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The Intercontinental Heavyweight title used to be very prestigious. The IC title matches at WrestleMania were very often the show stealers. You can just look at WrestleManias III and X as perfect examples. Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat (WM III) and Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon (WM X) were two of the greatest matches in the history of the industry. Currently, the IC champion is Umaga. While Umaga is certainly a credible champion, he did not defend the title at WrestleMania. In fact, the last time the IC title was defended at WrestleMania was at WrestleMania X-8. I know the title was defunct at WM XXIX, but it was active for XX, 21, 22, and 23. There is no excuse for having a title that used to mean so much have such little value now.
Both the United States title and its current holder, Chris Benoit deserve more respect than they're currently getting. Since winning the title last year, has Benoit had any significant feuds or memorable matches? His feud with Chavo Guerrero could have been very good if the WWE had any idea what to do with any of the participants and if that feud wasn't secondary to the Chavo/Vickie Guerrero storyline that apparently went nowhere. Also, for a champion to lose as many non-title matches as Benoit has lost in the last few months is inexcusable.
When Kid Kash lost the WWE Cruiserweight title at Royal Rumble '06 during a cruiserweight free-for-all, he expressed anger at (eventual winner) Gregory Helms, but instead of going after Helms and getting a one-on-one rematch against Helms, Kash ended up in a tag team with Jamie Noble before being released from WWE.
While on the subject of Gregory Helms, he was the longest reigning Cruiserweight champion EVER. How do we know this? He told us every week. When he lost that title, it should have been a huge deal. There should have been a tremendous amount of hype leading up to the match where he was finally defeated by some underdog challenger. Is that what happened? Of course not. Helms was in a cruiserweight gauntlet match and was defeated by Jimmy Wang Yang, who then lost the match (and title) to Chavo Guerrero, who was an unannounced entrant into that match. Nobody benefited from that, not Helms, not Yang, and not Guerrero. You would think that after losing a title that he obviously cherished so much, Helms would be challenging Guerrero every week, right? No, instead he's teaming with him. How does this make any sense?
On Smackdown, the current WWE Tag Team Champions are Paul London and Brian Kendrick. They've held those titles since May 21, 2006. They're currently the fourth longest reigning tag team championship team in WWE history (if you include both current tag team titles). London and Kendrick are phenomenal performers and can captivate an audience during any match. However, nobody cares about them. Why do they not get air time? Why have there not been any promos with them in the ring or backstage? Why don't we know anything about them? In the old days we would get to know about the personalities of the wrestlers and their intentions during the Gene Okerlund interview segments. Now we have two kids that have held the belts for over a year and most people don't even know what their voices sound like.
Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy are the Raw Tag Team Champions. How is it a problem that two very popular superstars with already legendary careers are the champions? Maybe since Matt Hardy was banned from Raw in 2005 when he lost a "Loser Leaves Raw" match to Edge. They won the belts the day after WrestleMania, the day after Jeff Hardy injured Edge during the Money In the Bank ladder match. Are you telling me that if Edge came out later on the show and reminded everyone that Matt should not be allowed on that show, getting the Hardys stripped of the belts, and getting into a feud with Jeff that it wouldn't be compelling TV? It would have all made perfect sense, except that Edge is now a main eventer and working with Jeff would be a step down. At least, that's how WWE would see it.
I guess that nobody on the ECW roster wants to be ECW World Champion. That's the only reason that I can think of for having current champion Bobby Lashley feuding with non-ECW roster people such as Umaga and the McMahon family. As many issues as I have with the writing of TNA, at least there's a long list of people going after TNA champion Christian Cage. Even his partners have told him they want his title.
After singing his praises and thanking him for taking him under his wing, Carlito walked out on Ric Flair this week on Raw after losing a number one contenders match to Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. Carlito walking out at that particular time did not make much sense. And by having Cade and Murdoch win a match that is completely secondary to an ongoing storyline makes their upcoming tag team title match meaningless. Nobody will buy that event to see the Hardys vs. Cade and Murdoch. I'm not saying the match would have been a big draw anyway, but at least give us a reason to care about it.
