WWE Brand Split: The Case For A New World Championship

The Brand Split is coming baby! In less than a month WWE’s two biggest cable shows will air live on consecutive nights. With rumours circulating of brand exclusive pay-per-views though, isn’t there about to be a world championship shaped space on one of the brands?

Business sense and logic suggest the WWE World Heavywieght Championship, currently held to the surprise of jaded fans by Dean Ambrose, will land on Raw. It’s the flagship show. This leaves Smackdown! casting about for a shiny piece of metal which its main event stars can pretend fight over.

Now, the WWE has any number of pre-existing belts it could plug in here, some of which have been gathering dust in a storage closet at Titan Towers for years. At least one is probably wedged somewhere in Vince McMahon’s private bathroom. Don’t be surprised if he’s renamed it the WWE Toilet Flushing Championship, of which he is a multi-time champion.

Anyway, we got off track there. The point is, with the Intercontinental title, the former WCW title (a.k.a. The Big Gold Belt), the ECW title and many more, WWE could easily dust one off and throw it at someone like AJ Styles. Today though, I’m going to make the case for a new belt. Something fresh. Something that can build the mystique all those other belts have lost.

First, let me explain why old or existing titles might not cut it this time. Because let’s be honest – there are really only two in the WWE’s back catalogue of belts that might do. The World Heavyweight Championship is one, and the Intercontinental Championship the other. The latter may have cut it many ions ago. Back in the era of Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior and Bret Hart it was a big deal. These days, that seems so very long ago.

In the last five years the WWE Championship has been held by the a who’s who of modern wrestling legends: John Cena, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and Brock Lesnar. In that same time the once plucky Intercontinental strap has been passed between such luminaries as Curtis Axel, The Miz, Ryback and the god damn Miz. That kind of championship rot is hard to scrub off.

What about that Big Gold Belt, you ask? The one made famous by Ric Flair, Sting and Goldberg? Back in the 80s and 90s that belt represented WCW, and that was a big deal. Thing is, that might be the problem. It represents what was once the biggest ever threat to Vince McMahon’s business and livelihood. The belt was unified with the WWE Championship in December 2013. Probably for obvious reasons McMahon hadn’t let it headline a pay-per-view for more than three years upon its death.

The last time the Targaryen of pro-wrestling allowed the World Heavyweight strap to main event a PPV? Hell in a Cell 2010 – Kane beating the Undertaker. We’d say it wasn’t personal, but the fact is it probably was. It’s why Vince will likely never allow it to headline a major network special in the future.

See, the thing about old championships is that they have legacy, but they also have baggage. A new belt, booked right and treated with respect, would give WWE the chance to build something the fans can believe in.

Fortunately there’s a proven template the company can use to build their new strap. It’s called the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. If anyone at Titan Towers is curious they need only ask their biggest signing of 2016 – Shinsuke Nakamura.

The IWGP, nominal ‘governing body’ for New Japan Pro Wrestling, has a lot of championships. It’s world title is nearly 3 years old. The IWGP Intercontinental belt has only existed for around five. Somehow though, it’s treated as being on the same level as their main belt, headlining major events frequently. Up until recently it was held by arguably the company’s biggest icon- Shinsuke Nakamura himself, the Mick Jagger of pro-wrestling. Free from a history of so-so booking, Nakamura was able to turn the belt into a legit deal.

With the current hungry crop of athletes forming a bottleneck at the WWE’s upper midcard, it’s the perfect time for a new belt. This is the ‘New Era’, after all. There’s no shortage of guys ready to elevate a new championship – their championship. We don’t know who’s going to land on Smackdown! once the dust of the Brand Split settles. Kevin Owens? Sami Zayn? Seth Rollins? AJ Styles? Cesaro? Rusev? Having any four of these guys pass a new title back and forth for the next few years would give it all the prestige it needs.

Finally, a new championship for the WWE’s second brand would be the perfect antidote to the more sanitised WWE Championship. It would be a chance to experiment with new types of championship runs and stories in a meaningful way. As much as experimentation could still be a thing with the Big Gold Belt, it’s long downward spiral has diminished any real impact it could have had with fans.

What to call this new title? As long as it sounds both cool and important it doesn’t matter. McMahon employs about a million writers – get one of them on it. My personal suggestion would be the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship (yes, I know this is what the vanilla Intercontinental belt was called back in the day, but am I the only one who heard Lita announce the first ever WWE Women’s Championship at Wrestlemania 31?). As long as there’s a new belt design – and it’s pushed as a new belt – it should be fine.

Anyone who has a sincere love for wrestling wants this brand split to be a success. A better product, with more compelling stories and watchable wrestling is a win for all of us. Wouldn’t a new championship, with enough fanfare, give Smackdown! the best chance of becoming great again?