Championships are critical to the survival of professional wrestling companies. They indicate which stars are the best in the division, and serve as focal points for many feuds. Without them, the storytelling element of pro-wrestling would be almost impossible to communicate.
But wrestling championships are more than just props to be worn by the promoter’s flavour of the month. For fans to care about those titles and the champions that wear them, they need to be protected and promoted as items worth chasing.
If a championship’s reputation isn’t well-maintained, or if the matches in which it is at stake, aren’t interesting, why should fans even care if someone’s a champion or not?
This brings us to 2016, the year of questionable title changes.
WWE (and especially Vince McMahon) think they know who the fans want as top champions. If that were true, Cesaro would’ve won the WWE Championship long before the brand split and the only gold Roman Reigns would be wearing would be a fake Rolex on his wrist. But alas, that is not the case, and Vince gave his stamp of approval on many sudden and sometimes irrational, title changes.
As of November 2016, WWE has a whopping nine different championships on the main roster: two main singles championships, two sets of tag titles, two secondary singles titles, two women’s titles and the cruiserweight championship.
You’d think that with so many different championships on their programs, we’d see fresh match-ups all the time and each division would have something interesting each week.
Again, you’d be wrong (and foolish) to think WWE plans things out that way. So instead of interesting and logical title changes, we got the following five, which were done with little to no forethought whatsoever.
#5 Brian Kendrick defeats T. J. Perkins
When WWE announced the Cruiserweight Classic, it was a sign of joy. It was hoped that the Cruiserweight division would finally get the respect it deserves, especially since so many of the promotion’s most popular wrestlers fit into the style.
On the one hand, WWE delivered the goods with this tournament, which made stars out of everyone involved, especially the eventual winner T. J. Perkins. He put on several outstanding matches and really elevated the championship with his victory against Gran Metalik.
Since this was a new belt and most of the WWE roster was unfamiliar with the cruiserweights, the logical direction would’ve been for Perkins to hold on to the title for a long time and have the division built around him. This would’ve made the division more exciting, as fans would have more of a vested interest in seeing which brave challenger would take on the fighting champion.
Instead, WWE surprised everyone with a confusing decision and booked Brian Kendrick to defeat Perkins after only 45 days. The Cruiserweight division was less than two months old and already the supposed face of the division was made to look weak and lost his upward momentum.
Perkins’ loss was made worse by the fact that, a) he looked like an idiot for believing Kendrick’s lies (lies that even a 6-year-old could see through); and b) he was straddled with a cheesy character that uses video game references in everyday conversation.
No disrespect to Kendrick, but he didn’t really need this championship victory, as much as Perkins did. WWE needed to build the division up as much as possible to get casual fans more interested in it, and that could’ve only happened if the face of that division was someone fans wanted to see.
Who wants to see a gullible guy like Perkins when he loses so soon after winning the belt? Not as many as those who’d have wanted to see him if he was built like a 2016 version of Rey Mysterio or another cruiserweight of yesteryear.
#4 Alberto Del Rio & Kalisto devalue The US Championship
Throughout 2015, John Cena did what many thought was impossible: he made the U.S. Championship great again.
Every week, he issued an open challenge to anyone brave (or stupid) enough to face him, and it ended up being the match of the night on more or less each occasion. These title defences were the highlight of every show, and Cena managed to show off his wrestling skills like never before.
Finally, after all, these years, Cena managed to silence all those annoying critics, who thought he couldn’t wrestle, and less than four months after he lost the belt, all his work had gone down the drain.
After Cena lost the title to Seth Rollins and then regained it shortly afterwards, the big question was, ‘who will defeat Cena for the U.S. Championship and how?’ This was something that should’ve been given plenty of time and planning, as Cena had proved that he could defeat pretty much anyone.
Unfortunately, they thought, ‘ah screw it, give it to Alberto Del Rio’, which is what we got at Hell in a Cell 2015.
Del Rio defeated Cena in a surprisingly quick match, but there was no follow-up to it. This was supposed to be a big deal: Del Rio had just PINNED JOHN CENA CLEAN, and that result went down in history with no fanfare. Del Rio didn’t even attack Cena to get more boos; he just grabbed the belt and left. Way to make the belt feel important.
As if that wasn’t enough, Del Rio fell into the same holding pattern as he was in, prior to his firing, facing fellow Latino wrestlers with no storyline other than, ‘I’m a better Mexican than you’. This led to Del Rio feuding with Kalisto over the U.S. Championship, which led to some of the most reputation-destroying matches in that title’s history.
The belt changed hands four times between October 2015 and January 2016. Worse, Kalisto defeated Del Rio for the belt on January 11th, 2016 on RAW, and then lost it back to Del Rio the SmackDown immediately afterwards.
To whom does this do any favours? Who benefits from such decisions? No one, not Del Rio, not Kalisto and certainly not the US Championship.
#3 Roman Reigns wins The WWE Championship at WrestleMania 32
Sometimes things happen, that are beyond your control and you have to change your plans accordingly. This is what happened with the Universal Championship picture earlier this year. On other occasions, you make a decision for the future, and you stick to that plan, no matter how much the people around you, voice their opposition to it.
And when you make that decision, the reaction is downright venomous.
Does all of this seem familiar to you? If so, then congratulations, you’ve gone into the mind of Vince McMahon during the build-up to WrestleMania 32.
It has been almost two years, and for that length of time, Vince has been determined to make us accept Roman Reigns as his hand-picked champion. That has not gone well at all. He was booed in almost every major match he has been in, mainly because wrestling fans (and well, most people in general) do NOT like to be told what to do, say, think, or like.
Despite the horrible reactions he was getting (and still gets), Vince made it obvious that Reigns was going to win at WrestleMania 32. Most people saw through his plans and rejected this altogether. Reigns was booed so heavily during his entrance, match, and celebration victory, that no amount of sound editing on the part of the production team could silence them.
Never in the history of WrestleMania has the winner of the main event been booed so terribly, that the bad guys in the match had to appease the fans after the show went off the air. But that’s what Triple H and Stephanie did; the supposed heels on the program tried to make fans happy, and it failed.
Given this reaction, it makes one wonder if Roman Reigns will ever touch the WWE Championship ever again. If he does, Vince had better expect the same reaction he got at WrestleMania, if not worse.
#2 Dolph Ziggler ends The Miz’s Intercontinental Championship reign
When the Brand Extension was still in its infancy, the Miz was the hottest act on SmackDown. Somehow, he had become an even bigger jerk of a character than before, and people just loved to hate him. He was an underhanded coward that used his wife to his advantage, receiving more boos than the supposed top heel on the roster, A.J. Styles.
WWE had something with him, and with each successful championship defence, his stock on the roster was growing. It was thought that finally, the Intercontinental Championship would regain a fragment of its former glory; that it would be perhaps more than another mid card belt.
And then he lost it to Dolph Ziggler.
While WWE did make a good effort in promoting the Miz/Ziggler confrontation as a big deal with Ziggler’s career on the line, they shot themselves in the foot by ending Miz’s reign. He was a much hotter star than Ziggler was and had a bigger chance of achieving greater heights with the IC title than Ziggler did.
There was an underlying story with Miz as champion that Dolph couldn’t replicate. Miz’s feud with Daniel Bryan was fresh, exciting, and open to endless possibilities. WWE could’ve gone in virtually any direction to find a top babyface to end Miz’s reign, and they went with the perpetual mid carder Dolph Ziggler.
They did this instead of, for example, having Miz hold the title until WrestleMania, only for Bryan to bring in his real-life friend Shinsuke Nakamura to challenge for it, on the biggest stage. THAT would’ve sold tickets.
Ziggler, meanwhile, represented the status quo. Once again, he had the belt (as if his previous reigns did him any favours) and barely did anything with it. Worse yet, Ziggler lost the belt BACK TO THE MIZ after less than 40 days as champion. This, of course, begs the question, what was the point of Miz losing the belt in the first place?
Shame on you WWE. You had a golden opportunity to make something out of one of your most historic championships, and you squandered it for a cheap win for Ziggler that won’t be remembered in six months’ time.
#1 Finn Balor wins and loses The WWE Universal Championship in 24 Hours
Finn Balor’s main roster debut was a momentous occasion. He had spent almost a year in NXT and had become that brand’s top star in very short order. He was destined for greatness. Everything about him, from his look to his athleticism to his fantastic entrance and alter-ego, screamed ‘megastar’. He was ready for the big stage.
It was obvious that he was earmarked for immediate success when he became the first-ever WWE Universal Championship. That was supposed to be his crowning achievement, the culmination of his efforts in NXT and abroad. Sadly, it was tainted by forces beyond his control.
Balor injured his shoulder badly in the opening moments of his tournament finals match with Seth Rollins at SummerSlam 2016. Rollins executed his infamous Bucklebomb, only this time, he threw Balor into the ringside barricade instead of into the turnbuckle. That injured Balor’s shoulder so badly that he had to pop it back into place in order to finish the match.
The fact that he went almost 20 minutes is a testament to his strength.
With his injury, he was forced to relinquish his newly-acquired championship and undergo surgery, putting him on the shelf for around six months. This was a devastating announcement because Balor was clearly being earmarked for a major position on RAW.
Finally, RAW would have a different top Superstar instead of the same old favourites being shoved down the fans’ throats. That said, the silver lining in this disappointment, is that Kevin Owens is now Universal Champion, and his act very well might be the best thing that the show has to offer right now.
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