Five champions in the past three years for the world titles.

[agent817]

So my friend and I talked about this. I noticed that when discussing the world titles, whether it's for the men's division or the women's division, I could count on one hand how many champions there have been for the past three years. Sure, it's bound to change sooner or later, but what I mean is that that is still a small number in the company's title history.

For the women's side, well, I could understand why Hikaru Shida held it for that long because she wasn't around as much, and this was at the height of the pandemic. Personally, I would have preferred Shida relinquishing the belt and there being a tournament to determine a new champion. A lot had been said about Britt's reign, which was not good.

On the men's side, for the first three champions, they were rather lengthy. The shortest one being Adam Page's run.

Now that I think about it, does TK have a hard-on for long title reigns or something? I wouldn't doubt if he'll have Jade Cargill hold the belt until Full Gear (which is reminding me of an old thread I did) if she doesn't lose it at All Out.

What do you think about this?

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Aug 10, 2022 21:31:22 GMT -5 agent817 said:

For the women's side, well, I could understand why Hikaru Shida held it for that long because she wasn't around as much, and this was at the height of the pandemic. Personally, I would have preferred Shida relinquishing the belt and there being a tournament to determine a new champion.

Shida was very much around every week, albeit working through an injury for a bit there. She just didn't get TV time each week. A lot of the frustration toward her booking is because she's been an exceptionally dependable talent as well as being over.

Just, wanted to get that out there because it's the only part of the post that I felt was off.

[Lizuka #BLM]

In general I feel like three to six months is the ideal length of time for a title run. Go shorter sometimes, go longer sometimes (though preferably less so than shorter), but in general your TV show should not be having year long holding patterns.

It doesn't help that in wrestling in general year long title reigns are utterly meaningless these days. WWE's had like 20 of them in the past seven years or so.

[asuka007]

I get that AEW wants titles to be prestige’s. But someone just holding the belt for a long time dies not automatically make it a good reign. And if everyone gets a long reign, then long reigns lose their specialness.

The Women especially have suffered in this regard imo.

[kingoftheindies]

I think for a lot of us who grew up through the Monday Night Wars we are used to seeing a lot of title changes because since it was a direct competition for ratings. But even if you look at WWE reigns in recent history a lot of their reigns are starting to be longer too (for different reasons but that's a different story).

So I don't really think it's that big of a deal. Maybe you can argue one or two reigns in AEW have gone on a little too long, or that they missed the boat putting the title on someone (big ones being PNP as tag champs or Eddie beating Miro for TNT title) but I do feel AEW does a good job of making the titles matter.

[asuka007]

I think the opposite. A lot of their belts have been poorly booked this year.

[robferatu]

If we’re speaking, strictly the men’s world championship, I think the length of the reigns have been fine thus far.

Firstly, Chris Jericho had the shortest reign at just shy and under six months, but he was never going to have a Kenny Omega type reign with it as the point of him being the inaugural champion was to establish the championship with a marquee, household name that would appeal to current and lapsed WWE fans.

Jon Moxley’s reign is interesting because much like Drew McIntyre on the WWE side of the equation it’s hard to really judge the peak pandemic reigns as successes, too lengthy or whathave you, but personally I enjoyed it because before he was dethroned by Kenny Omega, he had all these mini-fueds with Mr. Brodie Lee, MJF, and Eddie Kingston, none of which were ever going to dethrone him which may have lead to his reign lacking in drama in some aspects, but it felt like he elevated each of those contenders in his victory.

Kenny Omega’s reign was nearly a year-long, and if Adam Page wouldn’t have taken time off for his wife’s pregnancy, would have likely ended two months earlier than it inevitably did, but I think he was the perfect AEW original to establish that nearly year-long dominance with and it worked perfectly for his character.

As for the Hangman, his reign sticks out the most, if only because him winning it was the peak and everything with him afterward felt secondary or tertiary to everything else going on in the company, it was the first time that AEW pulled a WWE (a-la Kofi Kingston or CM Punk) with a world title reign, and made their world champion seem like an afterthought at times.

Obviously, the jury is still out on Punk’s reign because even though he’s been officially regarded at the companies champion for two-and-a-half months, obviously his foot injury sidelined any momentum he would of had as champion.

But at the expense of being long winded, and circling back around to my original opinion, aside from Omega’s reign being extended two months due to him taking time off, and his reign feeling sort of an afterthought.

The lengths of them all have been fine to me.

[kingoftheindies]

On the Page reign it felt like happening the same time as Punk/MJF derailed it a bit but I also think that having Cole lose a lights out match (fine in a vacuum and in that storyline) and immediately go for the world title hurt him a bit and cooled what should have been a much hotter feud.

[kingoftheindies]

Aug 10, 2022 22:08:07 GMT -5 asuka007 said:

I think the opposite. A lot of their belts have been poorly booked this year.

I think there have been some bad moments yes. The Scorpio/Sammy feud for the TNT title hurt both wrestlers and the belt. Making the first month or so of Jurassic Express's reign Rampage Exclusive seemed to cool them a little. How the Britt/Rosa transition from Full Gear to The cage match (though Cage match was great) and then having an injured Rosa's first program as champ being with an incentive cold Nyla. Those were all bad moments.

That being said I do think AEW makes their titles matter... and yes I would agree that it is about time for thr TBS title to be taken off Jade.

[ASYLUMHAUSEN]

I’m in that weird area where I cut my teeth watching Crocket Promotions and WWF as a kid so long title reigns were a thing.

But after being a lapsed fan for a number of years I came back to it around 96/97 and saw things get bounced around and hot shotted so much I didn’t think twice about it.

I’m old.

Anyway, I don’t mind longer reigns is what I’m saying 🤷🏼‍♂️

At this point I just want Eddie to win The Big One. Even if he has the shortest reign of any AEW World Champion. The man has more than earned it and the pop would be beyond god tier (especially if they pulled the trigger at, say, Grand Slam.)

[Allie Kitsune]

At this point, I wouldn't mind a couple of hotshot reigns just to show that Tony can break out of his patterns, but otherwise...

[Cyno]

I don't think any reigns except for Baker's really overstayed their welcome.

[Facetious]

Aug 10, 2022 22:32:02 GMT -5 Cyno said:

I don't think any reigns except for Baker's really overstayed their welcome.

I'd say Kenny's and that's only because we all knew it was leading to Hangman getting it and it took forever to get there even without the kid delaying it further. And I enjoyed his reign.

[Cyno]

Aug 10, 2022 22:33:41 GMT -5 Facetious said:

Aug 10, 2022 22:32:02 GMT -5 Cyno said:

I don't think any reigns except for Baker's really overstayed their welcome.

I'd say Kenny's and that's only because we all knew it was leading to Hangman getting it and it took forever to get there even without the kid delaying it further. And I enjoyed his reign.

Knowing what we did about Kenny Omega working hurt and putting off taking time off because he wanted to put over Hangman, I'll give you that one too. But I loved his reign as a fan.

[asuka007]

Jade’s reign is really getting boring at this point as well imo.

[smokinvokoun86]

The only real time I felt bad about the champions was Brits reign being so long and the Sammy/Sky mess.

I didn’t hate Brits reign as much as most people seemed to, but I do agree that it went to long.

The Sammy/Sky stuff was a mess. I think the matches were great for the most part. In the ring, Sammy and Scorpio were NOT bad champions. But the storyline was very convoluted and that sadly dragged them down.

But overall, I don’t have much to complain about when it comes to the champions.

[Macho Pichu]

Part of why I don’t mind having a bunch of titles around (even though I don’t care for that basically anywhere else) is because world champions get long runs only thing I’d change is that I wouldn’t have put the TBS title on Jade so soon. If the secondary women’s champ is unstoppable and the primary needs to be kept strong, then where are the other women in the roster supposed to get their shine?

[agent817]

Aug 10, 2022 23:12:13 GMT -5 Macho Pichu said:

Part of why I don’t mind having a bunch of titles around (even though I don’t care for that basically anywhere else) is because world champions get long runs only thing I’d change is that I wouldn’t have put the TBS title on Jade so soon. If the secondary women’s champ is unstoppable and the primary needs to be kept strong, then where are the other women in the roster supposed to get their shine?

Personally, for the TBS title, I think someone like Ruby or Toni could be viable for a shot at it. Also, it seems like there was a change in the storyline with Jade vs. Kris Statlander and Athena, both of whom I think could be good contenders (but moreso Statlander as she has been around longer than Athena; in AEW, I mean). The thing with Jade is that I often forget that the TBS championship exists, let alone remember that she is the champion.

[ARI WOW WOW]

So we had Jericho about 6 months, Mox about 9, Omega about 12, Hangman about 6 months as champion. I'd say you should have shorter title reigns for established stars and longer ones for someone on the rise.

With that said, if i were a booker (and you can see why i am not with what im about to say) i'd book short reigns to be around 10 months and long reigns for about 24 to 36 months.

[Kalmia]

I think only having 4 PPVs a year contributes to this. We've had a couple of world titles change hands on TV before of course, but if you want to have a champ headline a couple of PPVs then you're looking at a six-month title reign. The PPV schedule makes the angles go slower.