Championships Don’t Matter
I once wrote about how championship belts in wrestling were important and should be protected. I compared the WWE style of tossing belts between wrestlers seemingly on a daily whim to the NJPW style of keeping belts on wrestlers for much longer periods of time. It gave championship losses weight and heft, if gave the occasional title defense some anxiety, and it made everything feel like it mattered. Well, here I go reversing myself: those championships just don’t matter.
A rivalry that didn’t need any belts.
Championships are a story device in sport. They are made up things we ascribe value to. The better a wrestling promotion treats a belt the more wrestlers and – more importantly – paying customers will value that belt. However if everything is predetermined, what value do those belts hold to the company itself? Story. A belt means a story. Why are these two dudes picking one another up and slamming themselves onto this canvas stretched over plywood? This pretty-ass belt, that’s why. Not every match can feature a belt, no matter how many you add, at some point you won’t be able to fill an entire three hours every Monday with wrestling. What do you do then?
In WWE’s case, you do nothing. You fill those three hours however you can and pray your television rights deals in India and the UK bring home the money. Eventually though, time catches up to you. Story is what not-so-secretly drives wrestling. A boring wrestler holding a championship belt is still a boring wrestler. Developing and creating believable storylines is what makes fans want to tune in every week. It’s what drives people to watch every pay-per-view. To see what happens next.
A rivalry that needed a belt.
In the current WWE, rivalries don’t form. Grudges churn up randomly and disappear just as quickly. Stories are a forced version of bad corporate faction/stooge versus good guy trying to catch a break and win their match cleanly. Finn Balor wants to be good but here comes Drew McIntyre for some reason. Elias is secretly a heel but the crowd cheers so here comes Bobby Lashley I guess. Natalya is still wrestling so we wrote down our first idea to give her matches with Ruby Riott and no one said no.
Story writing in wrestling is hard. Especially in an age where social media can either blur or sharpen the lines between real and fake. But a lot of the heavy lifting is often done ahead of time. Balor has his history in NJPW and with the Bullet Club built into his character. As does AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura who could be feuding for years to come if written correctly. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are forever linked due to their friendship and while they are written together, no one knows what to do with them.
The WWE’s continuing lack of any compelling story beyond “who wins this belt next?” is a revealing problem for the company. One that has existed since the days of CM Punk and the endless championship wins from John Cena and Randy Orton. Belts are all that matter. Gone are the days of feuding factions and deep seeded rivalries and in their place are tournaments, championships, and trophies. For a company run by the anti-participation award poster child, Vince McMahon, he sure does enjoy handing out hardware every chance he gets.
