10. RVD Making Championships Mean Something
wikiRob Van Dam had his disagreements with ECW in the mid to late 1990's. From feeling dissed at the company's inaugural PPV (Barely Legal, 1997) to negotiating with WCW and WWF, he and Paul Heyman weren't always on the same page. But in April 1998 he won the ECW TV title from Bam Bam Bigelow and spent the best part of two years (23 months, to be exact) as champion. During this time their Heavyweight Champion (Shane Douglas) was injured and a subsequent Heavyweight Championship match against Mike Awesome was postponed as RVD broke his ankle in early 2000 (and Awesome then jumped to WCW whilst still champion). But the point is this - RVD treated the TV Title as important, and by showing that it was a serious title held by a top-level performer he became a bigger star - and as a result the TV Title became an important focal point. It wasn't viewed by the ECW fans as a secondary belt held by a mid-card nobody. It was central to the promotion - arguably as central as the Heavyweight Championship.
So would it really take much for the WWE to focus properly on the IC/US Titles? I know that Bad News Barrett was on the road to making it important, but in recent years in WWE the IC/US Champions have almost ended up worse off by winning the belts. Making the secondary titles feel important will in turn make the fans care about the performers who hold them, which will therefore mean that the company will make more money! Using RVD's TV Title reign as a template seems like common sense to me.