Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect
Here are the problems with rankings:
What’s LA Knight’s record like? Do you want to smack people in the face with him having won maybe one match in 2023 before SummerSlam? What kind of title challenger for Roman Reigns is that? Yet he’s hot and people want to buy him.
Conversely, look at Gunther’s record. How do you justify not giving him a title shot?
It always gets in the way of your creative agency. Always. If someone is getting over, they’re getting over. The rank becomes redundant.
|
Didn't say it generally doesn't. My point was that if you're going to do a thing, commit to it. If you're going to drop it, drop it. But don't start doing rankings, quit doing rankings, then start pretending rankings matter again but only sometimes.
I go back to the WWE brand split, because it is the same principle - it only matters when there is a supposed "blockbuster trade!" or when they beat everyone over the head for it for about every 2 out of 3 Survivor Series down to talent wearing red or blue t-shirts every appearance. Then, they conveniently stop giving a shit and it goes back to being unimportant even to themselves and half the roster shows up on either show at any time because fuck it. Right up until a few years later when they act like they're starting it all over again, and there is strict adhearance... for a few months, maybe a year, then they mandate that all the talent are supposed to show up for both RAW and SD even though they aren't "booked" for the opposite show. Until they are. Then the veneer falls away again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Or, similarly, the idea of having two world champions. They are large enough and have enough people in "creative" that they should be able to focus on two different people with two lineages and trajectories. Right up until they inevitably want to put both belts on one guy. Then, when they get bored with having one dominating persona instead of two, they have to contrive a reason to have the champion drop one title instead of both. The simplest form would be to treat it more like boxing, and a contender is battling for one OR the other... but nope, the person wins both. Again, unless there is some arbitrary reason why they don't. And even with the split belts, they focus on one or the other again. Then pull gymnastics on ground rules like Roman not having title defenses for months at a time, but then, for someone they "need the belt off of", the company will dust off the old "...needs to be defended every 30 days or you're stripped" stipulation that magically was forgotten about when Brock Lesnar defended three times in a year. Either use the rule all the time, or retire it. Don't do both.
Which leads me back to rankings. Or tournament points. Or win/loss records. Or any sort of tangible recordable heirarchy that anyone tries to make a thing... if you are going to do that, you have to keep doing it. If it goes away, it needs to stay away. Its the seesawing that really kills everything.
LA Knight is pretty over and earning his spot. Which would make this a really bad time to decide the company would start a ranking system. Especially one that would lock him out of the main event picture... only to scrap it six months later and have someone like, say, in total ass pull fashion, Trick Williams leapfrog
everyone and become a main roster big belt champion. The first thing would be bad, but if it's "the way of the world now", can be dealt with. But to fold the tents later - and not even in an appreciable amount of time later - makes it demonstrably worse from inconsistency and give people bad feelings for wasting time trying to get emotionally invested just for the rules to keep changing.