There Are Too Many Titles in Pro Wrestling

I want to spend a moment this week talking about the insane amount of championships in pro wrestling right now (no, I'm not just talking about the ones that belong to Mercedes Mone). 

There are dozens of championship belts floating around between the big 3 (4 if you count ROH?) companies alone, and I believe it's bad for business.

It's taking away from the importance of feuds, of winning a championship, and of the actual excitement when a wrestler finally achieves that career-defining moment.

In addition to the active championships, there were numerous other championships being defended in the past five years, too. 

Thankfully, the WWE 24/7 title, FTW title, and the NXT Women's Tag Team Titles were retired. They weren't being defended regularly so what's the point?

I'm going to cover WWE (and NXT ... and Evolve), AEW, and TNA this week. We'll start with the undisputed leader of pro wrestling: WWE. First, let's take a look at the amount of titles WWE currently has versus the amount of TV time it uses between Raw and Smackdown:

• Undisputed WWE Championship

• World Heavyweight Championship

• Women's World Championship

• WWE Women's Championship

• WWE Intercontinental Championship

• WWE Women's Intercontinental Championship

• WWE United States Championship

• WWE Women's United States Championship

• WWE World Tag Team Championships

• WWE Tag Team  Championships

• WWE Women's Tag Team  Championships

• WWE Crown Jewel Championship

• WWE Women's Crown Jewel Championship

Let’s get into it. I’d eliminate several of these championships. Here’s how the title situation if I was booking.

That's 13 different titles for just 5 hours of programming. Granted, the Crown Jewel Championship doesn't really count, so let's eliminate those two from this list. Still, that's 11 different titles for 5 hours of television.

There's no way that anyone can say all of these champions are getting the build, storylines, and epic moments they deserve. Some people called it when WWE introduced the women's versions of the U.S. and Intercontinental Titles. 

They said they'd never be defended properly. Well, Becky Lynch holds one of those titles, so that helps, but Giulia certainly isn't being featured. Neither was Zelina Vega. Really, can you honestly say that Chelsea Green had an interesting title reign either?

In WWE alone, there are already too many titles, but before getting to a more simplified solution, here are the rest of the titles under the big WWE umbrella.

NXT:

• WWE NXT Championship

• WWE NXT Women's Championship

• WWE NXT North American Championship

• WWE NXT Women's North American Championship

• WWE NXT Tag Team Championships

• WWE NXT Speed Championship

• WWE NXT Women's Speed Championship

• Heritage Cup

Now that the Speed championships were moved over to NXT (side note: it was pretty dumb to think anyone would care about pro wrestling matches in under 5 minutes on X), that's 7 different title belts (and a trophy) for 2 hours of network TV time. Again, far too many titles. Don't worry, I'll fix that.

Next up, Evolve:

• WWE Evolve Championshp

• WWE Evolve Women's Championship

2 titles for 1 hour of streaming time on Tubi. That formula actually works out nicely already.

Finally, there's WWE ID. It’s like the third-layer of WWE’s developmental system. They’re the prospects to watch out for — you know, what NXT was supposed to be. And then what Evolve was? Now, it’s WWE ID. Currently these are the ID Titles:

• WWE ID Championship

• WWE ID Women’s Championship

That's simply way too many titles for WWE, especially when TNA, AEW, and ROH also have too many titles. No, that's not WWE's fault, but it does affect their champions.

When there are so many titles across pro wrestling, it hurts the entire industry because none of the champions really mean much. These titles are really just participation trophies.

So, what's the solution? Take a look!

WWE Raw:

• WWE Championship - I struggled between keeping the WWE Title and World Heavyweight Title because ‘World Heavyweight Title’ has a good ring to it, but you run into the situation of Rey Mysterio and weight classes. I remember when Rey won the big gold belt in 2006, and people made fun of him being a champion that was facing off against the likes of The Big Show, The Great Khali, The Undertaker, and Randy Orton. I tend to agree. I was thrilled that he won. After all, he’s my favorite wrestler - perhaps of all time. However, you either have weight limits (like the Cruiserweight, Lightheavyweight, and Heavyweight Titles) or you don’t. I’d prefer not to.

Plus, keeping the history of the WWE Title lineage over the WWE’s version of the World Heavyweight Title just seems fitting. The WWE Champion is the top champion in WWE. Since WWE is at the top of pro wrestling, that means the WWE Champion is the top champion. Period. That’s how WWE needs to be presenting this. None of this Undisputed naming. No Universal Champion who is supposed to be an equal to the World Champion (for those who didn’t know, the universe is larger than the world, so that naming was confusing to begin with).

• WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship - we don’t want Smackdown to come off as the inferior product, so we’ll keep the Women’s Intercontinental Title (there are enough women for two singles titles) on Raw. 

That means that Smackdown gets:

• Intercontinental Championship - I can't erase the Intercontinental Title. It's got too much history. WWE tried to eliminate this championship in the early 2000s, and they quickly realized their mistake and brought it back. This will be a secondary title - below the WWE Title - as it should be. However, it will also be the champion that leads the Smackdown brand. This will actually restore some significance and prestige back to this championship, which has had ups and downs along the past two decades.
  

• WWE Women’s Championship - In this day and age, women superstars are as popular as the male superstars. Rhea Ripley could outpop a lot of the male roster any day of the week. So, having the combination of the Intercontinental Champion and WWE Women's Champion carrying a show doesn't sound too far fetched. In 1999? Absolutely. It's not 1999, though.

Annnnd, that’s it. Those are the only titles that are dedicated to specific brands. There are more champions than that, don’t worry. There’s a twist here at the end. Before we get to that, let’s circle back to WWE’s (multiple) developmental brands.

Back to WWE NXT:

• NXT Championship - You've got your male champion.

• NXT Women’s Championship - You've got your female champions

• NXT Tag Team Championships - You've got male tag team champions.

• NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship - Yes, I’d bring back a separate set of women’s champs for the NXT brand. For a while, they were running low on women, but with the WWE ID and WWE Evolve (which I don't think will last all that long) systems (and TNA and AAA crossovers), there are now plenty of women who could be competing for NXT Women's Tag Team Championships.

Talking about WWE Evolve again:

• WWE Evolve Championship - Your male champion.

• WWE Evolve Women’s Champion - Your female champion.

• WWE Evolve Tag Team Champions - I’d add a set of tag team champions. Most major promotions feature tag team wrestling, and Evolve certainly does. May as well have a set of tag team champions.

Alright, before the twist at the end, we’ll change the WWE ID title situation:

• WWE ID Championship - self-explanatory at this point.

• WWE ID Women’s Championship - also, self-explanatory.

• WWE ID Tag Team Championships - Wait, aren’t I supposed to be retiring championships? Yes, yes I am. However, I’m not as offended by the idea of another set of WWE ID titles, especially since these get zero TV time. They’re not watering down any television show. And, having ID Tag Team Titles hopefully ensures the continuation of tag team wrestling. 

Let me clarify that, it hopefully ensures the continuation of good tag team wrestling. Not every person will be a singles champion in WWE (although they could be if WWE keeps adding championships to their rosters). A lot of people can add just as much to any card as tag teams, though.

Tag Teams give more people a pay day, and they bring a whole new aspect to the show. I’d like to keep that going for a long time, so why not give the independent scene a little shot of depth with new WWE ID Tag Team Titles?

Now, onto the championships that are no longer going to be around. These are the championships I'm retiring:

• WWE World Heavyweight Championship - with a WWE and Intercontinental title both leading their brands, there’s no reason to have another title — one that competes with the prestige of the WWE Championship. If this title still had the lineage going back to WCW days, I may be more torn about retiring it. WWE got rid of that lineage a long time ago, though, so off to the retirement home this one goes.

• WWE Women’s World Heavyweight Championship - Ditto. If Rhea Ripley is your WWE Women’s Champion, there’s no reason to have another champion being her equal on another show. Creative storytelling can make up for the lack of championships. Also, maybe eliminating some titles can also prevent the awful, boring, 10+ month title reigns WWE loves so much. 

I don’t like hot potatoe-ing the titles, but I also don’t like excessively long title reigns. It takes away form the ‘anything can happen’ aspect of WWE events. With ticket prices rising, every event should feel like you could see a possible title change.

• WWE United States Championship - It sounds nice. It’s patriotic, right? But unless WWE is going to bring back a European Title, introduce an Asian-Pacific Title, and other geographically-based titles, it kind of seems silly to have a U.S. Title. Half the time, the person holding that championship isn’t even from the United States. 

There’s really no meaning behind it. Even when WWE has a layup right in front of them (like making Ivy Nile the Women’s U.S. Champion), or giving El Grande Americano the U.S. Title, they don’t take it. So, let’s just retire this title.

• WWE Women’s United States Championship - Let’s retire this one, too, for reasons explained in the first few paragraphs.

• WWE World Tag Team Championships - WWE can barely keep one tag team division going, let alone two of them. There's absolutely 0 reason to keep these titles active.

PLOT TWIST! I’m keeping some championships around. However, I’m going to make them traveling titles:

• WWE Tag Team Championships - I love tag team wrestling so there’s no way I’m not keeping these titles around! However, realistically, there aren't enough teams to justify having two sets of titles right now. We could always bring the World Tag Team Titles back if needed. I just don't see that happening for a while with WWE right now. But, we’ve still got plenty of tag teams for one set of titles. 
  
  
  

There's still a roster split, so sometimes the champions will have a home on Raw and sometimes the champions will be (officially) members of the Smackdown roster. Whoever the champions are will have the ability to travel between shows, though. So, you’ll see a lot more interactions between good tag teams. Doing this also allows a little more forgiveness for when WWE blatantly breaks its own roster rules (like Becky Lynch showing up on Smackdown a couple of weeks ago just because AJ Lee was returning and Smackdown was taking place in Chicago).

• WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships - These are already traveling tag team titles, and the situation works just fine. Heck, the champions could still travel to NXT even though I’m creating NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles in my little dream scenario here. I always enjoy a good champion vs. champion match — or, in this case, champions vs champions.

• WWE North American Championship - I was going to retire this championship, but with a roster full of Canadians, Americans, Mexicans, the acquisition of AAA, and the partnership with TNA Wrestling, there are plenty of people who could be competing for this title. The idea of it floating between different promotions in North America intrigues me, so let’s keep it going. It could potentially have it’s own home — maybe on Smackdown primarily — but it could be defended anywhere.

• WWE Speed Championship - Yeah, I thought the idea was stupid — for X. Matches only taking place on a social media platform? One where there’s no chance of going over the time? That’s dumb. It makes a mockery of the business. Why don’t all matches wrap up that quickly then? 

Why don’t matches on Raw finish up in under 3 minutes? The same wrestlers competing on Speed only have the ability to win a 3 minute match on Speed? On Raw, they just can’t get the job done? Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of that at all. Just like the other titles here, depending on whose was it this championship sits around will determine which show it calls home.

If Grayson Waller is the Speed Champ and he’s on Raw, then the Speed Title will usually be on Raw. Unless Waller decides to show up at NXT, or Evolve, or Smackdown. This keeps the surprises popping and brings a little ‘must see TV’ aspect to the different shows.

• WWE Women’s Speed Championships - By now, you get the idea. Let’s say Giulia is the Women’s Speed Champion. She’s currently on the Smackdown roster, so the Women’s Speed Title is primarily seen on Smackdown. But if Giulia is booked in AAA? She could bring the title with her, defend it, and lose it. Same goes for TNA, WWE ID shows, and any other show or event under the WWE umbrella.

I think making these small changes would help boost the unpredictability (and excitement) on WWE across programming, it would make the championship wins much more prestigious, and it would add new layers to the shows. There's less to fight for, so wrestlers need to really step up their game to achieve that number one contender status and get a title shot in the first place. 

How do you think WWE could improve their championship situation? Or do you think they're fine as is right now?