The Middle Of The Road

There's a certain protocall for certain superstars in a certain position in the WWE roster, this protocall has been consistant for the past 15 years. Superstars who have proven themselves to have a glimmer of abillity but are seen as not ready for the main event are given the role of being a mid-card champion, I.e intercontinental or united states champion. There's been a question lately on the importance of these titles, what significance they hold to the WWE roster today and what can be done to make them a bigger deal, all of which shall be explored, because I can't think of anything else to write about.

First of all let's look at what the mid-card titles mean in recent times. Back in the raging 80s, the IC title was seen as something prestigious, a title that winning on it's own was seen as a big deal. Legends such as Honkeytonk Man and Rick Rude were happy enough to be considered IC champion, that the title alone was enough to consolidate their greatness. IC title matches were often the main event of the tv shows, lasting up to 20 minutes and if neccessary, were stipulation matches such as steel cage. Fast foreward to the 21st century, the title is viewed (and often conveyed by the announcers) as a stepping stone to greater things. This depricates a mid-card titles worth and the worth of matches for the title. If Dolph Ziggler is just U.S champ to enhance his career, then why does he feel the need to defend it valliantly? He could just forfit the title then try for the WWE title. This makes the title seem second rate (it is but that shouldn't be conveyed). It's as though no superstar would be happy just being the US or IC champ.

There's a somewhat simple way to combat this and bring the titles pristege up. For starters there's the champion himself, he needs to be portrayed as a great wrestler, someone who could push the world champ to the limit, if Cody Rhodes was given the treatment of say The Miz, then the audience would view him as a great wrestler and think that you must be truely great to become IC champion, making the title important. Also, there needs to be the view that the Ic/US title is important enough for a wrestler to just have. Cody Rhodes should state in a promo, that the IC title is such a great accomplishment for him and he could retire the next day knowing his career was great enough due to the title. When Randy Savage or Mr Perfect were IC champions, they always put over how great the title was, ad though they didn't need to be in the WWF title picture. Small details such as those can make people care about the mid-card title scenarios and matches.

In conclusion, it would be important to the new HHH regime to re-establish the prestige of the IC/US championships. This will elivate not only the wrestlers involved, but also the importance of the matches, people will be excited to know the outcome of the next US title match, creating an overall greater interest in the entire product. Granted, main event angles such as Punk/HHH and Cena/Del Rio should be pushed and promoted first, but that doesn't mean the US/IC title scenes can't be given the factors I've presented in this here blog. I doubt these changes will happen any day soon, but it'd be nice if they did.