At 3/23/09 01:58 PM, Outlaw88 wrote:
I think the reasoning behind the Tag belt merger is that they were having Miz and Morrison appear on all three shows while being defending tag champs anyway, and the fact that there are so little tag teams to begin with that they must have figured it was pointless to have two existing tag titles. I have to disagree with you on the merging of the mid-level belts as they can be used to establish up and coming talent. That and they have been more consistent with keeping them to their respective brand. Yeah we saw JBL battle Taker last week, but it wasn't about the IC title.
And THAT'S THE PROBLEM!!! MVP and JBL are CHAMPIONS!! But nobody seems to want their belts, or want them on a consistent basis. Being the IC or US champion means jack fucking shit, it only works if you're a babyface that the people ALREADY like, and why can't the ECW belt (which hey, may not even be the ECW belt soon since Sci Fi and WWE are supposed to be "re-branding" that show, and hopefully it'll be in part so they can drop those letters and let them rest in peace) be defended across all the shows? Giving it and it's champion more exposure. The Monday Night Wars proved it too, if you have too many belts, they can't all be special. The World title (or A world title I should say) is always going to be the most important belt out there, and that's fine, it always SHOULD be. But if I have say, four titles underneath that, how can I really and truly justify them as all being important? How can I make it seem like they all matter if they serve essentially the same function? That's the problem here. The IC and US titles are basically just mid-carder belts with nothing special about them at present.
The Tag Titles to me should be a belt on a similar par with the world title, in that it makes you the best TEAM, like the world champion is the biggest star, Ditto a women's belt, and (if one existed) a lightweight belt.
I agree we need a mid-level title so guys get that experience of being a champion before they get a run at the top, but we don't need three, we need one. We would only need that many if there was more of a hard split, but there isn't. It's too much for a company that is not really keeping it's shows seperate. This is not me saying let's end the brand split, this is me making a plea for sanity, and for if a guy (or guys) can himself (themselves) champion(s) it should fucking well mean something. Now it only really matters in like 2 cases.