. It took him less than three years to get his hands on the World Heavyweight Championship. It also took him seven years to get 5 world titles since earning his first win. Seven years in the World Wrestling Entertainment.

Bret Hart, on the other hand, joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1984. He and Jim Neidhart paid their dues as a tag team, and worked their asses off. Bret, went on to win the Intercontinental Championship in 1991. It took him 7 years to win the I.C. title. The following year, he won the World title. 8 years it took him. By the time Bret won his last WWF belt. He was with them for 13 years. He Earned his spot. Unlike many people do today. It seems like newer wrestlers take 2 to three years, and their main eventing.

Difference is, Guys in Bret's era, worked their asses to get where they were. Sure, the newer kids do too, but they get it much faster. So don't compare Batista to Bret Hart.

I agree, the problem is, back in Bret's era people were still lead to believe wrestling was real, so long title runs were to make the champion look unstoppable.. Bruno Sammartino's 7 year run.. that was before Bret's time but look at Hogan, from 1984-1990 he dominated the world title picture, even when savage had his year long run, Hogan was the vocal point, when Bret got the belt, I think was the right time, tho it was cheapened due to the title switch happening on a regular tv, would of been nice for a title switch at the following PPV (survivor series 1992) but Bret had classic tag matches, and then went on to the IC Title which he had 3 classic matches (Perfect when he won the belt, Piper when he regained the belt and Davey when he dropped the belt) today's booking is done to keep people satisfied, I was more surprised Cena had a year long title run then if WWE released HHH, due to the fact WWE rarely had titles on people for more then 4 months.

Today's product is PG so in keeping with the younger audience they'll have frequent title runs with the likes of Edge, Punk, Hardy, Cena, HHH, Orton as it gives the kids something to cheer for and when they get what they want.. WWE will take it away and give it back to them so it doesn't get to mundane.

 

[Age of Orton]

The title changing hands has never been the problem. The problem here is simple, at least to me. Evolution broke up in 2005. The feud that is going on and has been going on since 2005 is still around and is headlining the Bash this Sunday: Orton vs. HHH. That sums up the whole thing right there. It's fine to have an extended feud where the title changes hands a lot. Hell the Rock vs. HHH feud in 2000 blew everything away and it was about two guys. The thing is, at the end of the summer, the feud was over and everyone moved on. They didn't keep them feuding for 2 more years. That is the thing that's hurting the company in my eyes: overuse of feuds. Look at SD. They change things up constantly and it feels far more fresh with all the title changes. So you see, it's not about the title changing. It's baout the people going after the title not changing.

I honestly don't think the problem is the fact this is a 5 year feud (Orton was kicked out late August 2004) 5 years sounds insane, but back when you only had a hand full of PPV's it was easy to prolong a feud, hell Bret Hart/Jerry Lawler spanned their feud over a 2 year period, well 2+ but started at KOTR 1993 and they had their last match at KOTR 1995, then Lawler brought in Issic Yankham.. today tho we have like 14 PPV's a year that is like 3 years old the big 5 PPV so WWE in keeping fans interested seem to rush feuds and then after a few month rehash them, then year down the line do the same, it's mundane.

WWE need to cut their PPV's from 14 to say 7 or 8 and span them say every 6-8 weeks so it gets the fans interested in the build up and I bet if WWE did that their PPV buyrates would be up tenfold, and also having longer between PPV's gives WWE time to have long feud, for instance, Jericho/HBK last year started in May, ended in October, problem was they split their matches, Jericho had a match with Kofi dropped the IC Title tho they had HBK cost him the match to keep the feud going) then had HBK took 2 month off with an eye injury which kept Jericho off the SummerSlam card which sucked, then had them return for 2 PPV's all in all they had 4 PPV matches, which is unreal, example of now, WWE have had Rey Mysterio/Chris Jericho on 3 PPV cards, and time between cards is 3 weeks, so this extended feud is going to be 6-9 weeks.. that is rushed and considering how many matches on PPV it's shocking.. either WWE should revert back to the Brand only PPV's so feuds can be longer and less PPV's or cut back on the number, I'd prefer the latter.

 

[Superman]

And back when Cena had his huge reign, it was exciting to see who would dethrown him. Nowadays, Edge wins/loses the title every few days and it makes it less exciting. You know he'll lose it soon, usually to the first guy he feuds with, so it loses the prestige. Say what you will about the ECW belt and it's limited appeal/value, at least it has a shorter list of champs since WM 24.

Kane
Henry
Hardy
Swagger
Christian
Dreamer

They need to do to the big belts what they did to the ECW belt: focus on less title changes and more variety of champions.

Finally someone gets the fact that Ecw provides a fresh variety of champions. I want to see Edge come out of nowhere and take the ecw title from dreamer and battle with christian for that title. That would be more unexpected than christian going to another brand

 

[Hanwell51108]

I will agree WWE pg is wrong, we dont want it and it is ruining alot of things we dont want changed, Edge is the most successfull World Heavyweight Champion BUT that isnt even 200 days in total, a third less than Triple H and less than Batista, Chris Jericho has won it twice, lasting 2 months, why put the belt on him when hes not going to last a month each reign? in the last 3 years no one has help the title for more than 100 days, the last being Batista but when you look at the WWE Championship, Bruno Sammartino won it twice, totaling over 4,000 days, Pedro Morales with over 1,000 days, he has held the title more in one reign that Triple H has in 6 years, so times have changed as well as other parts of the WWE, just a bit of info for you people.

p.s to show im not bias, the Rock has been champion for little under a year in total, number of reigns......7, so it used to happen then as often as now.

 

[HBK-aholic]

The problem is that there are a limited number of people in the title scene, rather than the title changing hands often. We have feuds we've seen before, people lose and regain the title often and we rarely have a feud with someone who hasn't held the title recently, therefore making the same matches. I don't mind that we have many title changes, more just that I wish the matches were more varied in who we see.

 

[CJGV1]

i think what they should bring back is title matches unrealated to a story line and also no instant rematches after sum1 has dropped it. here is my case. bret hart beat ric flair for his first reign. his 1st title defense was.... papa shango. he beat him clean to enforce his worth as a champ (as shango was a moster heel at time although that fizzled out soon after) and that was that. we all knew shango would never win but it was a fresh match. say for example hhh wins the title they shud have him face i dunno.. william regal or cody rhodes or anyone but orton. the miz would be a good shout actually espesh if he beats cena.

 

[Suneeboy]

i think what they should bring back is title matches unrealated to a story line and also no instant rematches after sum1 has dropped it. here is my case. bret hart beat ric flair for his first reign. his 1st title defense was.... papa shango. he beat him clean to enforce his worth as a champ (as shango was a moster heel at time although that fizzled out soon after) and that was that. we all knew shango would never win but it was a fresh match. say for example hhh wins the title they shud have him face i dunno.. william regal or cody rhodes or anyone but orton. the miz would be a good shout actually espesh if he beats cena.

That's a good point. The smarks will know for the most part who will win and not win, but its not so much about who goes over. It's about putting on a fresh and entertaining show. We all knew Morrison wasn't going to beat Edge, and we all knew Swagger wouldn't beat Cena, but we will be talking about those matches because they were entertaining. Orton is champ right now, have MVP fight him for the title at Night of Champions. MVP won't win, but he will get to put on a show that we will enjoy.

Constant title changes devalue the title more than the person holding the title ever can. A long reign only brings credibility to the title and to the wrestler.

(Just thinking out loud here)...Would a guy like HHH ever pull a Jericho and feud over the US Title? It would never happen, but I would like a HHH/Kofi feud over the title. HHH can give Kofi the rub and get a US Title reign under his belt to make that belt gain some cred.

 

[yoshi_doce2006]

Unfortunately with the way that the title changes hands so often and to the same people constantly the prestige of being champion has been hurt. I mean in the old days if they didn't have a new guy to challenge for the title after a few months they would put the title on a strong champion like Hulk Hogan or Shawn Michaels while they build up someone new (Ultimate Warrior/Steve Austin).

Until Vince starts having faith in one guy to carry the ball while they use other guys to build up new contenders the product will continue to be stale and the WWE Championship will continue to lose prestige.

I believe that this method would work build the main event product and end this "Hot Potato" championship game that they play.