Definition of a Transitional Champion

[Carbomb]

Edit- Also re: that Unisputed title run, the manner in which he won it was a pretty massive cluster fuck which hampered him out of the gate. Yes, he beat Rock and Austin in the same night, but not without shitloads of interference and other crap going on.

 

I'm as big a fan of Jericho as any, but even I couldn't see him going over both Austin and The Rock clean in one night, especially as a heel. And yes, there was that one night, but as I mentioned earlier, there's also the two feuds straight after that - he went into both feuds as champ and came out of them as champ.

 

Jericho's new book actually sheds a fair bit of light on the fuck-up of the first title run, and a lot of it is as expected. As regards Stephanie McMahon's involvement, Jericho wanted it revealed that the two of them were having an affair while Triple H was injured. This was nixed because the powers that be felt that 'Triple H is the sort of man who would know about something like that going on', and so it was changed to Jericho basically becoming Stephanie's lackey.

 

I actually see the logic in the nix. Seeing as the whole love triangle storyline with Stephanie and Kurt had only been a couple of years previous, it would've made Trips look like a naif idiot if he didn't know Steph was at it with Jericho.

 

Still don't like how they booked Jericho against H though; he really didn't need Stephanie and in the end it made him look really small-time. Didn't help that Rock/Hogan didn't go on last at WM, but the WWF couldn't have been expected to know that at the time.

[simonworden]

Speaking of Rock, need to mention his 2002 Month long run where he dropped the title to Lesnar. That was purely transitional.

 

Other notable transitional champions in the past I can think of that may have not been mentioned

 

Randy Orton 2004 - Not so much a transition but a failed experiment that turned out to be transitional

 

Jeff Hardy - World Title 2009 - When he lost it instantly to CM Punk this was a transition to set up there feud.

 

Billy Gunn IC title 2000 - Really seemed he won it to drop to benoit without having 2 radicals members square off

 

Carlito US title 2004 - Only really held the belt to keep it on air while Cena shot the marine

[Kaz Hayashi]

I know he has done more since then (just a bit)

 

But the Undertakers first reign... the whole vs Hogan at Tuesday in Texas and Survivor Series thing. Was only a few days as champiuon and lost it back to the same person.

 

Was this WWE lame attempt at making Taker look hard, or did Hogan spit his dummie out? Didnt really get it.

[Fatty Facesitter]

Edit- Also re: that Unisputed title run, the manner in which he won it was a pretty massive cluster fuck which hampered him out of the gate. Yes, he beat Rock and Austin in the same night, but not without shitloads of interference and other crap going on.

 

I'm as big a fan of Jericho as any, but even I couldn't see him going over both Austin and The Rock clean in one night, especially as a heel. And yes, there was that one night, but as I mentioned earlier, there's also the two feuds straight after that - he went into both feuds as champ and came out of them as champ.

 

He didn't have to necessarily go over clean, but he didn't need the likes of Vince, Angle and Booker T getting involved in an Undisputed title match in all fairness. The stuff with The Rock I'll grant you, as that match at the Rumble was actually the best match of that title run and a culmination of a long running battle between the two, mainly thanks to Rock actually doing his upmost to make Jericho seem like a credible champion. But the Austin feud didn't have much build even despite their past at Vengance and he actually played second fiddle to the nWo that night. He may have come out as Champion in the second feud, but he was still playing second fiddle and it was glaringly obvious who would go over at Wrestlemania.

[JohnnyChimpo]

Edit- Also re: that Unisputed title run, the manner in which he won it was a pretty massive cluster fuck which hampered him out of the gate. Yes, he beat Rock and Austin in the same night, but not without shitloads of interference and other crap going on.

 

I'm as big a fan of Jericho as any, but even I couldn't see him going over both Austin and The Rock clean in one night, especially as a heel. And yes, there was that one night, but as I mentioned earlier, there's also the two feuds straight after that - he went into both feuds as champ and came out of them as champ.

 

He didn't have to necessarily go over clean, but he didn't need the likes of Vince, Angle and Booker T getting involved in an Undisputed title match in all fairness. The stuff with The Rock I'll grant you, as that match at the Rumble was actually the best match of that title run and a culmination of a long running battle between the two, mainly thanks to Rock actually doing his upmost to make Jericho seem like a credible champion. But the Austin feud didn't have much build even despite their past at Vengance and he actually played second fiddle to the nWo that night. He may have come out as Champion in the second feud, but he was still playing second fiddle and it was glaringly obvious who would go over at Wrestlemania.

 

 

Exactly. A lot of people heap praise on the Royal Rumble match he had with The Rock, but thats got to be pure hindsight. Jericho had Lance Storm and Christian running interference, hit Rock with a chair, a belt shot and still needed to win via low blow and both feet on the second rope. Rocky kicked out of a double Lionsault (Jericho's primary finisher for about a year up until that point) and got out of the Walls of Jericho a couple of times. Yet, Rocky had Jericho pinned via DDT, Rock Bottom and People's Elbow only for outside interference, and had him tapping out to the Sharpshooter. Jericho hardly came out of it all looking strong.

 

He was a spare part in his No Way Out match with Austin. And again, needed outside interference from the NWO to win the match. Jericho's run was fucked well before he ever became Steph's dog walker. At that stage, there is no surprise that Trips nixed the idea that Steph was having an affair with such a jabroni. The excellent promo that everyone remembers Jericho cutting with The Rock on the last Smackdown before the Rumble came from the fact that everyone viewed Jericho as a joke and that The Rock would walk the match. He was already well floundering.

[DJ Kris]

I know he has done more since then (just a bit)

 

But the Undertakers first reign... the whole vs Hogan at Tuesday in Texas and Survivor Series thing. Was only a few days as champiuon and lost it back to the same person.

 

Was this WWE lame attempt at making Taker look hard, or did Hogan spit his dummie out? Didnt really get it.

That's not being a transitional champion since he didn't help the belt make the transition from one champion to another. I'm not really sure what the deal was there, but I guess it was to set up Flair winning the title at the Rumble with Hogan being the clear contender at WrestleMania. As we know the whole steriod thing kicked off and plans changed, but I would expect that's the reason for the short run.

[air_raid]

Bret Hart in 95-96.

 

They pushed Diesel as leader of the New Generation, decided it hadn't really worked and it was time to give Shawn his go, and put the title on Bret just so they could start building Shawn's story.

 

Bret acknowledged he felt ignored during that reign, and his title defences against Diesel and Undertaker did more to further their feud than do anything for him. The Fed went from being all about Big Daddy to all about Shawn, and he just happened to be holding the belt at the time. He "transitioned" it from Diesel to Shawn.

[Chris B]

Not sure where we're up to with a recent comeback to a certain wrestling organisation, but...

 

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

Jeff Hardy's been an obviously transitional champion this time around. Based on the timing, it seems obvious that he took the belt off Anderson in order to drop it to Sting.

 

[close spoiler]

");document.close();

[TheBigBoot]

The definition of a Transitional Champion (and Super Cena is spot on here) is someone who is used to to transition the belt from one champion to another. That's the way it has been used inside wrestling for decades. It's a storyline device so instead of having A beat B and straight up "pass the torch" (the most obvious examples of this to me would be Hogan/Warrior, WM VI; Flair/Sting, GAB '90 and Misawa/Kobashi '03 - where the reigning Man/Ace/Top Dog passed the torch directly to their successor) you throw A1 in there as a transitional step. So instead of going straight from one 'era' to another you use someone to bridge the gap. The most famous example of this is indeed The Iron Sheik who acted as the 'bridge' between the Backlund Era and the Hogan Era.

 

This could be for a number of reasons but the most obvious ones to me would be because: 1. The person holding the belt is a babyface/heel and the person they want to put it on is also a babyface/heel; 2. They want to save the Big Match between A and B until later until later.

 

As far as a more detailed analysis goes I'd say: It is used far more often to get the belt from Babyface A onto Babyface B than it is with heels (can't think of many examples of those tbh); I'd also say its more common (or seems to be to me so feel free to chip in and tell me I'm wrong) in New York/(W)WWF(E) than something like old school British Wrestling or the NWA where the belts were often put on people with shooter reputations.

 

Another pick would be Bob Backlund in 1994, wins it from the hitman, then loses it in seconds to Diesel the following night. But he had a long run back in the 80's so could you really class him as a transitional champion?

 

In terms of that run then sure. His second run was transitional. If you are talking about his career as a whole then no. It would be strange to call Backlund "a transitional champion" overall because that's not really accurate given that his first run lasted for years and he really was the company's top babyface for a while.

 

That was a neat little story there as well as Backlund essentially became The Iron Sheik by winning the title in the exact same fashion he lost it to Sheiky eleven years earlier only to come unstuck in MSG to the rising star Diesel (back when McMahon was looking for the 'The Next Hulk Hogan') just like Sheik had done.

 

Iron Sheik, Stan Stasiak, Ivan Koloff as well.

 

Spot on. Those are the first examples I think of as well along with Sgt. Slaughter, Yokozuna (first run), Bob Backlund (second run) and Mick Foley (third run) in the 90s and in the Big Show and Chris Jericho in the 00s.

 

If we extend it past World titles then The Mountie is another one that comes up a lot, although I'd forgotten Lawz example of Shane Douglas.

 

Yoko is probably the best example of this in practice in the fact that he won the belt of the guy who had spent the last few months as the top babyface and instantly transitioned it onto the returning hero.

 

That doesn't make him a transitional champion, though. It just makes him, in your opinion, a rubbish one.

 

Mick Foley's never really held a world title for more than a cup of tea and a biscuit...

 

Only one of them was transitional though. The other times he actually lost the belt back to The Rock - I'd say that's more an example of Russo era booking and/or a way of rewarding someone who has worked hard and gotten more over than expected than anything else. Also that they toyed with the idea of the main event of WM XV being a Triple Threat for a while, which would have been the right way to go I think had they run Austin/Rock on five consecutive PPVs like was Russo's plan.

 

Big Show in WWE

Two title reigns, each barely over a month, the first one he feuded with the Big Boss Man, second one he lost in his first or second defense.

 

His second one was a classic example of this, yeah. He was used to get the belt off Brock Lesnar and onto Kurt Angle without them needing to do Kurt/Brock so that it saved the big match for the next year

[Chris B]

Yoko is probably the best example of this in practice in the fact that he won the belt of the guy who had spent the last few months as the top babyface and instantly transitioned it onto the returning hero.

 

I don't know - that's a slightly weird one, partially because it wasn't planned to happen that way. It was talked about in the history of Wrestlemania book they brought out in 2000. Basically (and I'm going off memory here), the decision was made at the last moment to give Hogan the title at the end of the show.

 

Now, even bearing that in mind, it's slightly weird since Yoko went on to win the title back from Hogan and hold it for almost a year.

 

It was a transitional reign in effect, but it was a very strange one since it wasn't planned as such and Yoko then ended up reigning for most of the year.

[TheBigBoot]

Yoko is probably the best example of this in practice in the fact that he won the belt of the guy who had spent the last few months as the top babyface and instantly transitioned it onto the returning hero.

 

I don't know - that's a slightly weird one, partially because it wasn't planned to happen that way. It was talked about in the history of Wrestlemania book they brought out in 2000. Basically (and I'm going off memory here), the decision was made at the last moment to give Hogan the title at the end of the show.

 

Now, even bearing that in mind, it's slightly weird since Yoko went on to win the title back from Hogan and hold it for almost a year.

 

It was a transitional reign in effect, but it was a very strange one since it wasn't planned as such and Yoko then ended up reigning for most of the year.

 

Fair enough, valid points. Haven't read that WM book but I did know it was a last minute decision from all the discussion about it over the years and Hogan and Bret's accounts of it. In fact going back further even before I fully understood the politics involved I thought something was up for that to have gone down the way it did. I don't even think it was a particularly good decision (at the time I thought it made Bret look pretty weak and I doubt I'd feel much differently if the same thing happened today).

 

I just thought it works as pretty neat example of the practice of transitioning the belt off one babyface and onto another without them ever facing each other since it all happened so directly with no messing about (like other title defenses) in-between.

[tom]

It wasn't exactly a transition in terms of hot-shotting the belt from one person to another but at the time I always felt that Orton winning the belt last year was a transition in terms of needing to set up the situation with Cena and Barrett. Now of course, it would have been a transition reign if they had pulled the trigger and given Barrett the belt but I'm pretty sure in my mind that the only reason Orton picked up the belt, and don't forget how subdued it was both in terms of the match-type in which it was won and in terms of a lack of a real clear build-up for a moment which should have been a big deal for Orton's face run, was so Barrett had an opponent who was pretty over as a face and who had history with Cena in order to tease the possibility of Cena handing the belt to him.

 

Sticking with Orton, towards the end of his reign it seemed relatively obvious that he was staying champion simply so Miz had a face that wasn't Cena to cash in on. Poor Randy has often been an after-thought with the belt. Mind you, that crazy PPV in which Orton was given the belt to open the show due to a Cena injury, and then lost it to HHH only to win it back in a Last Man Standing match to close out the show puts HHH down as a transitional champion too.

[TheBigBoot]

Jericho 2001-X8 2002?

 

It was probably more of a test run than anything you had Hall against Austin being built after the Rumble, Hogan against Rock, Taker was with Flair, Y2J was the only obvious choice to hold it till Hunter returned. Everyone new Triple H would win it.

 

I see where you are coming from and it was transitional in the sense that they had already decided who the next champion would be, when they would win it and it was simply a way of getting it on to them. The story at the time was that they took the belt off Austin because they wanted a heel to be champion to put over the returning Triple H at WrestleMania.

 

Whether it counts as transitional in the sense of Sheik, Stasiak, Slaughter, etc. (who were never going to win the belt again) is an interesting question though since it did seem they were also testing for future Jericho runs at the same time.

 

Jericho's new book actually sheds a fair bit of light on the fuck-up of the first title run, and a lot of it is as expected. As regards Stephanie McMahon's involvement, Jericho wanted it revealed that the two of them were having an affair while Triple H was injured. This was nixed because the powers that be felt that 'Triple H is the sort of man who would know about something like that going on', and so it was changed to Jericho basically becoming Stephanie's lackey.

 

Haven't read his book yet but Jericho has said that a few times over the years (that the Steph/Jericho thing was actually his idea but in a different way to what we got) once in an interview with PowerSlam and at least once in an internet interview. It does strike me as one of those ideas that someone suggests and then people change it so much it ends up as something totally different.

 

Still don't like how they booked Jericho against H though; he really didn't need Stephanie and in the end it made him look really small-time. Didn't help that Rock/Hogan didn't go on last at WM, but the WWF couldn't have been expected to know that at the time.

 

I don't know about that, Hogan did as did Jericho based on what they've both said since. I think by the time the event rolled around a lot of people thought that was going to be the real main attraction. There was actually quite a bit of talk about that in the weeks that followed and the the story at the time was that Triple H was the one who said it should go on last since the WWF Title should always be the final match.

 

Having said, I'm going to defend Triple H a bit on this one in that I doubt it took that much for him to persuade the Creative Team that that should be the Main Event considering it also involved the Head of that team and the high spot of the match was said Creative Head taking a Pedigree.

 

IIRC Jericho said if it had been up to him he'd have had that go on last but he was never asked his opinion on the matter.

 

Billy Gunn IC title 2000 - Really seemed he won it to drop to benoit without having 2 radicals members square off

 

Not sure about that one. I thought they had plans for 'The One' as face and when he wasn't as over as they'd hoped they just went back to old reliable Benoit?

[kieranjennings]

I may have missed it mentioned but surely one of the best examples of transitional champion would be Tommy Dreamer in ECW. He won the belt from Taz (who was a WWE employee having taken the belt from WCW bound Mike Awesome) and dropped it to Justin Credible.

 

The Dreamer win was done just to make Incredibles title win more legitimate.

[simonworden]

Surely beating a worn out dreamer and not a WWE superstar in Tazz has the opposite effect?