WWE's World Heavyweight Championship brings purpose back to Raw
The introduction of a new World Heavyweight Championship to WWE’s Raw brand has quickly brought a sense of purpose back to the show.
Let’s face it: The entire premise of a wrestling show is built around a world champion. Whether it was Hogan and Flair in the 1980s, Steve Austin and The Rock in the 1990s, or John Cena and Dave Bautista in the 2000s, having a central figure at the top of the mountain is key in producing compelling storylines.
It’s also the sole reason Superstars are supposedly competing every week in their fictional world. They all want to be the top dog of their brand.
Yes, the United States Championship and Intercontinental Title are great stepping-stones, but the ultimate prize is a World Championship.
And for the last year, Raw didn’t have one.
That’s because Roman Reigns unified the WWE Championship and Universal Championship at WrestleMania 38 after defeating Brock Lesnar. He then kept both titles with him on SmackDown, and outside a few appearances, they were rarely seen on Raw afterward.
Triple H attempted to fix this as head of creative by raising the importance of the United States Championship, but it didn’t seem to work.
Even with the show’s top stars vying for the belt and entertaining video packages on the history of its lineage, the void was still felt.
That changed last month when a new World Heavyweight Championship was introduced and ultimately won by Seth Rollins.
Then, in an effort to firmly re-establish a world title on Raw, Rollins went to work this week by defending his title against Damian Priest. This immediately made the show feel like a whole wrestling program again, especially since a world title hadn’t been defended on Raw since November 2021.
Seth Rollins puts the World Heavyweight Title on the line vs. Damian Priest
It just felt right seeing two Superstars battle it out for the show’s top prize again. This is what wrestling fans want to see more of each week, especially when Roman Reigns rarely defends the Unified Universal Championship.
It also gives new purpose to wrestlers like Finn Balor, Cody Rhodes, Brock Lesnar, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bronson Reed, Matt Riddle and Johnny Gargano, who could all potentially feud with Rollins given the right story.
In addition, wrestling fans are conditioned to look at the flow of a wrestler’s career a certain way: start at the bottom, work your way up, win a secondary title, then hopefully move into the world title picture.
Not having a World Championship on Raw throws that out of whack.
Order has thankfully been restored, though, and the flow on Monday nights is starting to become more natural again, at least for my wrestling-brain they are. Because having a World title on Raw is crucial to making sense of the show.
All you need to do is look at the last few weeks as proof.
Ryan Satin is a WWE analyst for FOX Sports. Satin previously appeared on FS1's "WWE Backstage" and currently hosts a weekly podcast called "Out of Character" interviewing the top stars of WWE. Follow on Twitter @RyanSatin.
