WWE: Too Many Title Changes

Why does every young star in the WWE need a championship title reign and why can’t title reigns be longer?

Now I see a lot of posts discussing how John Morrison or Kofi Kingston deserve a run at one of the top two belts. What happened to waiting for your time?

Yes there are those that get to the top unusually quick: Sheamus, Miz. But waiting for years is the norm and needs to be more accepted.

Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Stone Cold, The Rock, Mick Foley, Edge, Benoit, etc. all had careers that lasted a long time before winning the big one.

I mean the Macho Man Randy Savage went four years in the WWF before winning his first WWF Championship.

The point is just because Morrison or Kingston or any number of young stars haven’t had their spot yet doesn’t mean they need it now.

Hogan lasted on top for 10 years with only four or five other men holding the belt during that time.

The point of being the champion means you are the best. I’m no fan of John Cena, but him having long title reigns has been a good thing.

Long title reigns holds up the idea that you are either the best in the business and it should be difficult for someone to win the belt from you (Cena), or you are a dirty, sneaky, cheat who rarely wins clean but you are the best at doing that (Ric Flair).

Now I am not comparing the Miz to Flair but him holding on to the belt this long is a good thing.

Now in the modern era, which is since Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik for his first World Title, there have been 93 title reigns of the WWE Championship alone.

From January 1984 to November 1997 there were a total of 28 title reigns between 13 different men.

Now, starting with the Attitude Era and going to now there have been 65 title reigns between 23 different men. 13 years/13 men compared to 13 years/23 men. 28 reigns compared to 65.

You also have to consider that the WCW belt was introduced in 2002, and with the exception of a few years of unification, it has been exchanged many times.

19 different men have won it 41 times to be exact. When added together, the last 13 years has had 42 men win 106 titles.

The point of all this is that the title has been watered down.

I remember when it was a big deal that Bret Hart matched Hogan’s “5”.

The belt meant so much back then. It meant a lot to a young wrestling fan. It meant so much that wrestlers had to wait for that chance.

The IWC needs to get back to that point, and more importantly, so does the WWE.