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The Raw after WrestleMania opened this year with the most unlikely of promos. After Universal Champion Seth Rollins gave a straightforward rundown of his victory over Brock Lesnar and his intentions to be a fighting champ, new WWE Champion Kofi Kingston arrived. Kingston proposed a winner take all, title for title match at the end of the show.
The idea of unifying the top two titles in sports entertainment the night after WrestleMania felt pretty electric, and Kingston and Rollins seemed like a reasonable enough duo to put on a match worthy of the occasion. Nonetheless, fans quickly felt uncertain about what the match could mean, given that both men are well liked and it was good to see them both win their titles the night before. It would inevitably feel like a letdown for one of those men to only be a one-day champ.
WWE chose option C, with The Bar interrupting the main event, only to give way to a no stakes tag match. Still, this scenario raised the question—what if WWE had unified the titles on Raw?
#3. Another sign of the brand split ending
The brand split between Raw and SmackDown has felt increasingly tenuous in recent months. Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair openly hopping between shows at will, and new call ups Ricochet and Aleister Black regularly working both programs with little rhyme or reason. That’s not to mention the Women’s Tag Team Championship, more openly defended across both main roster brands, as well as NXT.
If WWE were to have pulled the trigger on unifying its top two men’s titles as well, it certainly could have signaled WWE was going all in on ending the brand split. After all, putting the top title from each show together would leave only the Intercontinental, United States, and individual tag titles unique to each brand.
The tag divisions would probably do just as well to unify anyway, and WWE has had two secondary titles active concurrently often enough, regardless of the brand situation. Without a top prize to pursue, unique to each show, the concept of having distinct shows largely dissipates.
#2. A sharp fall off for Kofi Kingston
Kofi Kingston rode a wave of momentum like few WWE Superstars before him when he captured the imagination of fans, and converted it into a WWE Championship victory over Daniel Bryan at the biggest show of the year. However, even upon achieving the biggest feat of his career, a shadow loomed over Kingston. How long would WWE allow this career mid-card guy to reign with the top prize in the company?
We can contrast this to Seth Rollins, who was also a kayfabe underdog going into WrestleMania, but who has enjoyed a far more powerful and sustained push in WWE than his opponent. Rollins came in with the heavily protected Shield faction and went on to win his first world title via a historic Money in the Bank cash in at WrestleMania 31.
Of the two wrestlers, there’s no real doubt WWE has more invested in Rollins. Had the Raw main event had a decisive finish, it’s hard to imagine Kingston having won. The loss more likely would have represented his first step back down the ladder.
#1. Brock Lesnar sets an unlikely template
Brock Lesnar has spent most of the last two years as Universal Champion, during which time a vocal contingent of WWE fans lamented his part-time status, and Raw, more often than not, not having a top champion on TV.
If WWE were to go the route of having one world title span two distinct brands, it’s possible the champion would pull double duty, working both shows each week. Another possibility to protect the champ from working nearly double the dates, would be to essentially alternate between brands, going from program to program on a monthly basis or so.
While the champion would be working at least a full-time schedule under those parameters, it’s likely that each show might go for a month or more at a time without the presence of a world champion, thus making it feel a bit like there’s a part-time champion like Lesnar with the strap. This could lend greater weight to the Intercontinental and United States Championships, though past precedent doesn’t necessarily suggest that would be the case.
