The World Heavyweight Title
The WH title is another belt that I would say held some prestige but in this case I wouldn't say it has anything to do with the history of the belt. The WH title has seen too many stupid decisions and awful exchanges for its past to be worth anything. For every outstanding match there has been over this title there has been a finger poke of doom, a last man standing match where Hogan wins by pinfall or the worst of the bunch, David Arquette winning the title. Another problem I have with this title, when WWE first reinstated it in 2002 it was awarded to Triple H, just flat out awarded, no tournament to see who earns it he was just given it. On top of that when you consider the The Great Khali won the title and it did nothing for him, and that they had the Punjabi Prison match over it, one of the worst ideas for a match since WCW stacked three cages on top of each other. And even worse, Daniel Bryan lost the belt at Wrestlemania in 17 seconds just to prove that the awful booking for this belt has not gone away. Now after all that the belt has gone through, after all the awful bookings and ridiculous matches how could this belt have any prestige left? Well this belt has earned its prestige in a different way. This belt has done something that I didn't even know was possible in that it made Mark Henry relevant. Mark Henry has been in WWE for 14 years and had done nothing his entire career until he won that belt and then the change it made in him was monumental. He started to carry himself like a champion, his match performance went up and he even managed to make a match with the big show, which had no right to be anything but a boring slug-fest, into something worth watching. I don't know if Henry had been able to wrestle and impress like this before but when he won that title was the first time he had done anything to grab both my attention and that of the WWE Universe. I think that the prestige this title holds is when it is used as a lifeline to a superstar who is slipping down the ranks of WWE. More recently Sheamus, who's WWE title run had been a joke and had been falling down in WWE, won the WH title, even if it was in a 17 second match and now he is probably the second top baby face in the WWE. Sheamus had been in a bad place after he lost the WWE Title to Orton, the fans didn't care about him and nothing he did was getting any reaction, even winning the US Title. but then he won the WH title and he was cheered for everything he does. So I think the title has prestige because it can save a superstar who is failing.