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The case for fewer titles: Why pro wrestling's belt addiction is failing the business (and creating fewer true champions)

This weekend, WWE launches its new deal with ESPN for Wrestlepalooza, and AEW presents its annual All Out event. Between the two shows, there are seven championships up for grabs. What promises to be a memorable weekend in wrestling does leave one to wonder: What do these championships really mean? To the wrestlers, to the matches, and — perhaps most importantly — to the fans.

To truly understand the weight of a championship, we must journey back to where it all began. The year is 1905. Madison Square Garden is cloaked in smoke, the air thick with heat on a sweltering summer night. Every seat is packed, every eye fixed on the ring, as anticipation buzzes through the crowd. The fnas have gathered not just for a match, but for a moment that would etch itself into the foundation of professional wrestling.

George Hackenschmidt, the “Russian Lion” and the European Greco-Roman heavyweight champion, took on Tom Jenkins, the American heavyweight champion, to unify the titles and declare a champion of the world. The Russian Lion bested the American hopeful in two straight falls and was declared the first professional wrestling world heavyweight champion of all time. Hackenschmidt would go on to hold that title for three years before eventually clashing with Frank Gotch, who became his most storied rival.

That was the creation of the world title. That same championship would eventually be married with the lineage of the NWA championship, which was prominently held by Lou Thesz in the 1940s and ’50s. The earliest world champions in wrestling weren’t household names like Hulk Hogan or The Rock — they were grapplers like Gotch, Hackenschmidt and Thesz. When Thesz carried the NWA world championship in the mid-20th century, it wasn’t simply because he looked good with the title. Promoters trusted him to literally carry the business across territories. One champion would travel from Kansas City to Houston to Japan, defending against each region’s best, and by doing so, elevating both himself and the local stars. The title wasn’t a trinket. It was a seal of credibility. Thesz holding the NWA title told every promoter and every fan: This man is the best wrestler alive.

Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins make their way to the ring during Monday Night RAW at Mass Mutual Center on September 15, 2025 in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Photo by Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)

After political disagreements with the NWA, the WWWF — Vincent J. McMahon’s territory — established its own world champion, the “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers. From that point on, it became accepted that every wrestling promotion would crown its own world champion, a titleholder under its control who represented the face of the company and no one else’s.

The WWF championship (formerly WWWF) was soon seen by many as the premier championship, even surpassing the importance of the NWA title because of one man: Bruno Sammartino. Sammartino held the WWF championship in his first reign for 2,803 days — almost eight years — after winning it in 1963. He finally lost the title to Ivan Koloff in 1971 at Madison Square Garden, a venue he sold out countless times.

When Sammartino lost the title, those in attendance were stunned. Even the people at ringside thought something had gone wrong with their hearing. That moment alone tells you about the power of a championship.

Fast-forward to the 1980s. Vince McMahon’s WWF exploded nationally, and Hulk Hogan’s WWF championship became more than just a wrestling title — it became a pop-culture icon. One title, one face, one hero. When Hogan lost the championship, it was a cultural event. That’s how much weight the title carried.

In the summer of 1979, in Rio de Janeiro, Pat Patterson unified the North American heavyweight championship and the South American heavyweight championship to create the WWF Intercontinental title. This was during the reign of Bob Backlund, just four and a half years before Hulkamania would take the world by storm and see Hulk Hogan hold the WWF title for 1,474 days.

The Intercontinental championship quickly became the second-most important title in wrestling, regarded as the “workhorse” championship. It was the title “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat battled over at WrestleMania III in front of 93,173 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome — a match many still call the greatest in wrestling history. The Ultimate Warrior’s Intercontinental run paved the way to dethroning Hogan. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels used it as a launching pad to superstardom. Back then, fewer titles meant each one had gravity. Each title was a star-maker.

The point is simple: Titles truly were special and meant something. Today, there are plenty of titles to go around in professional wrestling, but how many true champions are there?

In today’s pro wrestling, championships are everywhere — but true champions are harder than ever to find. When every title feels like a prop, the magic of the gold is lost. The championship title once stood as the holy grail of professional wrestling. It wasn’t just a prop, a storyline device or a piece of merchandise. It was the symbol. The ultimate prize. The singular goal of every performer who laced up his or her boots and stepped through the ropes. To be champion meant you weren’t just good — you were the best. Your company trusted you to carry its banner, fans believed in you and your name was etched into the lineage of the sport.

It may sound quaint today, but in wrestling’s heyday, winning a championship was not unlike hoisting the Lombardi Trophy or claiming the World Series. The match may have been scripted, but the achievement was real: a company declaring to the world you were the one to lead it forward. But somewhere along the way, that meaning became diluted.

This past weekend, for example, Dominik Mysterio — WWE's current Intercontinental champion — went out and won the AAA Mega championship. But what does that mean? Does it elevate Dom, or does it just give him another prop to wear to the ring?

The title boom began in earnest with the WWE brand split in 2002. Suddenly, there were two world champions, two tag champions, two women’s champions. Multiply that by developmental territories, then add AEW’s birth in 2019 with its own slate, Ring of Honor’s revival, NJPW’s imports and AAA’s crossovers, and suddenly wrestling was drowning in gold.

Today between the WWE and its affiliated brands and AEW/ROH, there are nearly three dozen championships. The result is confusion and indifference. If everyone’s a champion, no one is.

Mid-card titles — once prestigious steppingstones — have also lost luster. WWE's U.S. title, once proudly defended by legends like Harley Race, Ric Flair and John Cena, now feels like a hot potato. WWE's Intercontinental championship, which elevated names like The Miz and Gunther when handled properly, still too often gets lost in the shuffle. The more common a title becomes, the less it feels earned. What used to be rare air is now a crowded space.

Every so often, a story cuts through the clutter. AEW’s booking of Mercedes Moné as TBS champion is one of those moments. It worked because the move was deliberate. Moné wasn’t given the title as window dressing — she elevated it. Jade Cargill laid the foundation, but Moné made it matter. She defended it with purpose, carried it with pride and gave it prestige. Fans didn’t just invest in the title — they invested in her journey with it.

Cena’s 2015 U.S. Title Open Challenge was another rare spark. By defending the title weekly against top competition, Cena reframed a mid-card title as must-see TV. The title mattered because the matches mattered.

Roman Reigns’ Tribal Chief reign proved the value of patience. For years, WWE had a champion who truly felt like a champion. His dominance, his aura, the sheer weight of his reign made the championship matter in a way few modern titles do. And when the title finally slipped from his grasp, it mattered all the more.

And then there’s Cody Rhodes. The magic of “finishing the story” at WrestleMania 40 wasn’t in the title itself — it was in the chase. Years of setbacks, heartbreaks and storytelling culminated in that one iconic moment. If Cody had won the world title the night he returned, the impact would have evaporated. By waiting, the payoff became immortal.

That’s the difference between a title as a prop and a championship as a destination. But for every story like Rhodes or Moné, there are countless others where titles pile up with no meaning. Stars holding multiple titles from multiple promotions look impressive on a poster but hollow in practice. Kenny Omega’s “title collector” run across AEW, Impact and AAA felt cool for a moment, but ask fans to recall the defining matches from each reign and the silence is telling.

Too often, titles become shortcuts. Struggling star? Give her or him a championship. Thin storyline? Put a title on the line. Need to sell a pay-per-view? Throw three title matches on the card. The title is supposed to be the reward for storytelling, not the substitute for it.

Here’s the hard truth: Can you name every current champion in WWE, NXT, AEW, and ROH without looking it up? I couldn’t. And I’d wager you couldn’t either. For the sake of this piece, I had to do my research.

As of September 2025, here’s the championship landscape: The undisputed WWE championship, the WWE world heavyweight championship, the WWE Intercontinental championship, the WWE United States championship, the WWE women’s championship, the WWE women’s world championship, the WWE women’s tag team championship, the WWE world tag team championship, the WWE tag team championship, the NXT championship, the NXT women’s championship, the North American championship, the NXT women’s North American championship, the NXT tag team championships, the NXT Heritage Cup, the WWE Evolve championship, the WWE Evolve women’s championship, the WWE ID championship, the WWE ID women’s championship, the AEW world championship, the AEW women’s world championship, the AEW TNT championship, the unified AEW International/Continental championship, the AEW TBS championship, the AEW tag team championship, the AEW world trios championships, the Owen Hart Cup, the ROH world championship, the ROH women’s world championship, the ROH pure championship, the ROH world television championship, the ROH world tag team championship and the ROH world six-man tag team championship.

This doesn’t include recent titles that either have been retired or shelved, including the WWE speed championship, the WWE 24/7 championship, the FTW championship or the ROH women’s pure championship. If you want to add to the list of current championships we’ve seen defended on WWE programming and held by WWE or NXT talent from outside promotions like TNA and AAA, that list only swells larger, extending beyond the company’s own championships. Now ask yourself: Did you know all of the current title holders? Did you care about all of them? Could you recall a defining moment from each reign? If your answer to that question is no … that should tell us something.

Roman Reigns celebrates after winning the WWE and Universal Championship match during the WWE Royal Rumble at the Alamodome on January 28, 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)

This past weekend on Netflix, the boxing world watched Terence Crawford defeat Saul "Canelo" Alvarez in a one-sided affair. The picture on Crawford’s Instagram boasted him having five championships, two on each arm and one around his neck. Yet I would venture a guess to say not even the casual boxing fan — or even a hardcore one — could name which titles those were. Boxing has long been plagued by this same title glut. WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO — four sanctioning bodies, each with world champions in every weight class, plus interim champions, super champions and diamond titles. The result? Indifference. Fans stop caring about the alphabet soup.

The UFC, for all its flaws, does it best. If Jon Jones, Khabib Nurmagomedov or Khamzat Chimaev holds a UFC title, fans know exactly what that means: They’re the best in the world in that division. Yes, interim titles muddy the waters, but for the most part, the UFC has resisted diluting its championships. Wrestling, unfortunately, has not.

Sports history shows us the truth: scarcity breeds prestige. There’s only one Stanley Cup. One Lombardi Trophy. One green jacket at Augusta. Their value lies in rarity. Wrestling, once built on that same principle, now floods the market with gold until none of it feels valuable.

Fans don’t tune in for title counts — they tune in for stories. Daniel Bryan’s miracle run at WrestleMania 30 wasn’t about the leather and metal; it was about a man, told he was too small and not marketable, proving the world wrong. Becky Lynch becoming “The Man” wasn’t about the title, but about a woman defying the system that overlooked her. CM Punk’s 2011 eruption wasn’t remembered for the WWE title graphic, but for the electricity of rebellion.

Titles enhance those stories. They don’t create them. Wrestling doesn’t need more championships. Wrestling needs more champions. The kind of wrestlers whose journeys, characters, and performances elevate the title — not the other way around.

A championship should be like a marriage: Rare, meaningful, lasting. You shouldn’t have too many, and when you do commit, it should mean something. The title should represent the culmination of a journey, not a shortcut to one.

So, as we head into another weekend of super-cards stacked with title matches, I’ll leave you with this: Do you remember who the champions are? Do you care? Do those reigns matter?

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