Harvey Wippleman and the WWE prizes that aren't worth winning.
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00:00 In some instances, these titles were never going to be more than a quick bit of fun,
00:05 but in others they reflect the worst of WWE.
00:08 A wrestling championship should be more than a mere prop.
00:11 In some instances, it's a whole lot less.
00:14 So I am Gareth, this is WhatCulture Wrestling, and here are the 10 most disrespected titles
00:18 in WWE history.
00:20 10.
00:21 The Women's Tag Team Championship
00:23 Perhaps the most cursed titles currently on offer, the Women's Tag belts got off to
00:26 a solid start.
00:28 With Bayley and Sasha Banks triumphing in an Elimination Chamber match to decide the
00:32 inaugural holders.
00:34 The pair of horsewomen vowed to legitimise the nascent belts, which they lost six weeks
00:38 later to the IIconics.
00:40 From there, the curse has been real.
00:42 The belts have fallen victim to a cavalcade of reign-ending injuries, with Sonya Deville
00:47 most recently falling foul of the Hex.
00:49 Beyond that, there's the usual selection of matches thrown together with no build,
00:53 can they coexist, and multi-woman matches that often don't deliver.
00:57 Most problematic is creative's propensity for throwing teams together at random.
01:01 During the championship's run, the number of actual established duos can be counted
01:05 on two hands.
01:07 Instead, WWE jams together whichever workers have nothing else on.
01:10 Chelsea Green and Piper Niven, why not?
01:12 And the results speak for themselves.
01:14 9.
01:15 The International Heavyweight Championship
01:17 For a long while, WWE and New Japan Pro Wrestling were able to enjoy an off-and-on creative
01:22 partnership, leading to the odd supercard and the International Heavyweight Championship.
01:27 Low-key, one of the best-looking belts in the business.
01:29 The first half of the 80s saw the titles switch hands sporadically.
01:33 Tatsumi Fujinami had three stints, and even inaugural WWE Champion Buddy Rogers took part
01:38 in the first title match in the 50s.
01:40 Then business got in the way.
01:42 As time moved on and Vince McMahon turned an eye on global domination, he no longer
01:46 wished to do business with or even acknowledge the existence of New Japan Pro Wrestling.
01:51 There's barely a mention of the International Heavyweight Championship on their website,
01:55 or suggestion that anyone would be interested in this part of wrestling's past.
01:59 But it's still a part of the storied tale of the Federation, and for the sake of nerdy
02:02 wrestling completionists everywhere, it ought to be acknowledged.
02:06 8.
02:07 The Cruiserweight Championship
02:08 Unlike a lot of the titles on this list, the Cruiserweight Championship actually started
02:12 quite well.
02:13 Even disregarding its WCW lineage pre-TakeOver, 2002-03 saw the likes of Tajiri, Jamie Noble,
02:20 Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero tussle for the gold in exciting, often opening contests
02:25 just like Ted Turner used to do it.
02:27 So what happened?
02:28 Well, Vince McMahon took a look at his wrestlers, dismissed them as puny and turned his attention
02:33 back to the big boys.
02:34 A few years in, WWE had completely lost interest in the division.
02:37 It was defended sporadically, almost always changing hands in a multi-man match.
02:42 Then Hornswoggle won it, and then they got rid of it.
02:44 As for the belt of the same name introduced in 2016, well that's basically the same
02:49 story.
02:50 There were some great moments, the Cruiserweight Classic for example, but a lack of consistent
02:53 interest.
02:54 The little guys were shunted onto their own show, the divisively titled, seldom-pushed
02:59 205 Live.
03:00 In 2022, the title was retired.
03:03 It was also purple and looked impossibly cheap.
03:05 Now I've got a quick question for you, what's your favourite Cruiserweight match
03:09 of all time?
03:10 Throw it down in the comment section below and let us know all about it, my friends!
03:14 7.
03:15 The Intercontinental Tag Team Championship
03:17 WWE's Intercontinental Tag Team titles were part of their latter attempt to join
03:21 forces with a Japanese organisation.
03:24 This time, the lucha-centred UWF.
03:26 To say this was the wrong horse to back is an understatement.
03:29 UWF lasted five years, and while some great names passed through its gates, it didn't
03:34 leave behind many matches of note.
03:36 That its brief partnership with WWE and the creation of the Intercontinental Tag Titles
03:41 was maybe its most obscure offering is really saying something.
03:44 The belts were awarded to Pero Aguillao and Gran Hermada in January of 1991.
03:50 Then the titles were just abandoned.
03:51 That's about all the information anyone bothered to note down about these belts.
03:55 It's a miracle we even know the date, to be honest.
03:58 6.
03:59 The Women's Championship
04:00 While there have been women's belts that WWE have treated with less reverence - on
04:04 which more later - few titles can boast as many significant moments of disrespect than
04:09 the company's inaugural Women's Championship.
04:11 Firstly, the barren years in which, even by their standards, WWE didn't really care
04:16 about women's wrestling.
04:18 The deeply problematic but nonetheless fabulous Moolah had a stranglehold on the title for
04:22 the best part of 30 years, as the company made little effort to bolster their ranks.
04:27 The rock and wrestling era saw Wendy Richter and Leilani Kai do what they can, but disinterest
04:32 saw the belt simply deactivated in 1990.
04:35 Three years later, much the same.
04:37 Alundra Blaze and Bull Nakano had some great matches, but few other challenges.
04:42 Then there's the Medusa incident, with Blaze leaving WWE to join WCW in her previous gimmick,
04:47 whereupon she dropped the Women's Championship in the garbage.
04:51 The problem here isn't so much the incendiary incident itself, as the fact WWE let one of
04:55 its champions leave the company while still holding the belt.
04:58 From there, the company has ditched the belt for lengthy periods, occasionally giving the
05:02 shine to major talents like Trish Stratus, Lita and Molly Holly, but more often than
05:06 not relegated the belt to throwaway three-minute matches at best.
05:10 5.
05:11 The Canadian Championship We've seen titles created more or less for
05:15 one wrestler plenty of times.
05:17 Triple H lobbying to bring back the Big Gold Belt, for example, or the Million Dollar Championship.
05:22 The problem with being awarded a belt, though, is what you do once you've won it.
05:26 In the mid-80s, Dino Bravo began billing himself as the Canadian Champion.
05:31 Taking this to its logical conclusion, WWE made this official, giving the stoic strongman
05:35 a belt to defend on the house show circuit.
05:38 They did this for a bit, got bored of it, gave up and scrapped the whole thing.
05:42 Bravo left the company for a while, then returned in a mid-card role.
05:45 The problem, other than WWE's disinterest in actually doing anything with this idea,
05:50 was that, for all of his talents, Bravo didn't possess the kind of charisma needed to make
05:54 a new belt into a thing.
05:55 He just plodded on, same as ever.
05:57 It's hard to establish a title as a prize worth winning when the guy carrying it doesn't
06:01 seem to want it himself.
06:03 4.
06:04 Divas Championship A belt design isn't all important.
06:07 Take the Universal Championship, a red-then-blue monstrosity elevated by Gerd Buchan.
06:12 Sometimes, though, aesthetics can't be overcome, and there's no better example
06:16 of this than the butterfly-shaped title known inexplicably as the Divas Championship.
06:21 The rebranding of women to Divas is another conversation altogether, but the top prize
06:25 for the division was, from the off, impossible to take seriously.
06:29 That was kind of the point.
06:30 On its creation, WWE's women's division was running on fumes.
06:34 With quality workers like Mickie James on her way out, and Natalya and Beth Phoenix
06:37 yet to make their mark.
06:39 When the bench did fill up a little, the problem remained the same.
06:42 It's all well and good to have Paige and AJ Lee work in matches, but they're ultimately
06:46 fighting over a belt that no one could possibly hoist with pride.
06:50 It took until 2015 for WWE to see sense on this matter, and consigned the Divas Championship
06:55 - and thankfully the term "Diva" altogether - to history.
06:58 3.
06:59 The 24/7 Championship How disrespected was the 24/7 Championship?
07:03 Even for a joke belt, it was treated with disdain.
07:06 The slime green number was created as a throwback to the glory days of the Hardcore Championship,
07:11 with its "Anyplace, Anytime" chaos.
07:13 For a multitude of reasons, that didn't work, though.
07:16 Firstly, it's not the Attitude Era anymore.
07:18 A hardcore match used to mean a shopping trolley full of violent nonsense.
07:22 Now it means a couple of kendo sticks.
07:24 More importantly, the hardcore belt actually had good matches amidst the plunder.
07:28 The 24/7 belt was primarily an excuse to gain celebrity engagement.
07:32 This worked precisely… once.
07:34 Bad Bunny donning the strap on SNL.
07:37 That aside, we were treated to sportscasters, Santa, Maya Cain and The Gronk.
07:41 Worst of all, though, the 24/7 belt wasted the time and energy of plenty of genuinely
07:46 talented superstars.
07:48 R-Truth milked it for all the fun it was worth - no one could have done a better job, to
07:51 be honest - and then Nikki Cross threw it in the trash, and that was the end of that
07:55 sorry saga.
07:56 2.
07:57 The ECW Heavyweight Championship If there's one thing you can rely on WWE
08:01 for, it's a good dose of spite.
08:03 After winning the Monday Night Wars and acquiring WCW and ECW, Vince McMahon could do anything
08:09 he wanted with the upstart brand from Philadelphia.
08:12 Milk it, archives, keep it running in its own right.
08:15 Or simply ruin it.
08:16 The ECW title under WWE auspices is a who's who of who isn't at all related to the promotion.
08:22 After a strong start, reigniting the brand with RVD on top, things went wrong incredibly
08:28 quickly.
08:29 Getting Big Show and Bobby Lashley onto the new show was not what the rabid fanbase wanted,
08:34 to say nothing of making Vince himself the durag sporting champ.
08:37 What a time to be alive.
08:39 CM Punk and later Christian did what they could to prop the belt up, but the brand was
08:43 dying and its title along with it.
08:45 Soon it was being traded in ludicrously short matches, jumping across WWE's various brands,
08:51 and finally being put out of its misery not four years into its second run.
08:55 1.
08:56 European Championship WWE's tertiary men's belt could hardly
08:59 have started life better.
09:01 British Bulldog vs Owen Hart in a tournament final fought in Berlin?
09:05 It was all downhill from there pretty sharpish.
09:08 First Shawn Michaels politicked his way into taking the belt from the Bulldog in front
09:11 of a UK crowd, then not a year into its existence, he laid down for Triple H, allowing his DX
09:18 stablemate to pin him for the belt.
09:20 Which was now objectively worth us.
09:22 The list of European title holders is genuine Hall of Fame stuff, which makes the belt's
09:27 treatment even more bizarre.
09:28 Its nadir came in 1999, when a grass-green Shane McMahon decided he'd like a go with
09:33 the belt.
09:34 He won it off X-Pac, then decided he didn't care about the trinket, leaving it in a gym
09:38 bag for Midian to find three months later.
09:41 In terms of match quality, the European Championship is way above a lot of other belts on this
09:45 list.
09:46 And that's why the title's treatment is so odd.
09:49 They didn't denigrate it because of a lack of ideas or personnel, they didn't even
09:53 lose interest in a hurry.
09:54 They treated it like a joke, well, just because.
09:57 What a damn waste.
09:58 And that's our list!
09:59 Know of any other hugely disrespected WWE titles that we've missed?
10:02 Well you know what to do, let us know all about them in the comments section right down
10:05 below and don't forget to like, share and click on that subscribe button while you're
10:09 down there.
10:10 Also if you're into this sort of title stuff, then head on over to WotCulture.com and find
10:13 some more fantastic articles just like the one this video you're watching right now
10:16 is based on.
10:17 I've been Gareth from WotCulture Wrestling, thank you for watching this video today.
10:21 I hope to see you again very soon, but in the meantime, just be good to yourself.