A title defended 24/7 in the age of social media could be really, really cool
The other day I listened to the latest episode of the Senter Stage podcast, hosted by my friend from across the pond, Mr Ben Senter. In the episode, Ben and his friends reviewed old wrestling PPVs from the 90s and mentioned the possibility of the WWE Hardcore championship being brought back. That moment of the episode then got me thinking, how would that look? Which then brought me here…
There are many ways that WWE could bring back the Hardcore Championship, and many ways that they could keep the belt interesting – especially with the WWE network, and WWE’s vast array of talent.
Hardcore Network show
Having the ability to stream whatever content they desire via their network, WWE are in a great position to bring back the Hardcore title and keep the championship extremely interesting. Many moons ago, Crash Holly created the 24/7 rule, meaning that the belt could be defended wherever, and whenever.
My concept is that WWE would have a Friday or Saturday night recap show, where they showcase how many times the Hardcore title was contested for, defended, and how many new champions were crowned throughout the week. Imagine this; Bobby Roode becomes Hardcore champion when he sneaks up on Johnny Gargano doing a Glorious Bomb Instagram video! Pretty cool, right? The Network show would allow us to keep up to date with the title, and who is the champion before going into the next week of programming.
Multi-brand exposure
With WWE’s large collection of undercard talent that is constantly underused (Ryder, Axel, Crews), why not make the championship non-exclusive to any one brand? We could potentially see NXT guys invading 205 Live to attempt to become Hardcore champion, or Smackdown guys hopping to NXT in order to claim the belt.
However, the belt doesn’t necessarily have to be brought in just as something for the undercard guys to do. You could 100 percent have upper-card guys like Dean Ambrose, Brawn Strowman, and Samoa Joe competing for the title – because at the end of the day, a championship is still a championship. Imagine having the Hardcore champion competing in a match for the WWE Championship, which is then interrupted by someone trying to become Hardcore champion.
The whole concept behind this would simply just be to mix things up in WWE. In my opinion, WWE is the most boring its has ever been right now. Nothing new is happening, storylines don’t have any meaning, and I just don’t find the product any fun right now.
I was a massive fan of the Hardcore title during the Attitude Era, so why not bring it back? They’ve already got 50,000 title belts – why not one more?