Mid Card Titles

[fye]

I've always liked the idea of a British promotion re-introducing some of the weight limit titles such as middleweight and lightweight titles. They used to have these in the world of sport days, and sometimes these were even more popular than the Heavyweight matches. So for example a promotion could have a British Heavyweight title, followed by British middleweight, welterweight and lightweight titles. I'm not sure if these would work nowadays though.

 

it works in MMA, its all about how its presented and booked, if presented with equal importance it will be viewed as such

[cobra_gordo]

Southside's secondary title is called the Speed King Championship, kind of like being called King Of The Ring you win the belt and you're the Southside Speed King. I think it has a pretty nifty ring to it and it makes the cruiserweight division sound important.

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

I've always liked CZW's Iron Man title, at least the version of it that was on when TWC was still a thing. Having every match have a time limit gave it an interesting stipulation without having to go as poncey as the Pure Wrestling thing RoH had.

[ShortOrderCook]

I agree with Jane on that one, don't think that's a bad name for a title and a perfectly simple concept without getting too wankery.

 

I've also thought 'Peoples Champion' for this before. Admittedly could see how it sounds rubbish, but have thought similar concepts as those mentioned. Think it wouldn't be a bad fit for an Intercontinental title level though, as it's usually (in the past at least) been put on guys who the crowd are really starting to get behind or against, the name could be used easily for a face or heel in an ironic manner. Probably would be rubbish though.

 

Have also been surprised titles in big companies have never really gone the sponsorship route. I'm sure my Turtles, Ghostbusters, Terminators federation had a Super Nintendo Champion at some point,. And hearing Jim Ross losing his shit announcing a new fruity, delicious, so so fruity, bah God delicious Skittles champion would have been truly special. My Intercontinental belt eventually was called Independent i'm sure, more because it seemed similar than anything else. Another thing i thought would have occurred more is a belt dedicated to/named after a particular wrestling legend that company holds in high regard, like the Lou Thesz Champion or Titles that's Bob Backlund approved.

 

With all the insider references and such being thrown over t-shirts and spoken on TV with #heel and such and such, if they ever decide to rename the US title, they may as well go with...Mid Card Champion. The IC title has often been put on guys renowned for being good workers and putting on consistently good matches. Has any wrestling group had a 5 Star champion?

 

I think WWE could actually do with switching the US title to a gimmicked Mid-Card title. It would be good to have some distinction between that and the IC belt and just generally add something interesting for the Mid-Card guys. The Hardcore belt was great for that. I can't think of what that might be though. Although, Smackdown could tap into their Hispanic audience a bit more, if they are to tap into that market even more and bring in more guys of that ilk. A hybrid of a mid-card and cruiser belt, which i guess would just be like the X division title but to be aimed to appeal to the South Americanos, basically being a Lucha title, maybe. I don't really know what classifies someone to challenge for it, again i'm probably just dreaming up a different version of an X Division title, which i've never really liked, so fuck knows why. Probably because i just imagine the belt would look cool.

[Jewish Darren]

I agree about the pointless use of Intercontinental, Television, or even WORLD as the description of the title.

 

I am a big fan of weight classes or if you do have a heavyweight championship, then having a Jr. heavyweight title has a nice ring to it.

 

A title should always mean something!

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

This is a bit aspergers, but as a kid, I always thought the world title was basically equal to the intercontinental title on the basis that if you're the world champion, you're the champion of the world and if you're the IC champ, you're the champion of all the continents, so the only difference is the world champ also gets to be the best of the sea and sky, which seemingly offer zero challengers.

[ShortOrderCook]

John Tenta 'The Shark' and Tugboat only ever challenged for World belts for that reason.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

This is a bit aspergers, but as a kid, I always thought the world title was basically equal to the intercontinental title on the basis that if you're the world champion, you're the champion of the world and if you're the IC champ, you're the champion of all the continents, so the only difference is the world champ also gets to be the best of the sea and sky, which seemingly offer zero challengers.

 

You wait till Aquaman hears this, he will kick your ass!

 

All kiddin a-side... like you when I was a kid I too took the titles literally. When I started watching, I heard them refer to the main belt as the WWF Championship, and the secondary title as the Intercontinental Championship.

 

Automatically my newbie brain presumed the IC title was superior. Surely if your the WWE champion you are ONLY better than those in the WWE, whilst if your Intercontinental Champion you are better than every single competitor within all the continents? Naturally I soon realised after watching more and more of the WWF that this wasn't the case and it was actually a WORLD title.

 

When I was younger, the literal meaning of a title WAS important to me. I remember getting annoyed when the European Title was contested outside of Euro and/or held by a non european. It actually ruined the show for me. So yes, I think it's important for titles to hold some sort of limitation as to who can hold them.

 

For my own personal ideas, two come to mind:

 

Inter-Regional Championship: When I was working on LDNs tv show, this was one of a million ideas suggested and turn down. The idea was that whilst LDN had a main belt (LDN British Championship) this would be a "touring champion" belt. I.e. the belt holder would take the title with him to other feds and defend the belt there (or at least, we get footage of him wrestling at other shows and SAY he was defending a belt ).

 

The idea was to use it as a tool to build somebody up by filming them compete all over the UK, and show highlights each week on LDN TV. This was basically my way of trying to get somebody over without actually have them take up a full 15-20 minutes of TV time wrestling a full match.

 

X Devision Title: Yeah I know this one has already been invented, but personally I always felt it needed massive rule changes to actually distinguish it from the TNA World Title. In fact it's only recently a weight limit has been put onto the title!

 

My changes would be to have a seriously relaxed rules (no 5 counts or out of the ring counts etc) and give the matches a time limit of 10 minutes (which is shown on the bottom right hand corner). Each competitor starts off touching a opposing turnbuckle and a 5 second countdown will start the match. When the countdown hits zero, both competitors run at each and start throwing forearms at each other.

 

Yeah this seems a little unusual but my logic was this: If you start the match with the guys running at each other, automatically you start off in the matches half way point which is naturally quicker (and perfect for opening up PPVs). Meanwhile by enforcing a 10 minute time limit, your giving a logical reason as to why these guys as busting out more dangerous / high risk moves. After all, you ONLY have 10 minutes so you can't afford to be careful.

 

Finally in the event of a time limit draw, it goes to a judging panel and the match can be awarded to the competitor depending on who was more dominant, impressive (again encouraging impressive moves) etc etc. This would add a element of strategy to the proceedings. Take for example when Samoa Joe was champion. His aim would be to finish and destroy his opponents as quickly as possible, whilst his opponents could either try to out impress the judges or win the match clean. Also gives you a nice backdoor to getting a guy to drop the title without being pinned.

[Forrest]

I must have been the only person in the world who loved seeing Abyss become X Division champion. I've always felt a Hardcore vs. Cruiserweight dynamic would work really well and make the division a bit more varied. It's pretty much focused on flippidy-dippidy action, and it can feel fairly limited. I think adding in some good old-fashioned No DQ brawling would break up the relentless SPOTSPOTSPOTSPOT high-flying and even add to it.

 

There was a company who had a "Luchacore" division, where matches were No Holds Barred on the outside. So, for example, you could use chairs outside, but would be DQd if you took it into the ring and use it. I think that's the perfect way to work an X Division with added Hardcore elements. It doesn't turn every match into a massive bloodbath, but it gives breathing space.

 

I absolutely love the 10-minute suggestion above though, with the countdown. That's a great little device which could work really well with the Luchacore matches.

 

I will say that the weight limit's fucking bollocks. I actually think that early last year, the WWE had a better X Division roster than TNA did! I enjoyed seeing the bigger guys mixing it up with traditional Xers, byt now that the weight limit's been set, the division's very samey. Guys like Jesse Sorensen and Michael Nese are the very definition of vanilla midget. Where's the variety? By comparison, WWE had guys from Mexico (Sin Cara, Hunico), Japan (Tatsu), Canada (Kidd) along with South Africa (Gabriel) and Puerto Rico (Primo/Epico)! You had Morrison astounding everyone with his Parkour gimmick, the Cena/Orton mega-faces of Air Boom and the Dudebusters bumping like mental. You even had veterans like Mysterio and Chavo and people like Bryan and Del Rio who were pressing their noses against the glass ceiling at the time who could come in, work great matches and inject credibility easy.

 

I definitely think there should have been a WWE Television title that was defended on Superstars and nauseum, with no weight limit, but emphasised the high-flyers and the Juniors.

[gadge]

I liked the original FWA combination of British Heavyweight Championship as the main belt and the All-England title as the secondary belt.

 

GPW have the Heavyweight title and the British title. While both then fit at the top of the card if required, the Heavyweight belt to me seems to be the storyline centred belt, while the British title is more about the in-ring action.

[Richie Freebird]

I've always liked CZW's Iron Man title, at least the version of it that was on when TWC was still a thing. Having every match have a time limit gave it an interesting stipulation without having to go as poncey as the Pure Wrestling thing RoH had.

 

I like these gimmick titles, with their own rules. I liked ROH

[HeavyT]

I've always liked the idea of a British promotion re-introducing some of the weight limit titles such as middleweight and lightweight titles. They used to have these in the world of sport days, and sometimes these were even more popular than the Heavyweight matches. So for example a promotion could have a British Heavyweight title, followed by British middleweight, welterweight and lightweight titles. I'm not sure if these would work nowadays though.

 

it works in MMA, its all about how its presented and booked, if presented with equal importance it will be viewed as such

No it wont, multiple weight divisions will never work in wrestling, at least not on a mainstream level. Why do you think TNA stropped giving the x division the main event slots? because despite being treated with near equal importance, people were more interested in seeinf Jeff Jarrett and the like than the little guys and their high flying. You dont "book" MMA like wrestling, its like saying "it worked for boxing".

[Vamp]

I've always liked the idea of a British promotion re-introducing some of the weight limit titles such as middleweight and lightweight titles. They used to have these in the world of sport days, and sometimes these were even more popular than the Heavyweight matches. So for example a promotion could have a British Heavyweight title, followed by British middleweight, welterweight and lightweight titles. I'm not sure if these would work nowadays though.

 

it works in MMA, its all about how its presented and booked, if presented with equal importance it will be viewed as such

No it wont, multiple weight divisions will never work in wrestling, at least not on a mainstream level. Why do you think TNA stropped giving the x division the main event slots? because despite being treated with near equal importance, people were more interested in seeinf Jeff Jarrett and the like than the little guys and their high flying. You dont "book" MMA like wrestling, its like saying "it worked for boxing".

 

A) It does happen in pro wrestling. He's already named one example but it's also worked pretty well in Japan. B) He's not talking about doing it on a mainstream level. He's talking about a British wrestling promotion doing it.

[DannRead]

The North West Counties League Division One Open Weight Wrestling Championship Title.

 

 

Find a big name sponsor and use that for the title! Then you can have the Carling title, or the Tesco Value Title.

 

The Maccy D

[olliej149]

I've always liked the idea of a British promotion re-introducing some of the weight limit titles such as middleweight and lightweight titles. They used to have these in the world of sport days, and sometimes these were even more popular than the Heavyweight matches. So for example a promotion could have a British Heavyweight title, followed by British middleweight, welterweight and lightweight titles. I'm not sure if these would work nowadays though.

 

it works in MMA, its all about how its presented and booked, if presented with equal importance it will be viewed as such

No it wont, multiple weight divisions will never work in wrestling, at least not on a mainstream level. Why do you think TNA stropped giving the x division the main event slots? because despite being treated with near equal importance, people were more interested in seeinf Jeff Jarrett and the like than the little guys and their high flying. You dont "book" MMA like wrestling, its like saying "it worked for boxing".

 

A) It does happen in pro wrestling. He's already named one example but it's also worked pretty well in Japan. B) He's not talking about doing it on a mainstream level. He's talking about a British wrestling promotion doing it.

 

Yea Exactly. It wouldn't be on a mainstream level, more like as an alternative type of secondary belt. Kind of like how TNA used the X Division as an alternative type of secondary title. Also I'm pretty sure there are Mexican promotions that have used a Welterweight division, and I know of at least two modern British promotions that have used weight divisions. I think if it was promoted right weight divisions could be quite successful in British Wrestling