Welcome to the Bleacher Report pro wrestlingmailbag.
The B/R community has always been outspoken, especially when it comes to opinions on pro wrestling and its biggest stars.
We will answer your questions and react to your hot takes aboutWWE, All Elite Wrestling and the world of pro wrestling.
This week's question: What would be a better championship gimmick than the 24/7 title? The answers in the comments section had a lot of variety, but some suggestions were made several times more than others.
"A Television title that has to be defended on TV every week." (@kentrutledge)
"Do the TV title again." (@tmasden)
By a wide margin, the most suggested idea by B/R readers was a new version of the Television Championship. In fact, a lot of commenters went into detail about how the belt would work.
Suggestions included things such as having the belt defended every single week, making the time limit 10-15 minutes per match, reaching a certain number of weeks as champion earns the TV champ a WWE title shot, and keeping it available for both men and women like the 24/7 Championship.
This is actually something I have also been suggesting for years. The WCW World Television title helped launch a lot of careers and many fans have fond memories of it, so WWE using that legacy would add the nostalgia factor.
Making it more regulated and adding specific rules to the belt would give people more reason to be invested as both fans and performers. If a TV title reign can get somebody a WWE title shot, that also creates the possibility of seeing more top stars battle newer and lower-card wrestlers.
Imagine if Angel Garza was the TV champion for 10 weeks and earned a universal title shot against Roman Reigns. While he might not win, it would give us a chance to see him battle a huge star and potentially have a breakout performance.
Right now, the odds of us seeing Garza take on The Tribal Chief are slim to none.
"Women's intercontinental and U.S. titles." (@EstS1996)
"Turn it (24/7 title) into a women's midcard title." (@daothermike)
While I would love to see the women's division expanded to include more titles, WWE has a hard time with what it has to work with as it is.
Keeping two top champions looking strong is not difficult, but WWE has never put much effort into the women's tag team division. In fact, there isn't much of a division right now.
Carmella and Queen Zelina are the tag champs, but who are they going to defend the belts against? Nikki A.S.H. and Rhea Ripley broke up, so they aren't an option. There are some loose affiliations among the women, but nobody has stepped forward as the next logical challengers.
Even NXT has the same issue. Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne haven't defended the NXT women's tag titles since last October, so clearly they are exempt from the long-forgotten rule that says champions must defend their belts every 30 days or be stripped of them.
It pains me to say this, but if WWE was going to make one or two midcard titles work for the division, it would probably need to drop the tag team titles altogether.
With Dana Brooke as the current 24/7 titleholder, it would be easy to transition it to a different belt solely for the women's division, but it seems unlikely at this point.
"Hardcore title. Just bring it back. Way more meaning and respect." (@jeffdrake)
"The Extreme Rules title since WWE won't use Hardcore anymore." (@timberpups21)
Timberpups is right. WWE is never going to bring back the hardcore title in a PG environment because it would create the unrealistic expectation of gory self-mutilation, which we all know WWE hates.
However, their suggestion of using the term Extreme Rules Championship instead is an interesting idea. Extreme Rules is still a stipulation WWE embraces, so that could work.
The problem then becomes WWE putting on Extreme Rules matches all the time. Without being able to draw blood, a lot of people will find weekly Extreme Rules bouts lackluster and repetitive. It would just become an excuse to use a kendo stick or chair a few times.
The hardcore title was a perfect gimmick for the Attitude Era because it fit into the lawless structure WWE had at the time. Now, everything is polished and the company is trying to be mainstream, so something like this isn't as feasible these days.
And let's be honest. The hardcore title was often just as big of a joke as the 24/7 Championship is now. Let's not put it on a pedestal of greatness just because we all like Mick Foley and what he did with it.
This might be a good idea for AEW since that company has a ton of trios, but WWE would have to start from scratch to create enough three-man alliances for an entire division. WWE already has two sets of tag belts it has trouble supporting, so we don't want to further deplete that division to create another.
"Anything." (@langans325)
This sounds like a challenge. I bet I can come up with something that is worse than the current 24/7 Championship. How about the Tuxedo Championship? It can only be defended in tuxedo matches. That sounds pretty bad. What about a dance-off title? No, wait, that might actually produce some entertainment. Nevermind.
"Dumpster champion. That’s a better gimmick." (@jchann)
You joke, but Duke "The Dumpster" Droese would agree with this suggestion. Can we get him as a commissioner for the division? They can book every match in some grimy alley in whatever city the company is in that week. This would have been perfect for Shotgun Saturday Night.
"Longer scooter races." (@rmartin79)
Stop it. Stop putting ideas like this out into the world. This is how we ended up with an actual scooter race that apparently lasted over an hour on Raw.
"How about a part-timer's belt? We could have random celebrities show up and pin each other with the most dangerous move in wrestling, the schoolboy roll-up of doom." (@tomanders7744)
Isn't that kind of what the 24/7 Championship is now? We've seen multiple legends and celebrities win the title, especially during R-Truth's run where he held the title 956 separate times.
The commenters on our crowdsourcing post had a lot of great suggestions for ideas to replace the 24/7 Championship, but if I had my way, WWE would undergo a complete overhaul.
Allow me to run through the changes I would make.
Unify the WWE and Universal Championships into one world title again.
Keep the IC and U.S. titles as they are.
Unify the Raw and SmackDown tag titles into the World Tag Team Championships.
Introduce another set of Intercontinental Tag Team Championships to serve as midcard titles for the division.
Unify the Raw and SmackDown women's titles into the Women's World Championship.
Make the 24/7 title into the Women's United States Championship to serve as a midcard title for the women.
Unify the NXT and main roster Women's Tag Team Championships into one set of titles defended across all brands, which is what the women's tag titles started off as in the first place.
End the brand split.
These changes would consolidate some belts to create definitive world champions for the men's and women's divisions for both individuals and tag teams.
The men's division would still have two midcard singles titles and one set of midcard tag titles while the women's division gets a new midcard title.
At this point, the brand split is almost being ignored by WWE. It may as well come to an end so the company can consolidate its rosters into one big pool of talent. This would create more depth in each division and allow management to give us a wider variety of feuds on a regular basis.
