Photo Credits- WWE.com, Wrestling Inc
During yesterday’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, Brock Lesnar won back the WWE Championship in the main event during the Elimination Chamber match. This will now set up Lesnar vs Reigns for WrestleMania, for both top titles. While this speaks to the larger of WWE not creating other stars, I want to focus on their lack of focus on the WWE Championship.
The WWE title, a belt that has stretched for nearly sixty years, was the most prestigious title in wrestling, held by countless legends. However, the past five years have been a difficult time for the legendary strap. Since 2016, there have been seven WWE title reigns that have lasted for less than two months, including four title reigns during 2022 already (Big E’s reign ended January 1st). And the rest have been fairly short, with only one eclipsing 200 days. It barely feels like a main event title, main eventing WrestleMania once in the past five years. But why does it feel so lackluster?
The main culprit behind this has been the brand split, and the introduction of the Universal Championship. Since the founding of the new belt, whether red or blue, it has become tethered to the biggest stars in the company. Whether it’s Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, or Roman Reigns, it feels like they are always winning or pining after the Universal title, making it feel like the biggest title in the company. It has also been treated like a proper world title, with the two longest world title reigns in company history, held by Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. It has also main evented WrestleMania three of the five years since its introduction, the most of any belt, and two more than the WWE title.
This focus on the Universal Championship has been to great detriment of the other world title, making it feel second tier. Brock Lesnar only won the WWE Title in a secondary storyline, while his main focus has been Roman Reigns and his strap, and he did it twice. It simply feels like a toy, getting passed around to fit whatever is needed for that particular month. A World Title should feel more important, something people should be willing to shorten their career over, not some stale prop. The obvious example is Kofi Kingston and Big E, who after the big title didn’t look to win the championship back, or have it drive them mad, they just simply moved on with their lives. The fact that Big E wasn’t even in the chamber but instead is back on Smackdown in a tag team with Kofi feels truly wrong. If you lose a world championship, it seems logical you would do everything in your power to try and get it back.
There’s the main key on how to make the title feel important again. Make it something everybody wants and whoever holds it should be treated as the top of the food chain. While I’m not sure how WWE will book the title vs title match at WrestleMania, I really don’t like any of the options. But, if it were up to me and I had to book it like this, I would have Roman Reigns win and unify both titles. While it brings up multiple issues with the brand split, it would feel more genuine as a top prize, and would make the main event scene full again, meaning you wouldn’t have to recycle the same five guys for each strap. It also allows Raw to feel like an A-show, not backseat to the Reigns train rolling on Friday.
Whichever direction this story goes, it feels like it has done a massive amount of damage to the WWE championship, and I don’t see a way it can be fixed anytime soon.
