WWE needs to start unifying their belts.

[italyanstallyan]

They seem to be moving in the direction of unifying Raw and SmackDown. Wrestlers appear on both shows already. They unified the Tag Titles. WWE Champ and WHC are on the same show. Now, they have that new show where wrestlers from all brands wrestle each other. I'd have Orton with the WWE Title and have him face Cena at Night of Champions to unify the belts. Orton would win. They should keep all three shows, but the roles should change. Raw will remain the flagship show where big shit happens. SmackDown becomes the B show where big shit happens sometimes but this show is mainly for wrestlers who don't get enough airtime on Raw. ECW could work as the developmental brand where young wrestlers are developed.

 

[Jerichomark85]

Yes and no. I think they need to unify the World and WWE titles and bring the ECW title to Smackdown and rename it. ECW needs to go. They are disgracing the legacy. Smackdown needs to be the breeding ground with the few big names they have now. Also, eliminatinf ECW could open Smackdown to be moved to Sci-Fi. I don't get MyNetwork. The U.S. and IC need to remain seperate though. Too many midcarders on both shows to unify them.

 

[WunNightStan619]

they really do need to unify the shows. But if they dont do that, they definatly need to unify the world title and WWE title. What sense does it make to have to titles. I remember back in the day when being the WWE ment that u were the best in the business. Now it just means ur wun of the best and that takes away from the importance of each title. They should just have wun champion who competes on both shows like they used to do when to 2 brands initally split....as far as the US and IC go they need to stay seprate. The US title should be like the European title was..They made the right decision unifying the tag titles cuz they realy dont even have any tag teams to compete for them. With miz n morrison split, u basically only have the colons and cryme tyme

 

[JTS32]

I'll agree on all counts. The Attitude era had just as many titles as we have now and it worked. Unify the WHC and WWE titles. Keep the IC and US titles seperate and let ECW fade away. I know it will probably never be as good as the Attitude era or even the 80s but can at least an effort be made?

 

[Agent-67]

Okay, you all said what you would like to see happen. But let me just take the other side for a minute. Again not disagreeing, but just bringing up a few questions.
1) If you get rid of Raw, ECW, & Smackdown as brands & just make them one show what happens to the midcard talent? If HHH, Orton, Edge, Cena, HBK, Undertaker, Batista, Big Show, Jericho, etc. are all on the same show what the hell do you do with Kingston, Punk, Bourne, Morrison, etc.? There is not enough time to showcase all your talents on one show.
2) If you don't showcase your talents on the shows people forget. I remember in WCW when they started buying up all the talent. You would see one guy one week & then not see him again for 3 weeks. He then shows up and no one cares. This would happen with all the talent and 1 brand.
3) If you Unify the titles and don't get rid of 3 brands, what does the show without the champ do? Does the champ appear on all shows? If so what about the guy he is feuding with? If Cena is the champ feuding with Orton, what happens when Cena is on Smackdown that week?

Im not trying to be difficult, just something to think about.

 

[Black Snow]

I completely disagree. I fully expect the brand lines to become firmer in the coming weeks with interpromotional matches being more strictly limited to "Superstars" and tag title defenses.

Having the World and WWE titles end up on one show for a little while isn't a new thing. When Cena was drafted to RAW in 2005 both titles were on one show. The same thing happened last year for a week until Punk forced one belt to RAW. So I expect it to happen this year as well with Cena being drafted to SD! in the supplemental or Punk cashing in.

I'm sick and tired of people talking about ECW's legacy being disgraced. Get over yourself. ECW typically has the best wrestling out of all three shows on a weekly basis. It's a show where guys who never got their fair shake can shine. It's also a show where young guys can shine. The original ECW wasn't just about about hardcore garbage matches. It was also about giving guys their break. When Bischoff told Austin he was a nobody he went to ECW. When Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, Mysterio, etc. were thought to be too small and unknown in the U.S. they went to ECW. In many ways the new ECW is carrying on the tradition of the original one. Yes, Vince systematically took out the hardcore elements and got rid of the ECW originals besides Dreamer. That sucked. But ECW was so much more about reliving the past and if that's all you wanted then you need to take a step forward to the future.

It also makes perfect sense to have a World Champ on every brand. The rosters are deep enough and mostly exclusive enough to warrant individual belts. Think of what it'd be like if we only had one World Champ. There are about 20 people in the WWE that could legitimately challenge for a World title at any time. I bet some of your favorites would be left out of the title picture if there was one belt. Just think of Hunter, Cena, Batista, Orton and Edge. How is a guy like Jericho, Punk or either Hardy going to even sniff the World title if they're around? You better really love the U.S. or IC title because that's all those guys will ever see with one World title.

You know, I can maybe see a case for unifying the two Women's titles. There are technically enough women on each brand to warrant two titles but there aren't enough truly talented women on each show. So I might be down for that. But really, based on the number of wrestlers each show has we're in a perfect situation at this moment. A world title, a secondary title, a women's title on each show is pretty decent. At least the belts all feel like they have some meaning. It's a lot better than the days of the pointless European, Hardcore and Light Heavyweight straps.

 

[LokiCobain]

The problem isn't the number of titles, the problem is that the creative team doesn't care. They spend more time developing intriguing storylines for A guys that aren't in the main title picture, rather than mixing them with the B guys. Having Punk beat Jericho for the IC title is better than him beating Regal. Even having Jericho as IC champ and using it as bait for the legends would've given the title something to do at Wrestlemania, him saying they can have one more shot at the gold.

Basically, the titles are fine if they're used. but they're not. And they can be, but they try using them all as means to an end (the WHC or WWE title), rather than an end. When Shawn Michaels won the title, it was the biggest deal for him. He said in the Saturday Night's Main event DVD that the IC title was his goal because he felt that was the best he could do. MVP brings this mentality to the US title, not talking about "bigger and better" things, but still saying "I'm the best" while holding that title.

The 8 matches per pay per view should include the 3 A-title matches, the now 1 tag title match, the 2 B-title matches, a women's title (there should never have been two), and then some sort of #1 contender match or high profile "personal" match. They need to showcase their champions for them to matter, and they don't even do it for Wrestlemania. First IC defense in 7 years was 23 seconds, and it wasn't even supposed to happen had Punk not lost to JBL at a HOUSE show. The tag team title UNIFICATION match, one that should matter, was a dark math. Same thing with ECW, it has nothing to do with "ruining" the legacy of ECW. ECW isn't doing so well because they're not being represented on pay per views, a place where regular watchers get to be impressed by the ECW champ and his opponent. Swagger not even on the show is a disgrace. Luckily he got to look good last night at the draft against Cena, but he got nothing at the most watched pay per view of the year.

 

[SixFiggWigg]

I miss the old days when Smackdown just got started. When they had ONE Champion on both shows. And of course the challenger to his belt following him, till after their match.
This two champion stint was good, for a while. I mean, I remember a day when winning the Heavyweight belt more than 4 or 5 times in a career was a milestone. Sometimes it took 10+ years. Now you have guys like Edge (not knocking his talent), with 8 championship reigns. Why??? Cause he's the only one with the talent and persona on one show. And all this happened in about 5 years, give or take one or two.
It kind of makes winning the Heavyweight title look to easy to win nowadays. And there's always the same people winning all the time. HHH/Edge/Cena/Batista....
I personally would like to see someone like Orton/Taker/HBK win the belt and run with it for over 6 months, with different challengers, not always the same as stated above.

 

[Nugzy]

The WHC is going back to Smackdown after Backlash. I think its obvious Edge will win the Last Man Standing match to bring the title back to Smackdown.

 

[HHH=The Peoples King]

What should happen
RAW:
-Rated PG 13(PPV'S R)
-All the Titles are here
-All big stars are here
-Where the "big shit" happens haha
-no jobbers, like the new santina gimmik go to smackdown
-a GOOD 3 hour show since it will be the big shit show no pun intended


SMACKDOWN!:
-Stars with little or no air time
-stars who havnt reached full potential yet
-good storylines for "little stars"
-2 hours
-rated pg13(but what would happen here)
-no ppv

ECW:
-Not on tv
a development like the one in florida
-only puts on live shows
-multiple branches across the US of ECW since its a development
-puts on shows 2-3 nights a week
-storylines but not very big ones
-after a sertian time you'd move to SD! to see how you are on TV but not a permenit thing

 

[OIL]

They seem to be moving in the direction of unifying Raw and SmackDown. Wrestlers appear on both shows already.

Around WrestleMania the wrestlers move around all the time. It's for storyline purposes, not because they're unifiying the brands. Therefore, the belts won't be unified. The only reason they did for the Tag Team Belts was because there isn't a big enough roster of tag team stables for the need of 2 seperate belts.

 

[HBK-aholic]

They need to unify belts and they need to unify brands. Having a brand split is pointless if wrestlers appear on both regularly, and having 2 of each belts is pointless without a brand split. It should be over now, there should be one brand, with wrestlers appearing on one or both, and they should all be fighting for the WWE championship. Just forget about the WHC, forget about the divas title. All they do is undermine the other WWE/Womens.

 

[LokiCobain]

They need to unify belts and they need to unify brands. Having a brand split is pointless if wrestlers appear on both regularly, and having 2 of each belts is pointless without a brand split. It should be over now, there should be one brand, with wrestlers appearing on one or both, and they should all be fighting for the WWE championship. Just forget about the WHC, forget about the divas title. All they do is undermine the other WWE/Womens.

Continue thinking a little longer and you'll realize that unifying brands is pointless. The reason the brands came into existence in the first place was because WWE signed up all the WCW and ECW guys, and there wasn't enough space on a single 2-hour program. There's going to be 60 people all on one show, and that's pointless. So if they do bring it down, they'd have to cut their total roster at least in half.

"It should be over now, there should be one brand, with wrestlers appearing on one or both"
--If there's one brand, what's the both? I think you meant shows, but if you have 2 (or 3) WWE programs a week developing the same storyline, it gets redundant. Another big complaint people have with the WWE is that champions are only champions for a couple of months, and there are no champs for a year or more. If you have wrestling on 2 or 3 times a week (now 4 with Superstars), all telling the same storyline for the WWE, you're going to have almost a month's worth of storytelling in per week. The title will changes hands much more and make the title even more useless.

I've said this 1000 times on forums on this site, the problem has nothing to do with the number of championships OR the brands, it has to do with the creative team not caring about anything but the WWE and WHC storylines, as well as Vince not putting any other titles on PPV cards, when really, if someone is deserving of being a champion, they should be on the PPV anyway.

 

[TimeLord]

Given that the WWF & WCW have already been unified & then WWE went on to create the WHC a cpl of years later it seems rather pointless to unify the 2 current titles now. If the current titles were to be unified it would undoubtedly only be a matter of time before WWE decided that each brand needs its own champion and would create yet ANOTHER world heavyweight championship. If they do unify any of the titles (WWE & WHC, I-C & US) then they champions should be "Floating Champions" - able to defend the titles on any show.

 

[SK Punk]

NO

WWE does NOT need to unify their titles! They have just enough people, and just enough titles. Why would they need less? There is about 80 WWE Supersars, and 8 belts. 9 Champions out of 80 superstars is just enough. I mean, the mid card is stable, the main event may need one or two new superstars, but thats fine, and the tag division is sucking, so its a good thing they unified the belts. Seriously, for fucks sake why would anyone want WWE to unify their belts?