10 Instant Wrestling Title Devaluations
They are NOT PROPS, dammit!
Wrestling is ludicrous, let's face it.
It's a business predicated upon the concept of two men pretending to hurt each other - when they are in fact doing everything possible to protect one another (in their underwear, no less). A wrestler can suddenly become stronger by simply obeying the rules. There are sensors in the backstage area which can be triggered by DNA recognition to play a specific wrestler's entrance theme.
Accordingly, it has to be held together very closely at the seams in order to keep it from falling in on itself. To keep matters from descending into farce, the title belt is used to both legitimise the business and provide justification for its existence.
Why else would a ballroom dancer be a wrestler, if they didn't ultimately wish to be known as the best and receive the remuneration that comes with winning and holding a title?
Regrettably, there are times in which championships are devalued. This can happen gradually. A promotion might lose interest in a title, often even neglecting to book matches for it on several consecutive pay-per-view events, leading to indifference.
Sometimes, however, the devaluation is instant...
10. From Bret Hart...To The Mountie (WWF Intercontinental Title)
The Mountie was a comedy character who would electrocute his jobber opponents after defeating them, in what was an effective heat-seeking tactic.
It was nowhere near effective enough, though, to warrant a run with what was then one of the most prestigious titles in the history of wrestling. In an instant, the Intercontinental championship became something that made the wrestler - and not the other way around - casually and indirectly kickstarting a trend which would devalue the very nature of what it meant to become a titleholder in the WWF.
Up until this point, a wrestler would rarely be given a run with a title until they were sufficiently over to justify it.
He wasn't even permitted to wrestle as the Mountie character in his home country of Canada - he was enjoined from doing so - which just underlined the short-termism at the heart of the venture.
Luckily for the WWF, who relied on the Intercontinental Title as both a star-maker and a means of diversifying their cartoonish cards with serious match quality, the damage wasn't permanent.
The lustre was restored almost as quickly as it was stripped away - Hart would reclaim it via Roddy Piper before the title would enter yet another golden age, shaping the very future of the company by being contested in the first PPV ladder matches.