When did the World Heavyweight Championship cease

[smokeandmirrors]

to be on the same tier as the WWE Championship in your eyes? Curious as to people's thoughts.

[mizerable]

When Batista went to SD with it.

Even when it was brought back to Raw with Cena winning it, you know it wasn't a permanent switch and honestly saw it as a means to appease Triple H to work on SD with the WWE title.

[vanboxmeer]

The Great Khali

[BigJerichool222]

When CM Punk fought Snitsky.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Raw Supershow and the apparent end of the brand split. The World Heavyweight Champion shows up on both shows. He's a big deal on SmackDown but just another guy on RAW. The WWE Champion rarely if ever shows up on SmackDown the now very obvious B Show.

[woowoowoox]

Nov 7, 2012 12:58:09 GMT -5 mizerable said:

When Batista went to SD with it.

Even when it was brought back to Raw with Cena winning it, you know it wasn't a permanent switch and honestly saw it as a means to appease Triple H to work on SD with the WWE title.

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

When they put it on Jack Swagger and proceeded to have him lose about 800 non title matches.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

right around the time Eric Bischoff just handed it to Triple H

[Sparkybob]

Nov 7, 2012 14:46:02 GMT -5 ThankGodForSidJustice said:

When they put it on Jack Swagger and proceeded to have him lose about 800 non title matches.

Well to be fair Kane did main event a ppv match with the world title in that year.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Nov 7, 2012 14:55:49 GMT -5 Sparkybob said:

Nov 7, 2012 14:46:02 GMT -5 ThankGodForSidJustice said:

When they put it on Jack Swagger and proceeded to have him lose about 800 non title matches.

Well to be fair Kane did main event a ppv match with the world title in that year.

And Swagger did beat the then nearly invincible and overprotected (probably even moreso than Cena) Randy Orton cleanly on PPV.

[Branimal]

Nov 7, 2012 13:05:45 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Raw Supershow and the apparent end of the brand split. The World Heavyweight Champion shows up on both shows. He's a big deal on SmackDown but just another guy on RAW. The WWE Champion rarely if ever shows up on SmackDown the now very obvious B Show.

[The Portable Stove]

To be honest, Rey Mysterio's first reign.

I liked Rey, but he's never really struck me to be a top guy in the company. Highlighted by the fact that they proceeded to reverse-Del Rio him, where he lost nearly every match on TV but won on PPV.

[Deleted]

I still say eff the brand split.

It's one company. There should be one set of champions. (except in Kane and DB's case)

They've always favored RAW, ergo, RAW's titles have come to mean more in the end.

[Sparkybob]

Nov 7, 2012 14:57:54 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Nov 7, 2012 14:55:49 GMT -5 Sparkybob said:

Well to be fair Kane did main event a ppv match with the world title in that year.

And Swagger did beat the then nearly invincible and overprotected (probably even moreso than Cena) Randy Orton cleanly on PPV.

Well I argue that during the first months of the orton and christian feud for the title, the title was very close if not as equally as important as the wwe title until of course the punk pipebomb promo.

[Arrow]

When they stopped running separate pay-per-views for Raw and SD.

[Andrew is Good]

It's weird. The reason they keep the belt is because they use it for World Title matches on both shows. But, instead, why not have the WWE Title on one show, and another top star on another house show, like back in the day. They used to have the Champion on one show, and say, The Undertaker, as the main event on the other show. This was back in the mid 90s though. Hell, even back further, they used the Intercontinental Title as the main event.

Personally, I think with the reactions they gets, Daniel Bryan and Kane defending the tag team titles could be a major match and say, a John Cena match be another one. They don't have enough stars, so they have to go on the World Title meaning something to be a "main event".

[nate5054]

Nov 7, 2012 12:55:18 GMT -5 @smokeandmirrors said:

to be on the same tier as the WWE Championship in your eyes? Curious as to people's thoughts.

When it became a Smackdown exclusive title, since Smackdown is clearly the B show.

And is it just me or do they use a different lens or something during Smackdown? The show even looks less vibrant than Raw does. Not to mention it not being live, the awful crowd reactions, the lack of real story progression, and everything else that makes it a subpar show.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Nov 7, 2012 15:17:56 GMT -5 Andrew is Good said:

It's weird. The reason they keep the belt is because they use it for World Title matches on both shows. But, instead, why not have the WWE Title on one show, and another top star on another house show, like back in the day. They used to have the Champion on one show, and say, The Undertaker, as the main event on the other show. This was back in the mid 90s though. Hell, even back further, they used the Intercontinental Title as the main event.

Personally, I think with the reactions they gets, Daniel Bryan and Kane defending the tag team titles could be a major match and say, a John Cena match be another one. They don't have enough stars, so they have to go on the World Title meaning something to be a "main event".

I agree with this stance. Which is why I've been a huge advocate of keeping the brand split, but restructuring the brands to truly reflect RAW as the big-ticket show with the top stars and SmackDown as the B show focused on midcarders with 1-2 marquee matches for ratings/ticket sale purposes. (think a Superstars/Main Event hybrid)

Wrestlers don't need a 2nd World Title to mean something. Even with the brand split, there should be only one top champion to reflect who the best in the company is, not the best guy on one show.

- John Cena can main event shows without the belt. Like you said, just put him on the tour that the WWE Champion isn't on.

- Miz has been given a huge depush, and has even lost 2 minute squash matches at times, yet he's still a big deal in the eyes of the fans.

- Zack Ryder, despite having little credibility, and having his momentum yanked out from under him, still has a decent following.

- Alex Riley hasn't appeared on TV regularly in a year, yet remains popular with the kids and casuals.

- WWE is dead set on making Alberto Del Rio look like a big deal fairly quick, despite never letting him win on PPV.

- And WWE has also pushed Sheamus pretty hard, despite the fact that he had been mostly "irrelevant" and "just there" between Christian's injury and actually winning the World Title.

Even someone like Ted DiBiase who is unfairly labeled as having "no charisma" has a bit of a following. Everyone on the roster has some degree of overness with some portion of the fanbase, and they don't need a paper World Championship to validate them. I'd rather see someone like Dolph Ziggler win The Big One or not at all, than have to settle for the Charity Title.

[Legion]

Since day one of it appearing.

WWE had WWE in it's name. Regardless of the holder, it was always the more important.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Nov 7, 2012 12:58:09 GMT -5 mizerable said:

When Batista went to SD with it.

Even when it was brought back to Raw with Cena winning it, you know it wasn't a permanent switch and honestly saw it as a means to appease Triple H to work on SD with the WWE title.

I think this is a good pick. It was still billed as being as important (if not more) than the WWE Championship, but whatever title was picked to be on Raw for the long haul was bound to be the more important one.