Posted in: Ripped To Shreds Ripped To Shreds #23: Pinning The Champ
By Ripper
Oct 6, 2009 - 7:39:19 PM
Ripped To Shreds #23: Pinning The Champ
Welcome to Ripped To Shreds.
Thanks to all of you who responded to my last column. The feedback is appreciated.
This time I have a column that is a little bit on the shorter side, as I have been short on time as of late.
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On a number of occasions over the last few years, World Wrestling Entertainment has utilized the tactic of having their World Champions get pinned, often times cleanly, during the course of their title reign. While some professional wrestling fans have no difficulty with accepting this newly introduced aspect of the product, I for one have a few problems with this feature of sports entertainment.
First and foremost, it takes down the credibility of the World Champion. The World Heavyweight Champion and the WWE Champion appear to be weaker, lesser competitors after a clean loss to one of their opponents. A loss for the Champ that occurs due to some kind of actions that taint the win (interference, foreign objects, etc.)obviously will not cause much of a problem, as unclean wins will always spoil the win to a degree. (Even though it may assist in protecting the credibility of a wrestler. )
Part of the role of the World Champion is that they serve as a figure head for the company. They’re not always going to be the top wrestler in the company or even part of the top storyline, but regardless, they almost always play a significant role in how things work, like how Hulk Hogan outshined Randy Savage when Savage was the champ for the first time, or how The Rock and Mankind, while competing for the World Title between each other, played second fiddle to Austin and McMahon in the late nineties. They were all big gears of making the product go round, even if they weren’t the absolute top guys on the card.
When John Morrison pinned C.M. Punk cleanly on two separate occasions on Smackdown, those losses brought down the credibility of the Champion, and gave the belt itself less meaning and value. While entertainment is, and always will be a huge part of World Wrestling Entertainment, part of what adds to the quality is the World Champion and the role he plays. It’s sports entertainment, and people will always focus on the credibility of the wrestlers in a one on one sports sense.
It’s true that it can add some interest to the product, in that people may be somewhat engrossed into the idea of seeing a person who beat the champion in a non title match. It makes sense that a win like that would make you the number one contender for the World Title. I know I would have been interested to see John Morrison take on C.M. Punk in a match with the championship belt on the line after John’s wins a while back.
However, if the value of the title is lessened to the point that the champ clearly is not the best in the company on a competitive level, on must ask what the entire point of having a World Title belt even is. Imagine if boxing had no title belts, or that certain sports had no championships. It would lack a little something extra.
In the same way wrestling must also utilize these titles, if they plan on using them at all. An age old argument is whether the belt makes the wrestler, or if the wrestler makes the belt. Both sides of the argument can be right at certain times. In either case, the wrestler needs to bring himself half way. Batista’s first title reign can be an example of this, as he was already a big star, yet benefited greatly from wearing the big gold belt.
Clean wins over the champion bring down the value of actually seeing the champion defend his title, as he seems less deserving of it to begin with.
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