This hot potato thing they're doing with the IC title is just plain dumb. It seems almost impossible that there's a team of 26 writers and Vince McMahon seeing that crap on a script every week and thinking this is a great way to book what is supposedly they're second most important title. It's just down right embarrassing to watch the talent go out and have to play out this garbage.
It's bad enough that the most over babyface (Daniel Bryan), and the second most over babyface (Dean Ambrose) had nothing planned for them and this on the fly booked garbage will be all we see from them at 'Mania. However, it's even worse what they're doing to Wade Barrett. We're talking about a guy that checks every box for what it takes to be a main event talent and they're making him look like absolute garbage.
Yeah, there is great talent in the ladder match. And to be honest, it will probably steal the show. But shouldn't the journey to the destination be just as impressive?
What would be wrong with booking Wade Barrett like a strong champion and having qualifying matches all the way to the go home show for people to get into the match. You would go into 'Mania with a strong champion defending his title in a ladder match against a strong field of guys that fought their way into the match. And then they tear the house down.
It's not fucking hard. What the hell is wrong with the people writing this crap?
I understand what you mean, but if Seth Rollins went out and threw a childlike temper tantrum about Brock never being there and being afraid he'd never get a chance to cash in, I'm sure a lot of the live audience would get a good laugh out of it. But how would that do anything for the prestige of the WWE title.
Watching R-Truth cartoonishly steal the title and all of that crap is sort of funny, but how is that doing anything to make the IC title feel special?
I don't know why but part of me feels like R-Truth is being used as a pawn in this storyline to be sacrificed to the returning Sheamus.
Almost everybody agrees that Truth is out of place in this match which is why I have this image in my head of Sheamus coming back during another one of these hot potato segments and immediately start tearing about the babyfaces before finally focusing his attention on Truth and unleashing a vicious attack against him, chairshot after chairshot, throwing him into the barricades, the ring posts, everything to look like a complete psychopath and generate heat from the crowd.
Then Truth is kayfabe "injured" and can't participate in the ladder match while Sheamus takes his place. Then at WM you've got a nice even mix, 3 babyfaces, 3 heels. Dolph Ziggler vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Daniel Bryan vs Bad News Barrett vs Luke Harper vs. Sheamus.
It just feels like all of these "Sheamus Returns" videos are hyping up something bigger than just him being another entrant into the Battle Royal.
It's been a joke for a long time, sadly. I couldn't even remember who the champ was until I saw someone here mention it. It's Barrett, right? Or Ziggler? No, no, it's used to be Ziggler. Then he lost it at...Raw? Oh, fuck it, who knows. :lol
At least people want to fight for the IC... aside from Fastlane when was the last time someone challenged Rusev for the USC? Even worse, Seth just turned down a challenge to be in a WM main event triple threat for the WHC. Seems like those damn millenials really don't want to grab that brass ring.
All of the passing the belt around on RAW made me feel like it was the hardcore title, and carried as much prestige.
What is also messed up about this is, around 1999 the IC title scene felt pretty hot. And what great "talents" were fighting over it? Fucking Shamrock, fucking Billy Gun, fucking Godfather, and fucking Val Venis. And yet, they booked it like it mattered, so we actually gave a crap. Today we have Wade Barrett, Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan, Luke Harper, Ziggler... holy fucking crap, this should be amazing. But it's not because they've given us no reason to care. Every person aside from R Truth in that match is someone we want better things for than to be fighting over the worthless IC title.
It used to be the IC title was something a midcarder earned by getting over. Now, the opposite idea is used sort of frequently. Axel, Big E, and Luke Harper got the belt without really proving they deserved it.
The build makes perfect sense if you pay attention. Ambrose took the belt because BNB was being a punk trying to get counted out, so Ambrose feels BNB doesn't deserve that IC strap. So he relieved him of it.
Then you have R-Truth(random af), Bryan, Ziggler, and Harper all showing interest in being IC champ.
I mean people keep saying they want the IC title to matter, what better way to make it matter than having multiple superstars fighting for it because they don't think the current champ is worthy?
Barrett could be booked better but, this midcard champ loses hella non title matches dates back to the Attitude era. Even when Benoit and Jericho would feud over it the champ would lose (clean or not) or cheat to win to set up a contenders match this is nothing new, though it doesn't make it right.
Actually Dolph Ziggler was the 2nd most over Baby Face.Its its actually quite astonishing how incompetent the writers are. Ziggler had so much momentum after survivor series and they did nothing with it. Instead they had Ziggler lose the IC title after a short reign. Then he he got buried by Bray. Now hes pretty much jobber status Just more proof that the WWE doesn't care what the fans want and thats why I'll never spend a dime on the WWE network.
Okay, ignore everything I said and just chalk it up to me being a fan that takes the show too seriously and complains about it.
Now what did that accomplish? I guess if Hornswaggle decided to pop from under the ring and steal the title that would be okay, too? Hey, at least it's being defended at Wrestlemania.
Here's the question I'm asking: Has this "feud" made anyone look better since they started passing around the title? No. They've made Wade look like a joke and everybody else besides Ambrose looks like they were randomly inserted into the match because they had nothing else to do.
The Money In The Bank briefcase is apparently the prestigious place holder for the next "guy" now.
The days of the IC title prominence are gone.......Macho Man would be ashamed, well, actually he probably wouldn't care.... Bret would though, he is such a mark.
I agree they fucked up this title hardcorely. All they needed to do was have Wade come out and announce an open challenge at Fast Lane, he faces some jobber, but midway through the match Dean Ambrose comes out and bam Wade runs away like a little scared girl. Have Barrett vs Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania , Dean Ambrose gets D/Q'ed bam rematch in Extreme Rules at Extreme Rules, right there prestige brought back, a feud with meaning for the midcard title.
Instead they made a match with a bunch of random people, instead if they wanted to do a multiman thing they could have had the last x amount of champions in a LAdder Match
I'm really enjoying this if I'm honest. I called it a few weeks back too. Out of the 6 guys involved 4 of them are high on my favorites list(Ambrose, Barrett, Bryan and Ziggler) and I also don't mind Harper.
The whole point in this is to show that there's a lot of guys that want the title. You know, to attempt to regain a little bit of prestige for it. Build it back up. For me they are doing an okay job at the moment.
It's the best part of the RTWM at the moment. Sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride without over analyzing too much.
I must be one of the few people enjoying the IC Title mix up right now. It's the main storyline on Smackdown and the match will be MOTN at Wrestlemania.
The only bad piece of booking is having Barrett losing all the time, apart from that the rest is fine with me
Well think of it this way, yeah at the moment the whole IC Title thing is a bit silly, but when we get a winner at Wrestlemania they hopefully (and I really am hoping) can start to write proper feuds for this title.
I personally don't mind it too much but I do wish they would ease off on the shenanigans a little bit. All it would take to really elevate the match and the belt is for each guy involved in the match to cut a 2 minute promo saying why they want the belt/what it means etc.
The match itself could be phenomenal though, which is most important.
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