Well that confuses the hell out of me. Why would they script a title change at a live untelevised event then? Was it a mistake or something?
New IC Champion?
- Thread starter F.R.I.E
- Start date
-
Welcome to "The New" Wrestling Smarks Forum!
I see that you are not currently registered on our forum. It only takes a second, and you can even login with your Facebook! If you would like to register now, pease click here: Register
Once registered please introduce yourself in our introduction thread which can be found here: Introduction Board
No, they do it to shock people then "oh well" its a classic move to get crowds going.
There are five basic reasons why things like this happen at a house show:
1) As previously mentioned, to get the crowd charged up due to the unexpected nature of the change - These are often done, then reversed immediately....much like what happened here, which results in no actual title change.
2) To take the belt off of a guy quickly when they don't want to/can't wait for the next televised event - This is usually done to punish somebody or, more often, because of injury that can't wait for treatment, but is not severe enough to warrant stripping the title due to injury. Usually the punishment changes are saved for TV, though, because it's seen as more of a punishment for a guy to get buried for his title on television than at a house show.
3) To play to the local crowd - This actually happens fairly often on long, overseas tours. The local/national hero is given a title shot against the Champion, which he wins and the crowd goes wild. The new local hero Champion then gets to defend the title on the tour and he loses it back to the previous champ as soon as they get back home. It doesn't happen as often in WWE anymore due to the fact that house show results are often reported back to the States within minutes, but it used to happen all the time with the NWA WHC and still happens a lot with smaller promotions' main titles.
4) Probably the most used modern WWE variant: To tease something to see how a crowd will react to it - WWE house show crowds are Raw, Smackdown/Main Event, and PPV crowds in miniature. If they react positively to a teased action (be it a title change, a face/heel turn, what-have-you), then they typically feel that a larger crowd will react positively if they do it on Raw, Smackdown/ME, PPV, etc.
5) Because the title changing hands/the turn being shown/etc. is just not important enough for such things to go forward on television - This is done a lot with lower midcard/jobbers who won't get much recognition, particularly outside of their home towns. That's why you'll see a guy on Raw looking one way, with one song, and one apparent alignment, and the next time you see him, three months later, he looks different, has a different song, and has all-new friends. However, they've almost completely gotten away from this with titles on WWE, because they believe they are treating the belts all the same. It's also stupid in 2014 to have titles actually change hands away from television, particularly when those are the best MacGuffins to center feuds around. A devalued title is difficult to resurrect. Look at the Hardcore Championship after it was "thrown away". It's stupid to do it on purpose like that. Fortunately, in this case, we know that's not what happened.
I figure this was basically 1, with a little bit of 4 thrown in.
wk
1) As previously mentioned, to get the crowd charged up due to the unexpected nature of the change - These are often done, then reversed immediately....much like what happened here, which results in no actual title change.
2) To take the belt off of a guy quickly when they don't want to/can't wait for the next televised event - This is usually done to punish somebody or, more often, because of injury that can't wait for treatment, but is not severe enough to warrant stripping the title due to injury. Usually the punishment changes are saved for TV, though, because it's seen as more of a punishment for a guy to get buried for his title on television than at a house show.
3) To play to the local crowd - This actually happens fairly often on long, overseas tours. The local/national hero is given a title shot against the Champion, which he wins and the crowd goes wild. The new local hero Champion then gets to defend the title on the tour and he loses it back to the previous champ as soon as they get back home. It doesn't happen as often in WWE anymore due to the fact that house show results are often reported back to the States within minutes, but it used to happen all the time with the NWA WHC and still happens a lot with smaller promotions' main titles.
4) Probably the most used modern WWE variant: To tease something to see how a crowd will react to it - WWE house show crowds are Raw, Smackdown/Main Event, and PPV crowds in miniature. If they react positively to a teased action (be it a title change, a face/heel turn, what-have-you), then they typically feel that a larger crowd will react positively if they do it on Raw, Smackdown/ME, PPV, etc.
5) Because the title changing hands/the turn being shown/etc. is just not important enough for such things to go forward on television - This is done a lot with lower midcard/jobbers who won't get much recognition, particularly outside of their home towns. That's why you'll see a guy on Raw looking one way, with one song, and one apparent alignment, and the next time you see him, three months later, he looks different, has a different song, and has all-new friends. However, they've almost completely gotten away from this with titles on WWE, because they believe they are treating the belts all the same. It's also stupid in 2014 to have titles actually change hands away from television, particularly when those are the best MacGuffins to center feuds around. A devalued title is difficult to resurrect. Look at the Hardcore Championship after it was "thrown away". It's stupid to do it on purpose like that. Fortunately, in this case, we know that's not what happened.
I figure this was basically 1, with a little bit of 4 thrown in.
wk