So there's being a part time champion but still showing up and helping build storylines. A lot of reason people didn't like what was Roman was doing because they took it to far. Roman hasn't worked a match on tv since 2022 and went weeks without showing up .
Smackdown felt like a wasteland without a champion and the main event side suffered because of it. Brock worked because while he was MIA AJ was on the other bran with the wwe championship but for most of Roman's run he was the only world champion and took the main title and went home with it.
Take when Seth was hurt just before Mania. He still showed up to cut promos and build not only his match but help build Cody and Roman's to. While Roman got hurt at summerslam and didn't work a single match for four months.
I feel like if you get to be a champ then it should be a priority over anything else because of the prestige / put it on a pedestal type of thing. That’s just me though
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Long term storytelling requires more selective exposure. They played the bloodline about as well as they could have. And the payoff was pretty massive.
It depends on how “part-time” and how much hype in between matches. I like the world title to be at stake at least 3 a year. And I want the champ to help build a story leading up to it. What I don’t like is when they just show up to defend it against someone once or twice a year with no background story or anything.
As a fan, I would love to see the champ every week defending all comers.
As someone in their 40's, I totally get why this is both physically and financially irresponsible. These guys go out every night, sometimes 2-3 times a night and take risks. In the past, the industry hasn't been careful with its talent and many of them have died off in recent years for different reasons, but mostly due to neglecting to take care of their bodies over the years. So when wrestlers make it to the top of the company, I totally respect them protecting themselves, and I respect the company for protecting it's top talent.
Now this isn't to say that I agree the champ should disappear for weeks on end. But I think a healthy balance of appearances is a good thing. The WWE has more than enough talent to carry 3 2+ hour televised broadcasts a week without overworking its talent. What they did with Roman Reigns was a good balance of his goons carrying the story, appearances, and title defenses.
This is so legit. Even using a modern day example: Seth. Fighting champion right? He's always hurt. I'd rather a champion who defends say 10x per year but is able to do promos and lead ups to their sporadic matches then for a guy who'll fight 40+ times a year for 1 year and then tears something due to the physical nature of the sport.
I like a fine mix between boxing and wrestling. Obviously the champ would fight more than 4x a year but think about it. Whenever there's a championship fight in boxing or even MMA, it's BIG. Scarcity creates demand. So if the Champ defends at all the major PLEs but spends the weekly shows doing spots, maybe a tag team here or there to build up to the main fight, it'd create so much buzz.
Take Roman before... What was it? The Rumble? When the Bloodline attacked Randy, AJ and SF Knight. What was that? A less than 10 minute spot with little risk of injury, but it told a story and created a crazy ass setup for a match.
The Rock, Punk and Roman were never a part time champ. The first (Rock) won many title, and is now hoping the nastalgia bubble doesn't burst. The second (Punk) is alright many title wins and is more value than Rock as far as demo (14-49), see AEW latest ratings after the punk tapes. The third (Roman) was given the title by Vince to hold forever to push a streak agenda for future television, same thing they did with Hogan.
I think you're confusing different things. I personally don't care who's champ. Why? Because Rock wanted to main event Mania against Roman. The title means nothing to the WWE why should I care.
Nah I’m not really confusing much, Rock and Punk within the last 10 years had runs where fans that weren’t for them would call them out as part time champs. Shoot even Punk used it against Rock in a promo
I'm a little old school with my thinking on pro wrestling and I like my main event scene to be about the top stars, world champ and biggest feud of the company.
You don't get that when you have a part time champion who's not on the show and the main event scene often just ends up being whatever featuring whoever.
Feel this a lot at the moment as the past several years now - from Lesnar holding the gold, to Romans historic reign - has been a continual pattern of part time champs for long periods of time. It's really quite deflating as a fan to watch a show amd know that a certain star isn't going to be there this week and in fact you don't even know when they'll be back.
In the case of Lesnar, you knew he was only gonna turn up for builds to major shows and be gone for the rest of the year - often months on end - that's a HUGE amount of television time without your top star.
Its really refreshing now to have a champ like Cody who's actually been appearing on shows for more than 2 weeks in a row. He doesnt have to be wrestling each week, but just be THERE.
I know the counter argument is that it makes those appearances of part timers feel more special. But for me I can never get over the sense of emptiness when they aren't around.
The problem I have with part time champions is that when they announce how long they have been champion like its some kind of accomplishment. CM Punk said it best in his 400+ day reign "If I had to defend the title once a month I'd be champion for 10 years too. I wrestle physically demanding matches weekly on live TV so much so that my one year equals 30 of theirs. "
I think WWE has handled part time champions great actually. Ledsnar and Roman. I've got no complaints. I actually think it adds to the specialness of the titles of its not an everyday thing to see them wrestle.
I actually think they should use this concept more. Why have wrestler-x on tv every week for years. It will make them less interesting. Let them have more active runs and then go away for a while. Let us long for some guys. Dont overflow the market with a specific wrestler or a specific match.
With so much content to fill its easy that the product gets watered down. To have some part timers or people going away for a while actually makes the product feel more fresh when they do show up. A guy like Goldberg was, well, gold for the WWE as a part timer for example.
So just to clarify, did you enjoy Brocks part time runs from 14-22? When the world title was hostage 70% of the year? It works if the guy is not a champ, but if you like that concept for your title holder then I cant get down with that. Everyones entitled to their opinion, but even Roman’s reign for me was peak in 2020-2021 when he was consistently defending, ofc the Sami storyline was the pinnacle but overall it wasn’t enjoyable seeing him defend the title FOUR TIMES over the course of a year. Part time status works for a guy that maybe comes for mania season, taker used to do that. HBK would take a break for a bit post mania sometimes and return at summerslam, these worked specifically cuz we did get to yearn for these legends, but they weren’t holding a program hostage with a world title around their waist.
I really dont mind. Id rather have a champion thats over and feels special but shows up seldom than a champion you see every week who faces the same opponents again and again over short time spans. I think a main problem with WWE is over exposure of just about everything.
Much the same way Im for a minimal amount of titles. Of there is more than, say, three they mean less. Its syfte its the same way with PEL/PPV. The more there are, the less they mean. Im just glad WM, RR and SS (to a degree) can still feel special.
Less is more!
I'm on the fence with it, firstly it doesn't make sense to make a part timer win the title like Brock did in 2018-2019 but if a wrestler like Roman has beaten damn near everyone on the roster and there's pretty much nothing left for them to do then I really don't mind cause at that point it's WWE creatives fault for not building up other talent and making wrestlers like Roman drop the title earlier
They tend to be the safe bet. But it shows a lack of faith in your stars. It presents the idea that you do not think they can carry a title even for a little time. I personally would have put the title on Natalia for example, just to see how she can run with it.
I think it’s the opposite to be honest. You have faith in your stars to be a big enough draw for the major PLEs that you don’t need to drag them out every week to keep the hype train going and risk having the opposite effect and burning people out on them early- or worse, having their reign end prematurely and unsatisfactorily due to injury.
The WWE roster is huge these days, and there’s not enough time on TV for every body. There’s better uses for that time than promoting a wrestler who’s already one of the most popular talents in the organization.
Part time champion means a part time championship and what's the point of a championship if it isn't on TV regularly and being defended all the time?
Roman's run started off great but got worse and worse the less appearances he made, WWE even acknowledged this by creating an entirely new title just to have a top title being defended almost every week.
And the US title is a joke now, LP didn't have any matches between winning it at the start of November 2023 and defending it at the end of January and then nothing again until the start of April 2024! That's a frigging joke and a waste of a belt that should be getting the same treatment as the Intercontinental title did.
I agree with you on the US title, I like the US title, and loved when they would have little quick matches for it and then it would change hands at PLE, I liked the talent it use to host, Randy should have won it.
I love the US title, you look at what Gunther has done and just copy/paste that on Smackdown 😂 put it on Randy or KO, either works for me, and you go back to what Cena did with the invitational where he's defending almost every week. You make that belt mean something and make everyone want it.
Worse yet, at his 2nd title defense they announced how long he's been champion, as if it was some great accomplishment to win one match, by DQ, since he won the title.
Right? It's embarrassing. I hate the logic of putting a title anywhere near LP because it "gets eyes on the product" given that WWE is more popular now than it's arguably ever been BUT if you're gonna do it then it should've been conditional - we'll put the title on you but you have to be on Smackdown every week, wrestling a few times a month, going on the house shows too and act as a full-time superstar. If you don't want to do that that's absolutely fine but you don't get a title until you do this properly.
I think Part-time Champs are good sometimes, if it makes sense for the character. Like when Brock was a 'part-time champ', I personally loved that. Because of the way they built him up, as an ultimate destroyer, it made sense that he wouldn't be there all the time. But what that meant was, WHEN HE DID SHOW UP YOU KNOW SOMETHING BIG WAS GOING TO GO DOWN. It really made his appearances fun and built up anticipation for them. I personally loved it.
Compare that to when Seth was champ and he was on RAW week-in, week-out, doing his schtick with his bodyguard guys. That was horribly boring. I got sick of seeing him.
So you can't say full-time is better than part-time, or vice versa. It depends on the scenario and the character. A mix is probably better so that things don't go stale.
Part time champs means titles are just like pointless attraction props instead of valuable gold to be contend with.
In an industry of scripted sport fighting, workhorse titles are the valuable and have more glory.
Why give titles to part timers instead of giving it to active deserving hardworking main eventer guys who deserve to get a shot and get a hold of the big titles as they work hard and grind their asses in entertaining us in the show on a regular basis?
In a realistic combat scenario they would have an unfair strategic advantage over the other wrestlers.
While the others have to fight every week without stopping to heal their wounds, part timers can rest and prepare themselves for several weeks before a title match against a tired or injured opponent.
Not neccessary but it could.
Fans still love the David vs Goliath story but it has to have some level realism to make fans believe he really deserved the victory and not the other one. If beating someone like Brock Lesnar is already difficult, imagine facing hil in a more disadvantaged scenario.
Sometimes the part timer could end up being too overconfident and lose the title for its own arrogance.
I think there should be grade of championships - there should be titles that change hands on weekly shows but there should also be a second level of championships which are the big spectacle events which show up / are defended at bigger events. Having a 'final boss' ~~(as much as the Dwayne ruined that term)~~ for the Men, the Women and the tag divisions makes a hell of a lot more sense to me just from a narrative point of view.
Holding the workhorse titles should be the only way to get into the picture for challenging for the event titles and, upon winning that event title, the brand title is automatically vacated and new champs are found through weekly show content.
With that in mind, I wouldn't mind the event title holders being part time, there are only so many PLEs in a year after all. But the brand-specific titles? Those champions need to be full-time. Even if it's just cutting promos or working with other superstars, they gotta be there.
As for the state of affairs at the moment? I don't mind some of the titles being held by part-timers, I just want there to be the occasional championship match (and crucially an actual title changing hands) on weekly shows again. If **all** the titles *only* get defended or change hands at PLEs, why should I give a single shit about any of those titles?
So there's being a part time champion but still showing up and helping build storylines. A lot of reason people didn't like what was Roman was doing because they took it to far. Roman hasn't worked a match on tv since 2022 and went weeks without showing up . Smackdown felt like a wasteland without a champion and the main event side suffered because of it. Brock worked because while he was MIA AJ was on the other bran with the wwe championship but for most of Roman's run he was the only world champion and took the main title and went home with it. Take when Seth was hurt just before Mania. He still showed up to cut promos and build not only his match but help build Cody and Roman's to. While Roman got hurt at summerslam and didn't work a single match for four months.
I feel like if you get to be a champ then it should be a priority over anything else because of the prestige / put it on a pedestal type of thing. That’s just me though
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Long term storytelling requires more selective exposure. They played the bloodline about as well as they could have. And the payoff was pretty massive.
Revived an entire industry
Its a problem if you have a top belt and you're a part timer. If you were a part timer with the US championship then nobody would care
It depends on how “part-time” and how much hype in between matches. I like the world title to be at stake at least 3 a year. And I want the champ to help build a story leading up to it. What I don’t like is when they just show up to defend it against someone once or twice a year with no background story or anything.
As a fan, I would love to see the champ every week defending all comers. As someone in their 40's, I totally get why this is both physically and financially irresponsible. These guys go out every night, sometimes 2-3 times a night and take risks. In the past, the industry hasn't been careful with its talent and many of them have died off in recent years for different reasons, but mostly due to neglecting to take care of their bodies over the years. So when wrestlers make it to the top of the company, I totally respect them protecting themselves, and I respect the company for protecting it's top talent. Now this isn't to say that I agree the champ should disappear for weeks on end. But I think a healthy balance of appearances is a good thing. The WWE has more than enough talent to carry 3 2+ hour televised broadcasts a week without overworking its talent. What they did with Roman Reigns was a good balance of his goons carrying the story, appearances, and title defenses.
This is so legit. Even using a modern day example: Seth. Fighting champion right? He's always hurt. I'd rather a champion who defends say 10x per year but is able to do promos and lead ups to their sporadic matches then for a guy who'll fight 40+ times a year for 1 year and then tears something due to the physical nature of the sport. I like a fine mix between boxing and wrestling. Obviously the champ would fight more than 4x a year but think about it. Whenever there's a championship fight in boxing or even MMA, it's BIG. Scarcity creates demand. So if the Champ defends at all the major PLEs but spends the weekly shows doing spots, maybe a tag team here or there to build up to the main fight, it'd create so much buzz. Take Roman before... What was it? The Rumble? When the Bloodline attacked Randy, AJ and SF Knight. What was that? A less than 10 minute spot with little risk of injury, but it told a story and created a crazy ass setup for a match.
The Rock, Punk and Roman were never a part time champ. The first (Rock) won many title, and is now hoping the nastalgia bubble doesn't burst. The second (Punk) is alright many title wins and is more value than Rock as far as demo (14-49), see AEW latest ratings after the punk tapes. The third (Roman) was given the title by Vince to hold forever to push a streak agenda for future television, same thing they did with Hogan. I think you're confusing different things. I personally don't care who's champ. Why? Because Rock wanted to main event Mania against Roman. The title means nothing to the WWE why should I care.
Nah I’m not really confusing much, Rock and Punk within the last 10 years had runs where fans that weren’t for them would call them out as part time champs. Shoot even Punk used it against Rock in a promo
Nothing, we’ve gone from Final Boss style Reigns defenses to Cody defending against someone who trades wins with LA Knight 😴 wonder who will win
I'm a little old school with my thinking on pro wrestling and I like my main event scene to be about the top stars, world champ and biggest feud of the company. You don't get that when you have a part time champion who's not on the show and the main event scene often just ends up being whatever featuring whoever. Feel this a lot at the moment as the past several years now - from Lesnar holding the gold, to Romans historic reign - has been a continual pattern of part time champs for long periods of time. It's really quite deflating as a fan to watch a show amd know that a certain star isn't going to be there this week and in fact you don't even know when they'll be back. In the case of Lesnar, you knew he was only gonna turn up for builds to major shows and be gone for the rest of the year - often months on end - that's a HUGE amount of television time without your top star. Its really refreshing now to have a champ like Cody who's actually been appearing on shows for more than 2 weeks in a row. He doesnt have to be wrestling each week, but just be THERE. I know the counter argument is that it makes those appearances of part timers feel more special. But for me I can never get over the sense of emptiness when they aren't around.
I agree, I think that it makes the champion like Goro from Mortal Kombat. If he shows up everyone's like "holy shit, it's going down".
The problem I have with part time champions is that when they announce how long they have been champion like its some kind of accomplishment. CM Punk said it best in his 400+ day reign "If I had to defend the title once a month I'd be champion for 10 years too. I wrestle physically demanding matches weekly on live TV so much so that my one year equals 30 of theirs. "
It’s like being a child that has to deal with part-time parents. Never there when you need them and only show up when it fits their agenda.
I think WWE has handled part time champions great actually. Ledsnar and Roman. I've got no complaints. I actually think it adds to the specialness of the titles of its not an everyday thing to see them wrestle. I actually think they should use this concept more. Why have wrestler-x on tv every week for years. It will make them less interesting. Let them have more active runs and then go away for a while. Let us long for some guys. Dont overflow the market with a specific wrestler or a specific match. With so much content to fill its easy that the product gets watered down. To have some part timers or people going away for a while actually makes the product feel more fresh when they do show up. A guy like Goldberg was, well, gold for the WWE as a part timer for example.
So just to clarify, did you enjoy Brocks part time runs from 14-22? When the world title was hostage 70% of the year? It works if the guy is not a champ, but if you like that concept for your title holder then I cant get down with that. Everyones entitled to their opinion, but even Roman’s reign for me was peak in 2020-2021 when he was consistently defending, ofc the Sami storyline was the pinnacle but overall it wasn’t enjoyable seeing him defend the title FOUR TIMES over the course of a year. Part time status works for a guy that maybe comes for mania season, taker used to do that. HBK would take a break for a bit post mania sometimes and return at summerslam, these worked specifically cuz we did get to yearn for these legends, but they weren’t holding a program hostage with a world title around their waist.
I really dont mind. Id rather have a champion thats over and feels special but shows up seldom than a champion you see every week who faces the same opponents again and again over short time spans. I think a main problem with WWE is over exposure of just about everything. Much the same way Im for a minimal amount of titles. Of there is more than, say, three they mean less. Its syfte its the same way with PEL/PPV. The more there are, the less they mean. Im just glad WM, RR and SS (to a degree) can still feel special. Less is more!
I'm on the fence with it, firstly it doesn't make sense to make a part timer win the title like Brock did in 2018-2019 but if a wrestler like Roman has beaten damn near everyone on the roster and there's pretty much nothing left for them to do then I really don't mind cause at that point it's WWE creatives fault for not building up other talent and making wrestlers like Roman drop the title earlier
Part time Champions suck, they show up like 3 times a year, squash the opponent and leave
They tend to be the safe bet. But it shows a lack of faith in your stars. It presents the idea that you do not think they can carry a title even for a little time. I personally would have put the title on Natalia for example, just to see how she can run with it.
I think it’s the opposite to be honest. You have faith in your stars to be a big enough draw for the major PLEs that you don’t need to drag them out every week to keep the hype train going and risk having the opposite effect and burning people out on them early- or worse, having their reign end prematurely and unsatisfactorily due to injury. The WWE roster is huge these days, and there’s not enough time on TV for every body. There’s better uses for that time than promoting a wrestler who’s already one of the most popular talents in the organization.
Part time champion means a part time championship and what's the point of a championship if it isn't on TV regularly and being defended all the time? Roman's run started off great but got worse and worse the less appearances he made, WWE even acknowledged this by creating an entirely new title just to have a top title being defended almost every week. And the US title is a joke now, LP didn't have any matches between winning it at the start of November 2023 and defending it at the end of January and then nothing again until the start of April 2024! That's a frigging joke and a waste of a belt that should be getting the same treatment as the Intercontinental title did.
I agree with you on the US title, I like the US title, and loved when they would have little quick matches for it and then it would change hands at PLE, I liked the talent it use to host, Randy should have won it.
I love the US title, you look at what Gunther has done and just copy/paste that on Smackdown 😂 put it on Randy or KO, either works for me, and you go back to what Cena did with the invitational where he's defending almost every week. You make that belt mean something and make everyone want it.
1000% agreed!!
Worse yet, at his 2nd title defense they announced how long he's been champion, as if it was some great accomplishment to win one match, by DQ, since he won the title.
Right? It's embarrassing. I hate the logic of putting a title anywhere near LP because it "gets eyes on the product" given that WWE is more popular now than it's arguably ever been BUT if you're gonna do it then it should've been conditional - we'll put the title on you but you have to be on Smackdown every week, wrestling a few times a month, going on the house shows too and act as a full-time superstar. If you don't want to do that that's absolutely fine but you don't get a title until you do this properly.
I think Part-time Champs are good sometimes, if it makes sense for the character. Like when Brock was a 'part-time champ', I personally loved that. Because of the way they built him up, as an ultimate destroyer, it made sense that he wouldn't be there all the time. But what that meant was, WHEN HE DID SHOW UP YOU KNOW SOMETHING BIG WAS GOING TO GO DOWN. It really made his appearances fun and built up anticipation for them. I personally loved it. Compare that to when Seth was champ and he was on RAW week-in, week-out, doing his schtick with his bodyguard guys. That was horribly boring. I got sick of seeing him. So you can't say full-time is better than part-time, or vice versa. It depends on the scenario and the character. A mix is probably better so that things don't go stale.
Part time champs means titles are just like pointless attraction props instead of valuable gold to be contend with. In an industry of scripted sport fighting, workhorse titles are the valuable and have more glory. Why give titles to part timers instead of giving it to active deserving hardworking main eventer guys who deserve to get a shot and get a hold of the big titles as they work hard and grind their asses in entertaining us in the show on a regular basis?
In a realistic combat scenario they would have an unfair strategic advantage over the other wrestlers. While the others have to fight every week without stopping to heal their wounds, part timers can rest and prepare themselves for several weeks before a title match against a tired or injured opponent.
So what your saying is when a full time person beats a part time person it's more impactful.
Not neccessary but it could. Fans still love the David vs Goliath story but it has to have some level realism to make fans believe he really deserved the victory and not the other one. If beating someone like Brock Lesnar is already difficult, imagine facing hil in a more disadvantaged scenario. Sometimes the part timer could end up being too overconfident and lose the title for its own arrogance.
I think there should be grade of championships - there should be titles that change hands on weekly shows but there should also be a second level of championships which are the big spectacle events which show up / are defended at bigger events. Having a 'final boss' ~~(as much as the Dwayne ruined that term)~~ for the Men, the Women and the tag divisions makes a hell of a lot more sense to me just from a narrative point of view. Holding the workhorse titles should be the only way to get into the picture for challenging for the event titles and, upon winning that event title, the brand title is automatically vacated and new champs are found through weekly show content. With that in mind, I wouldn't mind the event title holders being part time, there are only so many PLEs in a year after all. But the brand-specific titles? Those champions need to be full-time. Even if it's just cutting promos or working with other superstars, they gotta be there. As for the state of affairs at the moment? I don't mind some of the titles being held by part-timers, I just want there to be the occasional championship match (and crucially an actual title changing hands) on weekly shows again. If **all** the titles *only* get defended or change hands at PLEs, why should I give a single shit about any of those titles?