Champions not defending their title at every LPE?

[The Rick Jericho]

Seems both Roman and Bianca won't be defending their titles at Backlash, Wrestlemania.


Would anyone be opposed to this if they skipped months defending the belts? Because it does seem both are running out of challengers for their belts. Maybe a break is good so the spotlight is on the opposite brand titles?

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Lemium Prive Event?

[Push R Truth]

Sir, since you want Roman to hold the title until 2028 we are quickly running out of people for Roman to squash on PPV!

Just have him skip some PPV's!

Sure thing boss!

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I feel like since Roman just isn't losing any time soon, there is no point in feeding him midcarders like Nakamura, and instead they are just spacing out his title defenses in hope it does make his future matches into special events all to their own, and with the titles being unified for now, it might actually work out for big shows.

That said, it does make for some awful TV when they just can't book interesting US and IC title divisions to make up for Roman not doing many defenses. The women have the best shot of standing out, but Charlotte vs. Ronda yet again and Bianca also not defending aren't doing them much favors.

[Nosnorb]

May 3, 2022 18:20:05 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I feel like since Roman just isn't losing any time soon, there is no point in feeding him midcarders like Nakamura, and instead they are just spacing out his title defenses in hope it does make his future matches into special events all to their own, and with the titles being unified for now, it might actually work out for big shows.

That said, it does make for some awful TV when they just can't book interesting US and IC title divisions to make up for Roman not doing many defenses. The women have the best shot of standing out, but Charlotte vs. Ronda yet again and Bianca also not defending aren't doing them much favors.

Pretty sure that WWE were originally going to have Nakamura take on Reigns at Backlash, but came to the conclusion that there was no way they would be getting people to buy Shinsuke as having a chance against The Big Dog, what with 6 failed title shots.

[Lance Uppercut]

Makes sense

You have like 10 champions and and 14 ppvs a year. Spread ‘‘em out a little

[Teemu]

I thought the six man tag was like the 2001 Backlash main event where all the belts are on the line.

[The Rick Jericho]

May 3, 2022 20:51:45 GMT -5 Teemu said:

I thought the six man tag was like the 2001 Backlash main event where all the belts are on the line.

Drew is not currently a champion so he has nothing to put on the line.

[Teemu]

May 3, 2022 21:03:08 GMT -5 The Rick Jericho said:

May 3, 2022 20:51:45 GMT -5 Teemu said:

I thought the six man tag was like the 2001 Backlash main event where all the belts are on the line.

Drew is not currently a champion so he has nothing to put on the line.

Yea, I just figured they just ignored that fact. Because they were gonna do the tag unification thing, I assumed this kinda took its place, and the belts were still on the line. Now it's kinda lame; if I wanted to watch a pointless six man tag match, I'd just watch Dynamite.

[HMARK Center]

May 3, 2022 18:20:05 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I feel like since Roman just isn't losing any time soon, there is no point in feeding him midcarders like Nakamura, and instead they are just spacing out his title defenses in hope it does make his future matches into special events all to their own, and with the titles being unified for now, it might actually work out for big shows.

That said, it does make for some awful TV when they just can't book interesting US and IC title divisions to make up for Roman not doing many defenses. The women have the best shot of standing out, but Charlotte vs. Ronda yet again and Bianca also not defending aren't doing them much favors.

Yeah, the idea of holding off on big title matches for bigger cards can work, but then it’s imperative that the other title divisions (or a really good blood feud) pick up the slack, and WWE’s other divisions mostly might as well not exist.

It’s also tougher for WWE to pull off just because of the amount of content they produce. I’m fine with only seeing an IWGP title defense every couple of months, but NJPW doesn’t do a ton of hours of weekly TV; instead each live tour builds to a major card that likely has the main belt in the main event. You can’t really do that with three hours of Raw/two of SD a week plus regular pay per views.

[oxbaker]

May 3, 2022 21:43:39 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

May 3, 2022 18:20:05 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I feel like since Roman just isn't losing any time soon, there is no point in feeding him midcarders like Nakamura, and instead they are just spacing out his title defenses in hope it does make his future matches into special events all to their own, and with the titles being unified for now, it might actually work out for big shows.

That said, it does make for some awful TV when they just can't book interesting US and IC title divisions to make up for Roman not doing many defenses. The women have the best shot of standing out, but Charlotte vs. Ronda yet again and Bianca also not defending aren't doing them much favors.

Yeah, the idea of holding off on big title matches for bigger cards can work, but then it’s imperative that the other title divisions (or a really good blood feud) pick up the slack, and WWE’s other divisions mostly might as well not exist.

It’s also tougher for WWE to pull off just because of the amount of content they produce. I’m fine with only seeing an IWGP title defense every couple of months, but NJPW doesn’t do a ton of hours of weekly TV; instead each live tour builds to a major card that likely has the main belt in the main event. You can’t really do that with three hours of Raw/two of SD a week plus regular pay per views.

We’ll see what they do, but if they put the main event and chief support focus on some of the other titles when Roman isn’t defending the unified championship I think that’s a good thing.

I mean having a women’s title match and the combined tag titles on Backlash works for the top of the card.

Save Roman for HIAC, then let MitB have storylines for IC and US titles, etc., and Roman in a big match at SummerSlam. Cody for the IC title could be worked into a main event or main support as he rises toward the Tribal Chief challenge.

IF they do that and put some spotlight on other titles, that’s what people say they want.

[MolotovMocktail]

I'm fine with it. The champion doesn't even have to be on the card for every show.

When a belt is defended every month, the result is in most cases not in question. Remember the Big 4: in the early days, Survivor Series and Royal Rumble had the champ in the specialty matches, and even 3 of the first 4 Summerslams had the champion in a tag match. That left Wrestlemania and the occasional SNME as the times the belt was defended. And each time, it was built up like it could actually change hands.

[asuka007]

The fact that there are no Raw women’s matches scheduled at all is more notable imo.

[HMARK Center]

May 3, 2022 23:19:43 GMT -5 MolotovMocktail said:

I'm fine with it. The champion doesn't even have to be on the card for every show.

When a belt is defended every month, the result is in most cases not in question. Remember the Big 4: in the early days, Survivor Series and Royal Rumble had the champ in the specialty matches, and even 3 of the first 4 Summerslams had the champion in a tag match. That left Wrestlemania and the occasional SNME as the times the belt was defended. And each time, it was built up like it could actually change hands.

I agree on some level, but back then you also didn't have two weekly multi-hour "supershows" in primetime the way they do now, which makes it tougher to ask your audience to sit tight and wait another month or whatever for movement on the World title. Plus the expectation back then was that fans would buy tickets to see the WWF title defended at house shows; granted, the outcome was basically never in doubt on a house show, but again, expectations were different back then.

Still, as it was said above, if they do actually use this as a chance to really invest in telling compelling stories with their other belts and divisions then it could prove to be a good thing. Nobody really minded, say, Hulk Hogan not defending the title at SummerSlam '91, because you knew you were getting Hart vs. Perfect for an importantly booked IC title and LoD vs. Nasty Boys in a street fight for the tag belts, and those felt like appropriately big matches for a big card.

[msc]

There's only one title match scheduled for the PPV at all - Charlotte/Ronda.

They could just add a quick Ricochet defence to help my IC thread out or something.

(Also they have 3 different womens feuds on RAW and none of them are on the PPV. In fact, they have Asuka/Becky, Liv/Rhea, Bianca/Sonya, Tozawa/Tamina/Dana/Reggie, Balor/Priest, Theory/Ali, Owens/Ezekiel, Profits/Alpha Academy taking up the vast majority of RAW, and NONE Of these feuds have PPV matches this weekend so far!)

[nisidhe]

May 3, 2022 23:19:43 GMT -5 MolotovMocktail said:

I'm fine with it. The champion doesn't even have to be on the card for every show.

When a belt is defended every month, the result is in most cases not in question. Remember the Big 4: in the early days, Survivor Series and Royal Rumble had the champ in the specialty matches, and even 3 of the first 4 Summerslams had the champion in a tag match. That left Wrestlemania and the occasional SNME as the times the belt was defended. And each time, it was built up like it could actually change hands.

Back in the day when the 30-day rule was kind of a known thing, fibbledy-floo, the title would be on the line during the house-show circuit, adding to WWE's "Anything can happen!" tagline; it was also common in the territories. That's how you sold the house shows with the champion on them.

It does WWE few favours to pull the champ from "premium live events" when the champion is already having to defend the title less often than Halley's Comet comes a-callin'. AEW, at least, has a deep enough roster that they can afford to have Adam Page take a night off. When the WWE creative team is charged with overfocusing on the Big Dog, damn straight he'd better be putting his title on the line at every turn.

[greyfmdan]

Much like CM Punk still identified Alundra Blaze as Madusa… It will still be PPV to me.

[JCBaggee]

May 3, 2022 21:03:08 GMT -5 The Rick Jericho said:

May 3, 2022 20:51:45 GMT -5 Teemu said:

I thought the six man tag was like the 2001 Backlash main event where all the belts are on the line.

Drew is not currently a champion so he has nothing to put on the line.

The following match is for the Raw Tag Team Championships and Drew's sword, Angela.

[Jindrak Mark]

Hopefully it doesn't reach Hollywood Hogan levels. In the almost year and a half he held the WCW World title from August 96 until Starrcade 97 (save for Luger's 6 day fling with it) he only defended it on PPV 3 times. 

In 1997 he actually defended it at Souled Out and Superbrawl, was in a tag battle royal thing at Uncensored, completely skipped Spring Stampede, Slamboree and Great American Bash, was in a tag match with Rodman at Bash at the Beach, regained the title from Luger at Road Wild, skipped Fall Brawl, was in a non-title match at Halloween Havoc, skipped World War 3 then finally defended against Sting at Starrcade.

He wasn't even defending it on house shows either. He only worked one house show match in 1997 (the kinda famous non-title loss to Jacques Rougeau in Canada). He literally went half a year (Feb-Aug) without a single defence. Not on PPV. Not on TV. Not at a house show. Not even a dark match after Nitro.

[Hulkshi Tanahashi]

May 4, 2022 12:23:49 GMT -5 Jindrak Mark said:

Hopefully it doesn't reach Hollywood Hogan levels. In the almost year and a half he held the WCW World title from August 96 until Starrcade 97 (save for Luger's 6 day fling with it) he only defended it on PPV 3 times. 

In 1997 he actually defended it at Souled Out and Superbrawl, was in a tag battle royal thing at Uncensored, completely skipped Spring Stampede, Slamboree and Great American Bash, was in a tag match with Rodman at Bash at the Beach, regained the title from Luger at Road Wild, skipped Fall Brawl, was in a non-title match at Halloween Havoc, skipped World War 3 then finally defended against Sting at Starrcade.

He wasn't even defending it on house shows either. He only worked one house show match in 1997 (the kinda famous non-title loss to Jacques Rougeau in Canada). He literally went half a year (Feb-Aug) without a single defence. Not on PPV. Not on TV. Not at a house show. Not even a dark match after Nitro.

He was at World War 3, competed in the big battle royal but entered near the end of the match. He was still there though.