10 Ways WWE Can Fix Their Broken Face/Heel Alignment System

While winning one of WWE's top championships should be the making of a rising superstar, holding the belt often does nothing for the performer in question, particularly if they're a heel. WWE love sucking the life out of villainous champions by neutering their existing character traits and replacing them with unfiltered cowardice, with Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins the two most notable modern victims.

KO's 'Prizefighter' gimmick was fantastic, and made him the most three-dimensional evildoer in the company, but it was demolished when he was Universal Champion. Suddenly, he became a snivelling wimp who was incapable of winning a match without Chris Jericho's help, which not only destroyed his own credibility, but the belt's too.

Rollins was presented in a similar way. His heel character work was good, but he couldn't win a match on his own accord, and suffered greatly for it.

Something about the belt forces these people to abandon the approaches that brought them to the dance in the first place. Villains must always cheat and take shortcuts to separate themselves from the faces, but the 'cowardly heel champion' archetype has become tiresome, particularly when the character U-turn is as sharp as Owens' was.