Red Herring?

By Scott Keith on 26th April 2023

I'm with everyone else in thinking that the new title is basically a consolation prize, but I can't help but wonder if it may be a bit of a swerve.

Roman isn't working “Backlash”, but I can't imagine him not working the following PPV, “Night of Champions”. That's a Saudi show, which already means the biggest pay-days for the biggest stars, but coincidentally, it will also mark Roman's 1000th day as Universal Champion.

There's always debate on whether Raw and SD should share one world title (because they're part of one company) or have two separate titles (because they're ostensibly meant to be two separate shows, with separate rosters and titles). But THREE world titles? That makes no sense at all.

I'm assuming that one of the three belts/titles is going away. Either Roman loses one of his belts/titles (maybe he'll even wrestle two singles matches at NOC, or do a two-fall Triple Threat match like Angle/Benoit/Jericho), or he retains both and they're merged together into one title with one belt. It can even be as simple as Roman being drafted to one show and then being stripped of the other show's title. If any of those happen, they can get rid of that ridiculous blue one.

[They teased something like this during the 2005 Draft, where SD's champ (Cena) moved to Raw, which already had their own champ (Batista), prompting Teddy Long to panic and create a third belt/title; JBL won that title, but it was immediately annulled a few minutes later when Raw champ Batista moved to SD.]

Or maybe they do just go with three world titles for two brands that interact so much as to effectively be one roster. I'm not the multi-billionaire.

And, yes, I'm emailing you more frequently in the hopes of becoming a meme for the blog.

– Stu

P.S.: I still say that Xavier Woods should get a run with one of the World titles.

Or they have no plan and will just keep having Roman do his 4 shows per year and beating everyone.