I think with a couple tweaks and some clear communication early on where it is like "Okay. In story, this is how the rankings are determined," will be a welcome return. I know people complain and yeah, it wasn't perfect as people have pointed out, but I feel that if they do it right, it can be a great way to add to story. I think I'll use a great example of the "Rankings" working and that was Hangman's title chase.
After Hangman lost to Omega at Full Gear 2020 and he was working towards getting top ranked as a singles guy again. For the first little bit, he was teaming with Dark Order, not always having singles matches, then after Revolution he was climbing to the point he was number one for a bit. So? What did they do? He lost his spot after losing a match to Brian Cage, resulting in PAC and Orange leapfrogging him. So they went on to fight for the #1 contendership (and due to Heel BS, three way) and it set up a rematch between Hanger and Cage. Then on the road to All Out, he regained his rankings but because they didn't want him to fight for the title yet (since he was about to go on Paternity leave), he put that number one contendership on the line in a match and lost. When he returned, he won a multi-man ladder match to get the title match.
What I think it can do is organize things a bit. I think the TNT and TBS titles are "Open challenge" in their nature, so those don't require rankings, but a ranking for the men's single, women's single, tag all will work. The International and Continental Crown messes some things up, but I think it's just an issue of too many men's singles titles (3 is the max imo without extra brands or weight classes). That way also it keeps an answer clear of "Hey, in kayfabe, this is how you get a title match." Which likely will be. A: Be #1 ranked at the time of a title match. B: Beat the champ in non-title competition. or C: Win a number one contender's tournament or Multi-man. It keeps things organised as a fan and gives an avenue of storyling possibilities. Plus people who go "WHY IS THIS MATCH HAPPENING!? WHY AREN'T THEY FIGHTING WITH THE PERSON THEY ARE FEUDING WITH 100 TIMES BEFORE A PPV!?" There's the reason of "They are building their rankings up."
