WWE SmackDown Should Have Taken Different Direction With New Titles
Instead of adding more of the same, WWE SmackDown could have brought us something fresh and unique.
When the WWE Tag Team and Women’s Championships were both drafted to Raw, I held out hope that the holders of those titles would be able to compete on both Raw and SmackDown.
It turns out this didn’t happen, as those titles became exclusive to Raw. This caused SmackDown to introduce two new titles: the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship and the WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship.
I love the simplicity of the names for the titles, though. SmackDown didn’t try to be fancy and create a belt name that sounded better (hello WWE Universal Championship). The names of the new SmackDown championships actually caused Raw to rename their titles to the WWE Raw Tag Team and Raw Women’s Championships.
Simplicity aside, SmackDown, and the WWE as a whole, missed the mark with this one. The exclusivity of those Tag Team and Women’s titles on Raw meant SmackDown could try something new. Something different, and exciting.
After all, there just aren’t enough competitors on each show to be competing for the Tag Team and Women’s Championships. Think about it this way: there are 31 active male superstars competing on Raw while there’s 26 on SmackDown. That means there are 15.5 and 13 superstars, respectively, available to compete for the two individual titles (WWE and mid-card titles).
When it comes to tag teams and female superstars, there are only 6-8 each on Raw and SmackDown. That means there are only half of available superstars for those straps than there are for the mid-card and WWE titles.
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When there’s such a small amount of superstars fighting for a title, it prompts that particular title to decrease in value. It almost guarantees the title is going to make the rounds and be held by about half, if not more, of the available talent fighting for it. And if everybody wins the championship, nobody is truly a “champion.”
So you may ask, what exactly could SmackDown have done differently to separate themselves from Raw? Well, if the WWE would have made the titles cross-brand to begin with then we wouldn’t have this problem. But since we do, here are a couple of fresh, if not unconventional, ideas for SmackDown in order to differentiate the brand.
Debut the Trios Championship
There are a ton of three-man tag team matchups in WWE and the Trios Championship would be something fresh that the company has never done before. Lucha Underground currently has a Trios Championship, so it’s not something that is unheard of in wrestling today.
There are plenty of tag teams in WWE that could expand into trios as well. The company already has the New Day, a team that could eventually make its way to SmackDown via the 2017 WWE Draft. There’s the Vaudevillians, a team that would be a great fit for WWE Cruiserweight Classic star Jack Gallagher. The Wyatt Family will have Luke Harper returning soon and could dominate the division. The Usos could add Sean Maluta, their cousin and another WWE Cruiserweight Classic competitor. The possibilities are endless.
Bring Back the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
I’ve longed for the day the WWE would add more female talent and let the women take a shot at tag team wrestling. The WWE briefly had this championship back in the 1980s and abandoned it for no apparent reason. There are plenty of women on Raw and SmackDown (and even NXT) that could team up and compete for this title. The Bella Twins would have been perfect as the faces of the women’s tag division (and still could be, if Brie ever decides to return to the ring).
Bring Back the Television Championship
This could be a good championship for the mid- and low-card wrestlers, to give some of the directionless guys some direction. This belt could even be defended on the WWE Network on shows like WWE Superstars to help push subscriber numbers and increase viewership for smaller shows like those.
All in all, the WWE probably has too many titles. The booking relies on titles too often, and the existence of two of the same titles in the company devalues them. However, this could be countered with some creativity and faith that new ideas will work in the long run. Hopefully sometime in the future the WWE will decide to unify some titles once again and bring us something fresh and unique.
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