Harvey Wippleman and the WWE prizes that aren't worth winning.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00In some instances, these titles were never going to be more than a quick bit of fun,
00:05but in others they reflect the worst of WWE.
00:08A wrestling championship should be more than a mere prop.
00:11In some instances, it's a whole lot less.
00:14So I am Gareth, this is WhatCulture Wrestling, and here are the 10 most disrespected titles
00:18in WWE history.
00:2010.
00:21The Women's Tag Team Championship
00:23Perhaps the most cursed titles currently on offer, the Women's Tag belts got off to
00:26a solid start.
00:28With Bayley and Sasha Banks triumphing in an Elimination Chamber match to decide the
00:32inaugural holders.
00:34The pair of horsewomen vowed to legitimise the nascent belts, which they lost six weeks
00:38later to the IIconics.
00:40From there, the curse has been real.
00:42The belts have fallen victim to a cavalcade of reign-ending injuries, with Sonya Deville
00:47most recently falling foul of the Hex.
00:49Beyond that, there's the usual selection of matches thrown together with no build,
00:53can they coexist, and multi-woman matches that often don't deliver.
00:57Most problematic is creative's propensity for throwing teams together at random.
01:01During the championship's run, the number of actual established duos can be counted
01:05on two hands.
01:07Instead, WWE jams together whichever workers have nothing else on.
01:10Chelsea Green and Piper Niven, why not?
01:12And the results speak for themselves.
01:149.
01:15The International Heavyweight Championship
01:17For a long while, WWE and New Japan Pro Wrestling were able to enjoy an off-and-on creative
01:22partnership.
01:23Leading to the odd supercard and the International Heavyweight Championship.
01:26Low-key, one of the best-looking belts in the business.
01:29The first half of the 80s saw the titles switch hands sporadically.
01:33Tatsumi Fujinami had three stints, and even inaugural WWE Champion Buddy Rogers took part
01:38in the first title match in the 50s.
01:40Then business got in the way.
01:42As time moved on and Vince McMahon turned an eye on global domination, he no longer
01:46wished to do business with or even acknowledge the existence of New Japan Pro Wrestling.
01:51There's barely a mention of the International Heavyweight Championship on their website.
01:55No suggestion that anyone would be interested in this part of wrestling's past.
01:59But it's still a part of the storied tale of the federation, and for the sake of nerdy
02:02wrestling completionists everywhere, it ought to be acknowledged.
02:068.
02:07The Cruiserweight Championship
02:08Unlike a lot of the titles on this list, the Cruiserweight Championship actually started
02:12quite well.
02:13Even disregarding its WCW lineage pre-TakeOver, 2002-2003 saw the likes of Tajiri, Jamie Noble,
02:20Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero tussle for the gold in exciting, often opening contests
02:25just like Ted Turner used to do it.
02:27So what happened?
02:28Well, Vince McMahon took a look at his wrestlers, dismissed them as puny and turned his attention
02:33back to the big boys.
02:34A few years in, WWE completely lost interest in the division.
02:37It was defended sporadically, almost always changing hands in a multi-man match.
02:42Then Hornswoggle won it, and then they got rid of it.
02:44As for the belt of the same name, introduced in 2016, well that's basically the same
02:49story.
02:50There were some great moments, the Cruiserweight Classic for example, but a lack of consistent
02:53interest.
02:54The little guys were shunted onto their own show, the derisively titled Seldon Push 205
02:59Live.
03:00In 2022, the title was retired.
03:03It was also purple and looked impossibly cheap.
03:05Now I've got a quick question for you, what's your favourite Cruiserweight match of all
03:09time?
03:10Throw it down in the comment section below and let us know all about it, my friends!
03:147.
03:15The Intercontinental Tag Team Championship
03:17WWE's Intercontinental Tag Team titles were part of their latter attempt to join
03:21forces with a Japanese organisation.
03:24This time, the lucha-centred UWF.
03:26To say this was the wrong horse to back is an understatement.
03:29UWF lasted five years, and while some great names passed through its gates, it didn't
03:34leave behind many matches of note.
03:36That its brief partnership with WWE and the creation of the Intercontinental Tag Titles
03:41was maybe its most obscure offering, is really saying something.
03:44The belts were awarded to Pero Aguillao and Gran Hermada in January of 1991.
03:50Then the titles were just abandoned.
03:51That's about all the information anyone bothered to note down about these belts.
03:55It's a miracle we even know the date, to be honest.
03:586.
03:59The Women's Championship
04:00While there have been women's belts that WWE have treated with less reverence, on which
04:04more later, few titles can boast as many significant moments of disrespect than the company's
04:10inaugural Women's Championship.
04:12Firstly, the barren years in which, even by their standards, WWE didn't really care
04:16about women's wrestling.
04:18The deeply problematic but nonetheless fabulous Moolah had a stranglehold on the title for
04:22the best part of 30 years, as the company made little effort to bolster their ranks.
04:27The rock and wrestling era saw Wendy Richter and Leilani Kai do what they can, but disinterest
04:32saw the belts simply deactivated in 1990.
04:35Three years later, much the same.
04:37Alundra Blaze and Bull Nakano had some great matches, but few other challenges.
04:42Then there's the Medusa incident, with Blaze leaving WWE to join WCW in her previous gimmick,
04:47whereupon she dropped the Women's Championship in the garbage.
04:51The problem here isn't so much the incendiary incident itself, as the fact WWE let one of
04:55its champions leave the company while still holding the belt.
04:58From there, the company has ditched the belt for lengthy periods, occasionally giving the
05:02shine to major talents like Trish Stratus, Lita and Molly Holly, but more often than
05:06not relegated the belt to throwaway three-minute matches at best.
05:105.
05:11The Canadian Championship We've seen titles created, more or less,
05:15for one wrestler plenty of times.
05:17Triple H lobbying to bring back the Big Gold Belt, for example, or the Million Dollar Championship.
05:22The problem with being awarded a belt, though, is what you do once you've won it.
05:26In the mid-80s, Dino Bravo began billing himself as the Canadian Champion.
05:31Taking this to its logical conclusion, WWE made this official, giving the stoic strongman
05:35a belt to defend on the house show circuit.
05:38They did this for a bit, got bored of it, gave up and scrapped the whole thing.
05:42Bravo left the company for a while, then returned in a mid-card role.
05:45The problem, other than WWE's disinterest in actually doing anything with this idea,
05:50was that, for all of his talent, Bravo didn't possess the kind of charisma needed to make
05:54a new belt into a thing.
05:55He just plodded on, same as ever.
05:57It's hard to establish a title as a prize worth winning when the guy carrying it doesn't
06:01seem to want it himself.
06:034.
06:04Divas Championship
06:05A belt's design isn't all important.
06:07Take the Universal Championship, a red-then-blue monstrosity elevated by Gerd Buchan.
06:13Sometimes though, aesthetics can't be overcome, and there's no better example of this than
06:16the butterfly-shaped title known inexplicably as the Divas Championship.
06:21The rebranding of women to Divas is another conversation altogether, but the top prize
06:25for the division was, from the off, impossible to take seriously.
06:29That was kinda the point.
06:30On its creation, WWE's women's division was running on fumes.
06:34With quality workers like Mickie James on her way out, and Natalya and Beth Phoenix
06:37yet to make their mark.
06:39When the bench did fill up a little, the problem remained the same.
06:42It's all well and good to have Paige and AJ Lee work in matches, but they're ultimately
06:46fighting over a belt that no one could possibly hoist with pride.
06:50It took until 2015 for WWE to see sense on this matter, and consigned the Divas Championship
06:55and thankfully the term Diva altogether to history.
06:583.
06:59The 24-7 Championship
07:00How disrespected was the 24-7 Championship?
07:03Even for a joke belt, it was treated with disdain.
07:06The slime green number was created as a throwback to the glory days of the Hardcore Championship,
07:11with its anyplace, anytime chaos.
07:13For a multitude of reasons, that didn't work though.
07:16Firstly, it's not the Attitude Era anymore.
07:18A hardcore match used to mean a shopping trolley full of violent nonsense.
07:22Now it means a couple of kendo sticks.
07:24More importantly, the hardcore belt actually had good matches amidst the plunder.
07:28The 24-7 belt was primarily an excuse to gain celebrity engagement.
07:32This worked precisely once, Bad Bunny donning the strap on SNL.
07:37That aside, we were treated to sportscasters, Santa, Maya Cain and The Gronk.
07:41Worst of all though, the 24-7 belt wasted the time and energy of plenty of genuinely
07:46talented superstars.
07:48R-Truth milked it for all the fun it was worth.
07:50No one could have done a better job, to be honest.
07:52And then Nikki Cross threw it in the trash, and that was the end of that sorry saga.
07:562.
07:57The ECW Heavyweight Championship
07:59If there's one thing you can rely on WWE for, it's a good dose of spite.
08:03After winning the Monday Night Wars and acquiring WCW and ECW, Vince McMahon could do anything
08:09he wanted with the upstart brand from Philadelphia.
08:12Milk it, archives, keep it running in its own right.
08:15Or simply ruin it.
08:16The ECW title under WWE auspices is a who's who of who isn't at all related to the promotion.
08:23After a strong start, reigniting the brand with RBD on top, things went wrong incredibly
08:29quickly.
08:30Drafting Big Show and Bobby Lashley onto the new show was not what the rabid fanbase wanted.
08:33To say nothing of making Vince himself the durag sporting champ.
08:37What a time to be alive.
08:39CM Punk and later Christian did what they could to prop the belt up, but the brand was
08:43dying and its title along with it.
08:45Soon it was being traded in ludicrously short matches, jumping across WWE's various brands,
08:51and finally being put out of its misery not four years into its second run.
08:551.
08:56European Championship WWE's tertiary men's belt could hardly
08:59have started life better.
09:01British Bulldog vs Owen Hart in a tournament final fought in Berlin?
09:05It was all downhill from there pretty sharpish.
09:08First Shawn Michaels politicked his way into taking the belt from the Bulldog in front
09:11of a UK crowd, then not a year into its existence, he laid down for Triple H, allowing his DX
09:18stablemate to pin him for the belt.
09:20Which was now objectively worth us.
09:22The list of European title holders is genuine Hall of Fame stuff.
09:26Which makes the belt's treatment even more bizarre.
09:28Its nadir came in 1999, when a grass-green Shane McMahon decided he'd like a go with
09:33the belt.
09:34He won it off X-Pac, then decided he didn't care about the trinket, leaving it in a gym
09:38bag for Midian to find three months later.
09:41In terms of match quality, the European Championship is way above a lot of other belts on this
09:45list.
09:46And that's why the title's treatment is so odd.
09:49They didn't denigrate it because of a lack of ideas or personnel, they didn't even
09:52lose interest in a hurry.
09:54They treated it like a joke, well, just because.
09:57What a damn waste.
09:58And that's our list!
09:59Know of any other hugely disrespected WWE titles that we've missed?
10:02Well you know what to do, let us know all about them in the comments section right down
10:05below and don't forget to like, share and click on that subscribe button while you're
10:09down there.
10:10Also if you're into this sort of title stuff, then head on over to WhatCulture.com and find
10:13some more fantastic articles just like the one this video you're watching right now
10:16is based on.
10:17I've been Gareth from What Culture Wrestling, thank you for watching this video today.
10:21I hope to see you again very soon, but in the meantime, just be good to yourself.
10:25Bye bye!