WWE: How Many World Title Reigns Is Too Many?

On May 1, 2011, for the first time in over a year, John Cena pinned the Miz at Extreme Rules to win the WWE Championship for the eighth time overall. That win tied him with Triple H as the Superstar with the highest number of WWE title reigns in history. Vince, I am sure, slept like a baby that night.

Fast forward to Sept.18, 2011, and John Cena walked out of First Niagara Center in Buffalo with the WWE title in tow, having just submitted Alberto del Rio at Night of Champions to win the championship for an incredible tenth time—a record that I am sure will be not be broken in a long while.

Ignoring the (rather unwelcome) feat that is Cena's 10 time title reign, we have to look at his presence in the WWE title picture this year.

Right up until last month when Awesome Truth brutally attacked him at Hell in a Cell, Johnny Boy was ever present in the WWE title picture all year long. Battling everyone from The Miz to CM Punk, from R-Truth to Alberto del Rio, Cena has always made sure to make his presence known and felt.

Of course, when you spend that long hogging a title, chances are you get rematch after rematch that you never earned (Cena has only had one No. 1 contender's match this year), bringing me to my point:

John Cena has won the title three times this year, in a space of five months. Three times in five months.

Now, I do not intend this to be another Cena bashing writeup—you'll find a dozen on this site if you look hard enough. However, I have to wonder just when it is time to actually stop handing a Superstar cheap title wins for the sake of numbers.

I mean, seeing that Cena lost his title two weeks after winning it at Night of Champions, the 'E had no reason in the Devil's flaming Hell to give him that title in the first place...unless they wanted to be able to say, "WE HAVE A NEW RECORD, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"

Couldn't they have waited until another year for that? Are they scared that Cena will die in the next 12 months? Why exactly did del Rio's momentum have to be sacrificial lamb for Vince's obsession with decorating John Cena with more and more title reigns?

The WWE title's value has become heavily diminished over the past couple of months—the longest reign we've had all year has been about five months, and since then, the title has changed hands six times.

It gets to a point where the championship becomes nothing but a shining belt that Superstars carrying around because it matches their trunks (I'm looking at you, Berto).

The way Cena is poised, it's very possible that he could be an 18-time world champion by the time he drags himself out of the ring for the final time. Is that really ideal?

The Rock had seven world title reigns. Stone Cold had six. Shawn Michaels had four world title reigns. Roddy Piper had none. All men are retired, and their legacy is all we have.

In the end, all aforementioned men are better than many Superstars today who have more title reigns than they did. So why does the WWE feel the need to constantly distribute the title like a cheap hooker?

Does it physically hurt to actually have a well booked champion like Mark Henry? Does it disturb the Creative Team's psyche to know a title has been on someone for more than two months?

The way things are looking, it seems Henry is going to be holding on to his title for a little while longer; carrying that belief, I think Raw's Creative Team should take a cue from SmackDown. CM Punk, whenever he nabs the WWE Championship from Berto, should have a long, interesting, fulfilling reign. One that hopefully last more than four weeks.

I'm Jo-Jo, and I'm not that damn good.