>976 Title Changes>985 Title Changes>9911 Title Changes>20005 Title Changes>015 Title Changes>027 Title Changes>033 Title Changes>066 Title ChangesNow the title has only changed hands once a year since 2021. Its fucking BORING.
>>19841861It's a corporation with no competition. They just do the most predictable thing to get views.Back in the 90s they actually had to keep things exciting to win against WCW, and Vince carried that momentum in booking for most of the 2000s before the PG era just built up a super hero or a super villain. It's like we went back to the 80s where Hogan and flair would just keep the belts all year.
>>19841861Title reigns are long now as a consequence of title reigns being so short in the past
>>198418612025 had two WWE Title changes. 2026 is on pace to have 12.
>>19841968it was way more exciting when the title changed every few months. Now it just feels like a slog of Cody and Roman holding it for 4 years in a row, not counting Cena's little hiccup.
>>19841984It was exciting from 97-01, but the hotshotting lost its luster
>>19841984>>19842061I think the RA era found the sweet spot. Triple H's reign of terror (which looking back feels comically short now) stood out, as did MVP's US title reign, the Hooliganz tag title reign, and Helm's cruiserweight title reign as significantly longer ones. Anything close to a year felt a major accomplishment and was an outlier to the average title reign. You'd see the WWE title change hands month after month at PPVs. It was exciting. It elevated a ton more guys. I think there's for sure a balance between the Attitude Era's hot shotting and the complete title gridlock that there is today
>>19841861Television competition is the main reason. In the 90's raw & Nitro drove the business. Nowadays it's Mania and Rumble with live shows in wrestling cities.
>>19841861Could you image if L.A. Knight, dragunov, hayes, and breakker all had title reigns already instead of 2 years of Roman and 2 years of cody?Drew winning on a fucking smackdown is a heavensent. I don't want drew to hold the title forever, just for more people to get their hands on it.
>>19841861No joke, it is of course many factors but THE primary factor is totally hunter and tony's marking out for the Okada streak. They correctly so want to replicate that idyllic age.Now as to why the Fed and Dub make them stink:Because they fail to understand that that component was not essential to new japan's success, it was one option out of a scenario that practically couldn't fail no matter which way you took the book, because of the characters and matches themselves clutchness.So for lengthy reigns, even having a storyline in place with hot timing requires in it not only competent wrestlers but also the delivery of a not crap performance (which we seem to have consensus on). Solely slotting in a schmuck as extended champ does not elevate dead weight. Let's say if somehow all the prerequisites are nailed, afterwards though, it should be argued tiny and paul besides every favor still stumble over their own feet to fumble in reaching what greater true professionals have pulled off due to a care for the business. which care gets wounded from selling out to retardo-homogenization, if you want to be an artist cant have your cake and eat it too by the demands with slop money
>>19842392>Could you image if L.A. Knight, dragunov, hayes, and breakker all had title reigns already instead of 2 years of Roman and 2 years of cody?that would have been terrible jesus christ
Because the slop shop puts their titles on part timers
that's the result of chasing moments. everything has to be a fucking moment, title changes included.
>>19842422please lord above let this be bait
>>19842440This. Cody doesn't even fucking have matches outside of PLEs. He just cuts promos and gets assaulted just so he can come back extra motivated at the PLE
>>19842584That's not really on Cody, though. That's more on Roman helping normalize less frequent title defenses (obviously with Roman, it can't really be helped with him fighting a terminal illness).
>>19841861roman had to get over come hell or high water. the last decade was an entire company devoted to one mediocre guy seem not mediocre. they parked the title on brock so he could put roman over, and then they parked in on roman. now it seems normal to have two titles because so much time was devoted to trying to work around roman's existence
>>19841861Gunther -> Jey -> Gunther -> Phil -> Seth -> vacated -> PhilWas all last year>the WHC doesn't countRoman will legitimize its existence in April
>>19841861this is what vince and hhh wanted. slow burn build for the title. they really shit the bed with big e and kofi getting the title they wanted to reset everything.
>>19842822ironic then that they felt the need to create new titles so there would still be regular defenses of something
>>19841861WWE "plays it safe" like never before and has zero balls. If you put the title on someone in the past and they were not ready for it, you simply took the title off of them and pivoted quickly. Now they wait until a wrestler hits 40 before they will trust them with title. Lol. They have no ability to improvise and go with the flow.
Triple cage be like lets keep the title belt on someone for a million days just like in the 70s when you didnt see the champ on TV every week
>>19842695Heres a thought. Don't put your world title on someone dying of cancer.These part time champions are a cancer themselves. These dudes post up like they are late stage undertaker only needing to show up for the PLE while pushing their "storyline" of just getting beat up and then hulking up to win at the PLE. Fucking Roman's run was the worst of all worlds because Roman can't wrestle for shit, has no moves, and could cheat to win 50% of all of his matches by having one of his 80 cousins come and interfere.
>>19842820>The WHC was nothing but 40+ year oldsWow its fucking nothing.
>>19843089gets itif the biz is going to live on, it would help if at least, im begging ya us smarks would expunge the many *many* poisons in tandem with quit downing additional koolaid. after, the whole fight for the mainstream is not begun
>>19841861>Title Bloat>Rivalry Drought >Focused more on moving merch as opposed to developing talent or the business.Basically they find someone who sells tshirts and autographs and just milks it for every thing they can and fill the show with ads for merch instead of wrestling.
wrestlers these days have don't have "it" anymore and don't have charisma, so long reigns are their way of trying to build people
>>19842901if anything proves Roman is right, WWE cant make new stars because their too afraid to take a risk, if you had Oba eliminate Brock and win the Rumble you wouldve had a star made immediatly
>>19843105Not the same title. The title you're referring to was merged with the WWE title in late 2013, as confusing as it is.Yes, they share the same name; but the lineage is brand new.
>>19842190i like this post
wwe forgot how to book babyfaces. austin was constantly getting screwed out of the title and chasing it. that is what made it interesting. nobody wants to see a boring ass babyface on top all the time. austin was always getting fucked over every 5 minutes and basically chasing the title even after he won it at wm14. if wrestling wasn't terrible these days and the rock wasn't a waste of space they could have continued the angle coming off wm40 with cody still getting fucked over by the rock as an authority figure. instead, everything was reset and it was a boring ass heatless dead babyface title reign like always for the last 20 years. no heat just nothing, pointless filler feuds
>>19843089Roman being even more absent for the than The Rock was unforgivable. When The Rock shows up more than you then something is badly wrong. Roman has nothing else to do. He isn't a massive draw, he isn't making movies, WWE is literally his only job. He never deserved a part time schedule at all and I have no idea why he has been allowed to get away with it. He has absolutely nothing else to do besides WWE
>>19841861you have to build expectations of normalcy so when a shock title change happens its actually shocking
>>19843778>Jey>Roman>charisma
>>19842392LA Knight maybe. The rest are like 5'8 and have no business being anywhere near a wrestling ring.
>>19843798Roman is over because others put him over until the fans finally just accepted him as a main eventer after they forced it for years.He repaid that by sitting at home for months and only coming back to defend his title in shitty matches before heading back to the couch. And when someone was pushed it was one of his shitter cousins who didn't deserve it because he politicked for it.
No one has said the real answer(s) yet: contracts and the system.Nowadays, WWE/AEW typically do longer contracts with more guaranteed money. It’s good for most wrestlers. Even though guaranteed money was a thing in the late 90s, it took a decade and a half or so until the business really started to feel the effects. Back in the day, wrestlers like Mick, The Rock, Austin, Undertaker etc, as technically contracted free agents, had more leverage against WWE to demand more screen time, main events, etc.Now, would WWF in 1999 ever fire The Rock if he demanded a title shot in 4 months? Or WCW ever fire Goldberg? Hell no. Why? Because WWF had no system. OVW was just starting to train the “next generation” of stars like Brock, Cena, Batista, etc who were all handpicked to be the faces of the company. There was no replacement. Nowadays, WWE has NXT. These wrestlers are groomed to be stars. Which also means they are replaceable.So yeah. You as a wrestler starting in NXT are literally destined to be a mid card with no bargaining power.
its because of the negative feedback they got from charlotte and sasha hot potatoing the womens championship back and forth relentlessly
>>19845712>WomemeNobody cares what happened to womeme in 2016. Mens division is completely separate from that.
>>19842820Even if the belt got changed 5 times, that is bleak. Goonter already gets to be the career killer, but he holds the belt for half a year?Meanwhile anyone under 31 is dying to get any movement.
HHH likes long reigns but we live in the internet age, people need shit happening and moving and changing often.>>19842820I imagine Seth would still be champ if not for the injury.
>>19847179>Jacob and Bron have been on the main Roster for 2 years. >All they have to show for it are tiny reigns with mid-card belts.Truly tragic.
>>19841861We need a new Bruno style run.
>>19841861The shows feel like a drip feed of molasses
People got memed HARD into the idea that long reign = good reign. A title reign lasting more than 90 days should be rare, shit gets so damn stale otherwise.
>>19841861The WHC changed hands 5 times last year, not counting it beIng vacated.WWE changed hands twice and then once last month. Attitude Era also hoshotted the business and by the end of 2000 they were on a decline.
yeah I'm thinking title reign length is a case by case basisI don't like Russo style ae hotshotting one goddamn bit though but I understand they were in a ratings war
>>19851136Just remember a few years ago when smarks complained that 'everyone is getting the title, it's the participation era' and 'remember long title reigns and slow burn storylines? what happened to those?'
Because it works. Hogan, Bruno, Inoki, Baba, Thesz, Flair , the Funks, Misawa all became major draw cards as dominant champions. Just like winners in real sports.Whereas all the geeks that got 2 month title reigns in the 2000s are forgotten.
>>19849826The IWC and terminally online autists don’t seem to understand that the shows are booked for children more than ever. It’s not much different from modern capeshit. They want a slow, meandering product that’s easy viewing for kids and retards.
>>19851253Just like sports outside of playoffs, most normal people don't just sit there and stare intently at the screen for three hours straight. Most people have other shit going on, are with friends and or family, etc. and waiting until someone they like or consider a draw like JD Mcdonagh are on the screen. But smarks be like>Why didn't the 8 hours of WWE and 3 hours of AEW this week specifically meet my fickle desires and booking choices for every single segment
>Be me.>It's the year 2000.>Tune into RAW, nothing else going on.>The card is...>The Big Show (w/ Shane McMahon) vs Kane (w/ Paul Bearer)>Mark Henry (w/ Mae Young) vs D-Von Dudley (w/ Buh Buh Ray Dudley)>D-Generation X (The Road Dogg & X-Pac) (w/ Tori) vs Too Cool (Grandmaster Sexay & Scotty 2 Hotty)>Chris Jericho vs Kurt Angle (c) by DQ in a WWF Intercontinental Championship Match>Rikishi vs Triple H (w/ Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley)>Steve Blackman (w/ Al Snow) vs Matt Hardy (w/ Jeff Hardy)>Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn (w/ Eddie Guerrero) vs Christian & Edge>Crash Holly (c) vs Viscera, WWF Hardcore Championship Match>The Rock vs Chris Benoit in a Steel Cage match >On a random fucking Monday night.
>>19844410Which is stupid
HHH doesn't have the ability to tell interesting stories so he tells long boring ones instead. They call it long term booking, it's really just lazy/uninspired booking. When I was young a really important lesson I learned was that brevity is the wit of the soul. Don't take 100 words to say something you can effectively do in 10.
>>19851595I agree. Especially when they kept the lineage of the US title after bringing it back for the brand split after it was unified with the IC title at the end of the Invasion storyline.
My issue with a lot of the reigns lately is not only are they long, but most of them feel heatless Like when Cody first won the belt off Roman, I legit can't recall much of who he feuded with. I remember a AJ match that was decent, but that's it
>>19851832cody's first reign was good until he got trapped in the bloodline vortex again, but then it got good again after that with the KO feud which was the best storyline of 2025 imo
>>19851606write a show with 2 hours of witticisms and 300 year old philosophy quotes, let me know how it works out. retard.
>>19851183none of these guys were on a three hour tv show each week at the top of the card
>>19851832thanks for reminding me that Cody 1 counted the fucking burning hammer.
Don't worry, oba is taking over after WrestleMania at backlash and trick will win money in the bank 2026 is the year for young blood
>>19841861>he thinks they're long nowSammartino held the belt for almost 8 years straight
Back then they had people to put the belt on. Now they 2 belts for some reason and maybe 1 guy worth holding them.
>>19842392>Drew winning on a fucking smackdown is a heavensent.100% considering the title has only changed hands at WM and SS the past two fucking years.>>19841861>LE LONG TERM BOOKINGFucking ass, I don't want to see CODYWINSLOL or SEFFWINSLOL outside of Wrestlemania because then it becomes gay and predictable. They made the right call with Drew winning on Smackdown but I'd be surprised if either of the world titles (maybe even the womeme's JFL) change hands outside of WM and SS this year. Haitch doesn't understand that it becomes predictable
>>19854439Actually let me correct myself, they had Gunther beat Jey on RAW because Haitch realized his stupid mistake by making Jey champion KEK
>>19854381They booked fucking roman to win the rumble. They aren't gonna give any new blood anything other than shit rivalries. Seff will return to bully Breakker while Trick gets the same half-assed treatment Melo got for 2 years. They can try and keep Oba's momentum going with squash matches but without some gold his luster will go away real quick.
>>19855623which furhter proves how much of a good booker Shawn is, he put the NXT title on Oba pretty quick after he dropped the NA title to Tony D
>>19842392>Brekker>Title reignFuck anon. Are you sleepy or drunk or something? Anon please have a good nap/sleep and come back when you're thinking clearly.
The titles, all of them, have lost an insane amount of prestige and respect for normalfags, for marks, smarks, nobody gives a single damn about them anymore but the most autistic retards and toddlers because Triple H has made sure to expose the business on all possible levels. The booking is awful and sees the belts as props to use while building "le viral moments", zero compromise and ideales attached to the belt, they are a husk of what they once were.The belt themselves look fucking awful and have been like that for a while now, pure branding and designed as simple as they can be to make cheap toy replicas, none comes close to old WCW big gold or WWF world title.The wrestlers themselves have zero clue about what made wrestling mainstream, all of them are worried about their twitter, about what people will say about them, about politics, the marks are in the ring brother and it shows, none of them has the body, the charisma, the promo game of a champion. The closest would be Roman but they sacrificed so much for him it ain't worth it, he would be barely a B+ player back in the day after the years and years and years of built that he got. There's no champions anymore just employees.
