Shining a Spotlight 5.24.07: A Whole New World (Title)
Posted by Michael Weyer on 05.24.2007
A look at how "World" championships have been created by promotions, how some of them don't quite merit such a prize and how TNA's creation of a World title may be more of a problem than you think.
So one of the bigger pieces of news is that after five years, TNA has officially broken ties with the NWA and is no longer using their titles. It's a majorly interesting move as it may show how TNA is finally ready to step up as a major promotion. At the same time, it seems to lower the NWA's already shaky standing as a second-rate collection of small promotions. It also means we have a new World title around and that got me to thinking about what makes such a championship.
I'm going to admit that as a kid, I never quite got how organizations calling themselves the National Wrestling Alliance or the American Wrestling Association could have World titles. WWF would refer to it as the World title until they started to expand, at which point, they would just call it the WWF title. Most will call it an example of how snobby the WWF could be but to be fair, it also seems redundant to have a World Wrestling Federation World title.
Now the politics and the backstage bickering between the various parts of the National Wrestling Alliance is worth a column in and of itself. When the major promoters of the time formed the Alliance in 1948, their goal was to try and regulate the business and earn more money so it made sense that their World title would be seen as the most important in wrestling. And for a time it was, defended all over against the stars of local promotions, giving them rubs and making fans believe they were seeing something really big.
So you can imagine how risky it was when Verne Gagne decided to break his Minnesota based promotion away from the NWA to form the AWA and made himself the first AWA World champion. As pointed out in the AWA DVD, this was a big move, the first break the NWA lineage had had to that point. It was also a risk for Gagne to suddenly make himself a World champion, a goal denied him by the NWA.
But Gagne did make it work as the AWA built its fanbase up steadily and soon won wide respect as a company that enjoyed even wider success than the NWA had. It also encouraged Vince McMahon Sr. to break his Northeast base out to form the WWF and create his own World title.
Now I should point out how so many of the smaller promotions of the time decided to forgo the entire "World" title thing and had their belts be more local. The Florida title, the Pacific Northwest title, Smokey Mountain and others just had a Heavyweight title as their main belt. The UWF also had just a heavyweight title while the short-lived Global had the North American title, the same sort of belt used by Stampede. A notable exception was Puerto Rico's World Wrestling Council which would actually have a Universal heavyweight title which, more often than not, was around the waist of star/co-owner Carlos Colon.
So through the mid-80's, those three main promotions would boast over having their own World titles. They were joined in 1986 when World Class broke off from the NWA and declared their own World title. That actually made sense as WCCW really did have a great international presence and reputation so they could make a nice claim to a World title status. Despite that, however, it was seen as lower league than the Big Three of the time.
It is notable that in 1985, the NWA decided, for who knows what reason, to make their TV title a World TV title. I admit, I never quite got the whole deal with why it would have to be a World TV title as I don't see the whole appeal of why it meant so much to viewers in Europe or Japan that this TV title also included them too. Then again, I also never quite got the whole "Western States Heritage" title either.
In 1986, Jim Crockett decided to give the NWA title a boost by creating a brand new title belt, the now-famous gold title that was quickly around Ric Flair's waist. The idea was to try and make the World title look more important and it actually did seem to work out well. Nothing against the old belt design but this was bigger, more eye-catching, more shiny even and thus it did seem more important.
It was no coincidence that it was at this time that Crockett was competing bigger than ever with WWF with the goal of taking his part of the NWA national. He was benefiting from the fact that with the TBS weekly show, most fans began to equate the NWA with Crockett, a move that didn't quite make the rest of the NWA happy. Crockett would end up getting into the financial problems that would force him to sell to Turner and after a few years still promoting things as the NWA, in 1991 it became World Championship Wrestling. However, they still fell under the NWA banner and the big gold belt was still promoted as the WCW World title. So, despite what some will say, the WCW belt was only created in 1991 despite claims that it was part of the lineage of the NWA title.
Yeah, it gets confusing. But it gets even worse.
In 1991, when Flair was fired by Jim Herd, Flair decided to take the big gold World title belt with him since he owned it. Actually, he didn't but he thought he did. See, in the old days, whenever a guy was given the NWA title, he would put down a big deposit ($15,000 to $20,000 depending on who you ask) which he would get back when he lost the belt. It was a smart way to ensure that a guy wouldn't jump ship to another promotion with the title belt. But when Crockett created the gold belt for Flair, it just happened to cost the same as various bonuses Flair was owed so rather than put down the deposit, Flair was just given the belt and so had the idea he owned it. When Crockett sold to Turner, the belt was listed among the assets of the company to sell more the idea Flair owned it.
So Flair leaped to WWF with Bobby Heenan carrying around the gold belt and talking about how it showed Flair to be the "real World Champion." Naturally, the NWA hit the ceiling at how Herd was letting their title belt go despite the fact that it was now WCW in charge of things. A very ugly legal mess followed with WWF eventually being forced to no longer use the gold belt but acting like they still had it, digitally blurring it on TV. Meanwhile, WCW was forced to pull out some old regional title (not, as has long been reported, the Western States Heritage belt), slap a new label on it and use that as the WCW title for a bit while they made a new belt, which did not have the same appeal as the old one.
I'm going to take a break to discuss the unique situation regarding the "Unified" World Title that was created in 1989. In 1988, AWA, WCCW and CWA began to run shows together and there were genuine concerns they could be a powerful alliance. It built up to SuperClash III, which was meant to unify the WCCW and AWA titles into one World belt. However, the show was a total disaster, drawing barely a thousand fans and filled with bad matches. The main event had a cheap ending too as Jerry Lawler beat Kerry Von Erich when the referee stopped the match due to massive blood loss from Kerry despite the fact Lawler was bleeding just as bad. Still, Lawler was the champion…for about a week.
Lawler and Verne Gagne got into an argument over whether Lawler's CWA/WCCW commitments or Gagne's AWA commitments were more important. Rather than show some leeway to the guy who had given the AWA more attention and respect in years, Gagne instead stripped Lawler of the title and banned him from the AWA for life. Lawler refused to give the title belt back until he was paid money owed him for SuperClash, which Gagne never did so to this day, the original AWA World title is still the possession of Jerry Lawler. Just like WCW would do, the AWA had to bring out an old title, give it a new label and use that as the belt given to Larry Zybsko who proceeded to run the AWA into the ground.
Despite all that, Lawler still went around claiming to be the Unified World Champion in CWA and World Class, territories that by this point didn't exactly have a major worldwide presence. In mid-89, World Class went under and Lawler was forced to bail them out, transforming the entire area into the United States Wrestling Association and still declaring their belt a World title which was defended mostly in Texas and Teneessee. Even by wrestling standards, this was an amazingly short time to render a title worthless.
Getting back to NWA/WCW, in 1993, Flair returned bringing that big title with him. The plan was for that to be used once more as the NWA title which would be defended at WCW shows. The infamous Orlando tapings where WCW would give away months of title changes in advance, would talk about Barry Windham, Rick Rude and Flair trading that title between them. But, in yet another example of why those tapings were such a bad idea, WCW decided to pull out of the NWA, keeping that gold belt for themselves. And for a while, they would actually promote it as just that "the Big Gold Belt." Now you may think the logical move would be to replace the WCW title belt with that one. Well, logic wasn't in strong supply with WCW then so instead they decided to create a phony International Board of Governors and promote the gold belt as the WCW International Championship. It bounced around for a while before they finally realized no one cared so in the spring of 1994, Flair (by now WCW World Champion) beat Sting to unify the belts and they went back to using the gold title for the WCW World championship.
Needless to say, losing their key face promotion was a major blow to the NWA and they were once more a loose confederation of independent promotions, a shell of their former shelf. They managed to dig out the old title belt to use as they tried to regain their standing. In 1994, they hooked up with the rising Eastern Championship Wrestling to promote a tournament to crown a new NWA champion. As planned, Shane Douglas won the tournament but, in a moment that would change the course of wrestling forever, threw the title belt down, running down the NWA as dead and buried and declared himself the ECW World champion. It's up in the air whether the NWA heads of the time knew what was going to happen although many believe they were unprepared for ECW to pull out of the NWA and set themselves up as a separate group.
For all of Paul Heyman's boasting, ECW, when you get right down to it, was always a small promotion, albeit one with a wide reputation. So, like many other upstarts, declaring themselves World title status was a bit of ego. However, you can argue it did eventually reach that criteria as they did spread out and helped boost the entire wrestling industry. It didn't really matter in the end as ECW would end up going out of business at the same time as WCW did.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the WCW World title suddenly lost its luster. Some, no doubt, will argue that it shouldn't have been so well regarded since, if you want to be absolutely technical, it was only created in 1991. But, with the gold belt back and the simple fact most fans had equated WCW with NWA for years anyhow, that big 50-plus year history was automatically associated with it. But with WWF fighting back in the Monday Night Wars, the title began to lose its shine. The Fingerpoke of Doom was a big moment of course and the constant hot-shotting of the belts also hurt its standing. But when David Arquette was handed the title, it pretty much passed the point of no return. It seemed downright sad when Booker T beat Scott Steiner to win the belt at the final "Nitro" and brought it over to WWF.
Ironically, the high point of the Invasion was the feud between Booker and the Rock for the WCW title as seeing the belt around the Rock's waist seemed to give the WCW title more of a boost than it had enjoyed in WCW for years. They would keep it going until Chris Jericho beat both Rock and Steve Austin to become a unified World champion. He'd carry both belts around before losing to HHH at Wrestlemania, with HHH soon getting a new belt that would be called the "Undisputed WWF" championship. Of course, by June, the WWF had become WWE and the brand extension had split the two shows and that led to the creation of the RAW World title.
I've always felt that if they had created a brand new belt for that World championship, it wouldn't have clicked with fans as it had. It was already facing an uphill struggle as rather than do a tournament or battle royal, HHH was simply awarded the belt when Brock Lesner left for Smackdown with the WWE title. And I'm sure the many HHH bashers out there will complain over how it was meant to be a vanity piece for Hunter. But by using the old WCW title belt, WWE pulled off a genius move. To so many fans, that belt represented a history of great champions, not to mention just looks cool as hell so it did seem to be special. That's not to mention that WWE, as the only remaining major company of the time, did have a worldwide presence so if they said this was a World title, fans were willing to accept it. Today, that belt is seen as almost on an equal par with the WWE title and remains a key component for the company. That's really come more true with it being moved to Smackdown and held by the likes of Batista, Rey Mysterio, Booker and now Edge, showing it can be more than just one man's prize.
The current ECW World title doesn't quite have that allure, not surprising given how poorly the new ECW has been met by fans. It did have a push at first as RVD had won the WWE title and thus giving him the ECW belt (a belt he was never able to get when ECW was in business before) was a good move as it gave that title instant credibility with ECW fans. Of course, RVD would blow it completely with his arrest so they'd put it on Big Show and eventually Lashley, two guys not really over with the fans as much as WWE hoped. Of course, many are ready to say it's totally worthless now with Vince wearing it but the feud has been surprisingly good and hopefully it will get on the waist of someone like CM Punk. As much as fans might hope, ECW isn't going away for a while and as that belt is the only title there now, that makes it important for fans and workers.
That brings us over to TNA. I give Jeff Jarrett a lot of flack but I have to admit, pairing up with the NWA when he started TNA shows how smart he can be. He knew starting a new company was going to be rough enough so getting the rub of the NWA title history was needed. The NWA certainly needed it as ever since ECW dumped them, they'd become almost completely non-existent. TNA tried to help them out with their very first PPV having a gauntlet match with Ken Shamrock winning the gold. However, the fans weren't that into him so they shifted it to Ron Killings who lost what heat he had as champ and would eventually end up in Jarrett's hands. They would throw in rules like a champ losing the belt if disqualified and that if a match ended in controversy, it would go back to the champ, rules that TNA would pretty much forget to mention until recently. As I've mentioned before, I do think Jarrett honestly thinks himself the next incarnation of Ric Flair and figures he can do the same thing, keep the title on him and draw money as the champ everyone wants to see lose. Of course, we all know Jarrett is far from being Flair, a fact TNA doesn't want to acknowledge. But then again, facing reality isn't quite one of TNA's strengths.
So that finally brings us to today as TNA has broken away from the NWA and has now created their own World title. And right off the bat, TNA is already talking like their belt has a major history behind it and is the most wanted and prestigious in the world. First off, until Sacrifice, they had always talked about it being the NWA title and would go into big things about its history and lineage, especially when selling a new face champ as Christian. As I pointed out above, WCW had long been equaled with the NWA in the minds of fans so they could get away with using that history. But TNA doesn't. They don't have a big history of a World title. Hell, the X Division was often equated better on an international standing than the NWA title was. But TNA is already selling that their title and for that matter, the tag titles, have a major lineage that makes them tops.
Believe me, I'm as tired as you are to hear myself say this but I'm going to continue until someone who can change it listens: TNA's biggest problem is their delusion that they are on an equal par with WWE with as big a worldwide fanbase. It was one thing when they at least had the NWA backing them up but now? It is completely and utterly ridiculous to hear them talking about the major standing and how worthy a goal is a title that didn't exist a week ago. I'm not to complain about the design of the belt because, after all, how many ways can you make a title look cool? But if TNA thinks they can instantly put it on the same par of WWE, WCW or even the old NWA belt, they're deluding themselves even further.
I don't get the NWA's rationale in doing this either. TNA was giving them more publicity and respect than they'd had since 1994 and all of a sudden, they let that go? Course, the NWA has always had a bit of self-delusion themselves, a bunch of small-time promoters drawing barely a hundred people to a show, thumping their chests over belonging to something big. Now they're right back to the status of a shell of their former shelves and a joke among the wrestling world. Their recent announcement of the NWA Title tournament seems to prove it. I mean, they go from Jarrett, Sting and Christian Cage to Damien Wane, Aaron Aguilera, Adam Pearce, Fred Sampson and Pepper Parks? Now Brian Danielson, he would make a nice NWA champion as he's an indy darling and might make it watchable. But ten to one, they'll still go around promoting themselves as having the oldest and most respected title in wrestling.
So what makes a World title? It can be a combination of the organization or the worker chosen to carry it at the start. It also matters how well the fans accept it and how the company promotes it. WWE has always done a good job with their titles while WCW would eventually turn theirs into a joke. ECW did their best but their belt never quite had the same luster as the big two, same as USWA. TNA may be able to make their World title meaningful. But first, they need to accept that this isn't instantly a title on a part with anything at WWE. They need to improve themselves to give the belt more respect. Of course, it wouldn't help to really make a worldwide audience before they go around calling themselves a World championship.
This is a major moment for TNA, a major stepping stone to the path of really becoming a major promotion. They have their own title at last but they need to promote it well rather than instantly assume fans will accept it as a World title equal to the big ones of the past. As I mentioned earlier, TNA needs to accept that they are not equal to WWE and this title doesn't have a huge history behind it. If they make it click…then maybe, just maybe they can finally get on the path to making themselves a breakout promotion. But if they keep shoving it down fan's throats that this is the most valued title in wrestling, it's going to lead to more backlash they can't afford. A World title is a key way to make a promotion successful. Just make sure it's the real world you're living in to make it work.
Also on 411 this week:
In a nice link to this, That Was Then tries to count down Ric Flair's World title reigns.
Another related column has You're an Idiot talking about TNA and the NWA title.
Welcome Why I Love Wrestling to our merry band.
Just S'Pose does a new take on Chris Benoit's career.
Julian Counts down the Top 10 Smackdown moments.
Piledriver Report does a nice look at the first year of the new ECW.
