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| Pictured: A moment not important to WWE Creative Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Well, the why really isn't known, because I don't claim to know these people individually, especially not Vince McMahon. However, the pattern of their booking each of the singles titles shows that the creative team, McMahon himself, or both entities, don't care about any title lower than the Big Gold Belt. Should they care about them? Well, obviously, they should. Should we care about the titles though if they don't care about them? That's a trickier question.
Obviously, any fan who is passionate enough to care about any wrestling company on the hardcore level that the typical meta-fan does is going to focus in on critically thinking about any given aspect of the company. The secondary titles (or now, more accurately, tertiary and quarternary, given that there's distinct elevation of the WWE Championship over the World Heavyweight) have long been a focal point of many a fan, and it doesn't help that at one time, the IC Championship was almost as protected as the WWF Title. Mr. Perfect, Rick Rude, and Razor Ramon became legendary for their runs with those belts, and the Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Bret Hart, and Shawn Michaels all made the transition to the next level on the strength of long, strong IC title reigns.
Because there seems to be not a flip in the world given about those two Championships, it feels like worrying about them is a Sisyphean task. A new Champion is crowned, and as long as it's not Kofi Kingston or Santino Marella, people get their hopes up until within a month or two, that titleholder is taking turns jobbing to Randy Orton and Ryback. It feels like a lot of heartburn over nothing. If WWE doesn't care about something, why should we? Well, I think if you stopped there, you would save yourself the agita, but it would be ignoring two pretty deep problems with that lack of care. The first is obviously that it's bad storytelling. Why have a goddamn MacGuffin if you're not going to have it mean anything? It's nonsensical, but then again, WWE has been accused of not making sense as many times as Tom Cruise has been accused of overacting.
More insidiously is that the lack of care about belts is only a symptom. The major problem is that WWE doesn't have a healthy midcard, and really hasn't for a long time now. Because of that, the Champion, whoever it may be, doesn't have long to hold his MacGuffin before all the worthy stories are done being told with it as a conduit. Basically, the choice then becomes "Should the titleholder defend the title against the opening card talent, or do we just have them job to the more established guys in the main event?" The correct answer is that they should be the masters of that middle level, but WWE doesn't have one. It's Kofi Kingston, a can of Diet Pepsi, and Sin Cara between concussions.
So, it goes back to the question of whether it's better to reign in Hell or serve in Heaven? What's more conducive to getting people to cheer a babyface Champ or boo a heel one; wins over Justin Gabriel or JTG? Or is it gaining the valuable experience by looking competitive against Orton, Ryback, or someone like Kane? That seems to me to be the divide between the meta-fans and the people in the business. I don't mean to speak as whether either group is a hive mind, because they're not. But I'd venture to guess that you'd be more likely to think that Antonio Cesaro's previous reign as US Champion or Wade Barrett's current IC run would be better if they got to wrestle in good matches that they won against people who even weren't on their level if you were one of my peers or readers. The inverse would be true if you were someone who worked in and around the business probably.
But neither one of those groups seems to matter as much as the rest of the people watching, and I don't know about you, but I won't even try to speak for the genpop. If the smaller groups of intelligentsia are too big to label as a hive mind, what about the millions... AND MILLIONS of WWE fans who tune in every week? The only thing they have to go on are years and years of building a strong midcard and then using a secondary Championship as the final gateway to the main event.
One could argue that the World Championship is that new gateway belt, and I'm not sure you'd get an argument from me on that. Still, that Smackdown-main event-level still isn't as defined as it should be. And even lower, the old secondary belts could then serve a purpose as a lower midcard. Look, WWE has a billion hours of TV a week, and they have a trillion wrestlers on the roster (give or take a few on both accounts). There's no reason why there can't be well-defined but unspoken divisions to the point where if a match happens between guys from different strata, the result is predictable. Then again, that's not a bad thing, because then when the upset happens, it means something.
But until that happens, is it even wise to give ourselves the heartburn of worrying about whether the Champion, whether it be someone who is well-liked like Cesaro or Barrett, or a guy no one gives a flip about like Kingston or Marella, gets the awful booking treatment? I'm not saying that it is or it isn't. However, the bigger problem is that WWE would have these problems even if the IC and US Championship belts were sold to TNA for them to use as masturbatory aids. The midcard needs saving, because that's where the stars of tomorrow come from. The only thing that's important on any given WWE program is in the main event, and when you have to fill three hours every Monday, two every Friday, and single hours here and there, well, that's not conducive to providing a full experience to the fanbase now, is it?