WWE's Latest Disaster Is About To Get EVEN WORSE
The new World Heavyweight title annoyed a lot of people last night. That's just the start....
Triple H looked aggrieved, at the WrestleMania 39 night two press conference, and in fact answered the question before any member of the media asked it. He knew there was only one talking point after the atmosphere was brutally flattened. On April 2, the new WrestleMania X-Seven became the new Royal Rumble 2015 within minutes of the main event finish, and Triple H sensed the mood. He tried to get on top of it.
There was a plan, because there's always a plan. Triple H was adamant that there was a story in place because the story is never finished. "It’s always interesting to me when people say how could that happen, or how could they do that in that moment," Triple H said, in his customary way, as if he is the great bearer of secrets, and the fans are mere rubes who can't possibly form an opinion until those secrets are gifted to them. "We just got to the end of the chapter. But the story continues and that is where the story gets interesting to me," Triple H continued.
The "interesting" part of the story was revealed on the April 24 Monday Night Raw: the unveiling of a brand new World Heavyweight title.
This is a total compromise nonsensical on virtually every conceivable level. It makes sense in just one respect, and even that might be a reach. Do the separated Raw and SmackDown rosters necessarily need two separate World champions?
By definition, there should be one World champion, but the notion of their being two is something that has been normalised for so long, like the invisible camera, that it doesn't greatly matter to the modern WWE audience. A second World champion is object-defeating only to the sort of purists WWE has long ago left behind. For the grim purposes of the bottom line, the two World champions model is fine: just something that WWE does.
The names of each title will need to change, yet again. The World Heavyweight title name is passable. It's pure nostalgia bait, but it's also a perfectly serviceable name for such an achievement. The design itself visualises the compromise. It is an uneasy meeting between old-school prestige and modern, ugly Branding. It's about as much as one can expect from WWE in 2023.
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