While watching RAW, I was asking myself what the heck was there to look forward to after The New Day had finished their segment? Needless to say, it’s a really dark time for the WWE right now. With John Cena taking a well-deserved break from television, and the unfortunate timing of Seth Rollins’ injuries set to shelf him for almost a whole year, the sheer lack of depth in the WWE is being brutally exploited right now.
There are a lot of guys on the roster, but not nearly enough of them have been developed to the point where they could shoulder more television time and not bore the audience of start generating X-Pac heat, and it’s times like these where I’m curious just how big of a challenge it is to fill a three-hour block now.
With Sheamus cashing in Money in the Bank, the WWE has basically burned its biggest creative get-out-of-jail-free card, but I can’t help but feel that they jumped the gun on it just a little bit. Ultimately, my opinion on the MITB case is that it serves as a hard-reset to storylines, just in case a storyline doesn’t go the way it really should have, and instead of trying to phase it out, simply pull the plug on it with the MITB; however, by Sheamus having cashed it approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds after Roman Reigns had won the World title, they basically pulled the plug on a title run that didn’t even have a chance to fail.
The bottom line is that Sheamus is the World Heavyweight champion now, and I couldn’t think of anyone on the roster that could be worse than him. It’s not that he’s a bad worker or anything, it’s just the simple fact that Sheamus is fucking boring. There is absolutely nothing interesting about him, and I feel as if putting the responsibility of shouldering the main event scene on him is a terrible mistake. The difference is now, with MITB off the table, the company no longer has the capability to pull the plug on the Sheamus run, and will have to have the challenge of actually writing it out when it ends, presumably, by either the Royal Rumble the show after that, because the thought of Sheamus being in the main event of Wrestlemania is frightening.
Anyway, I thought that in light of current storylines and the state of the WWE, I thought it would be a good time to go back and revisit the power rankings, namely as far as the championship belts are concerned, because frankly there’s not much else besides championship belts worth discussing with the current state of the company.
Divas Championship
This can’t really be that big of a surprise, can it? It’s one part Creative failing in just about everything, but it’s also the other part where the Divas division has grabbed the ball they were given and are absolutely sprinting with fervor with it.
Make no mistake though, this is a deserved spot, because the Divas division has absolutely been one of the better aspects of WWE programming as of late, and frankly it’s the only division in the company right now, where the championship is actually being defended on a somewhat regular basis.
Paige has been doing yeoman’s work over the last few months, not just carrying Charlotte, not just carrying the Divas division, but as far as I’m concerned, carrying the overall watchability of RAW in recent weeks. And the best part about this notion is the fact that Paige isn’t even the champion, Charlotte is.
At this point, Paige in my opinion has kind of ascended to that point where she’s simply better than the belt she’s vying for, and once a superstar gets to that point, actually getting the title is sometimes perceived as a negative.
Her recent match with Charlotte that ended in the schmozz was total old school, where the belt does not exchange hands, but the storyline is left open, and Paige, by virtual of beating the shit out of Charlotte walks away with heat and creative momentum. The Divas championship, is merely a symbol of what’s driving this story, but it’s simply the best storyline that Creative has right now.
Tag Team Championship
This is one of those instances where this title ranks high, not necessarily because all the other titles are putrid right now, but because who is carrying them is elevating the absolute shit out of them. In some cases, belts make the superstar, but this is very much where The New Day is making the Tag titles worth something.
Simply put, The New Day is the best thing in the WWE going on right now. And it’s a shame that they’re a unit, because if it were up to me, I’d give them every single belt, because the people carrying most of them don’t really deserve them.
However, the reason I place the Tag belts at #2 and instead of #1 is the simple fact that they’re just not being defended enough. The team as a whole is being wasted in stupid gimmick matches, six-man tags, and shit like Survivor Series traditional matches to let a bunch of mid-carders get a slice of the bonus. The group as a whole is doing a tremendous job of creating importance for the titles, but it wouldn’t kill them to have them actually defend them at least once a month, so that they don’t start inadvertently hurting the value of the belts.
Intercontinental Championship
It’s position here is very poignant, because it’s one part lack of competition, yet one part lack of ambition, since it is being perceived by me to be beneath both Tag and Divas, traditionally titles perceived with way less prestige.
But for lack of a better term, Kevin Owens is the strongest wrestler and worker among current holders of singles titles. I’ll be the first to admit that I was hesitant to embrace the guy, as I’d seen his schtick in ROH and how he carried it over almost seamlessly to WWE and wasn’t impressed, but through consistency and not being over-exposed, I have been gradually won over by KO’s work rate.
When Kevin Owens actually does wrestle, he wrestles very well, and does adequate justice to old monikers like “Mr. Wrestling,” and reminds people of why he was a world champion in Ring of Honor.
The problem is, his persona has been oversold as the “prize fighter” who pretty much only has singles matches on pay-per-views, and is otherwise only involved in tag affairs and/or singles matches in which he walks away and deliberately gets counted-out. This kind of practice is basically turning him into a wrestler from the 90s, where he only wrestles jobbers on Superstars, before having actual good matches on pay-per-views.
However, when it comes to singles titles, Owens and the Intercontinental title doesn’t have any real competition. Therefore, by default, it stands above them.
United States Championship
Since I don’t have the WWE Network, I’m still at the mercy of checking the internet at like 11 pm on a PPV night, to see what happened at whatever show. And when I found out that Albert del Rio returned, and defeated John Cena (cleanly) at the last one, where he captured the United States Championship, I remember cringing like OJ Simpson in court when I read the words.
Whereas John Cena defended the US title every single RAW, Alberto del Rio hasn’t really defended the belt at all since acquiring it. To say he is tanking the value of the title that Cena had worked so hard to build back up is an understatement; del Rio holding the United States championship is basically a Ponzi scheme and del Rio is actually a Mexican Bernie Madoff.
Look no further to the list of US title challengers from when John Cena carried the belt to whom Albert del Rio is posturing himself to face first: Rusev, Neville, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Seth Rollins. And del Rio’s first challenger appears to be Jack Swagger, a guy who hasn’t been on tv for over a year, and the storyline is more involved with his former manager and not really the belt.
The only reason why the US title isn’t the very bottom is mostly because I really have that little faith in Sheamus, or Creative’s capabilities to make him remotely interesting and tolerable on television, and although it won’t last much longer, Cena’s equity in the US title still keeps it above the World.
World Heavyweight Championship
Last, and least, we arrive at the maligned World Heavyweight Championship, which has about as much credibility as the ISIS attacks rumored to hit the people at Survivor Series.
In all fairness, it’s not all Sheamus’s fault for the belt being so worthless. It’s partly the fact that Seth Rollins, whether or not he was liked, in hindsight, makes people realize just how good he was and how much good he did for the World title, based on just how colossal of a demotion it feels like when it goes to someone else.
Sheamus is not a terrible worker, but he is a guy with an extremely limited arsenal, questionable stamina, and requires as much guidance as the Ultimate Warrior, and a strong worker to help carry him through the pace and story of a high-profile World title match. The Brogue Kick is also a stupid move, further putting emphasis on how small of a repertoire he actually has.
He’s also not terrible on the mic, but the reality is, and is a large contributor to why this belt is so worthless, is the fact that the depth of superstars that are in line to actually challenge Sheamus is more shallow than the kiddy pool. After Roman Reigns, who really is there? Dean Ambrose? Will Dolph Ziggler manage to cool off the mythical heat he always seem to have behind the scenes to get a shot? Heaven forbid Cesaro actually be elevated to the workhorse jobber to the stars?
Sheamus isn’t a terrible guy in all honesty, but the combination of his generally stale persona, along with the fact that the talent well is extremely shallow, he’s basically set up for failure. And upon coming to a conclusion like that, it’s actually beginning to seem like such might have been done deliberately, because if Roman Reigns is the guy being shoved down our throats as the future of the company, having him have to slog through a period of insta-failure just might not be best for business, and perhaps it’s better to have someone else take the fall for it instead.
Regardless, the result of injuries and creative stagnancy has created a WWE Universe, where women wrestlers, and a stable of black guys meant to fail, are the most watchable and entertaining champions on the roster, while all sculpted bodies and powerhouse men are miring through a really stale and uninspired period of mediocrity.
