WWE: The Sad Booking of WWE Champions

By Austin Ward

It is not ironic that I write my first article about WWE Champions being booked poorly a night after three of them lost, it’s definitely intentional. As I’ve rummaged through ideas of what to possibly write about, this week's Raw made it very easy for me. It’s happened all too much recently, a superstar wins a championship and gains tons of momentum but then goes on to lose numerous matches and eventually loses the title. So here is the sad story of the booking of WWE Champions… 

As I’ve said, three champions were defeated on this week's Raw. While Antonio Cesaro doesn’t count in some people’s books since he is no longer champion, I am including him since he was the champion going in. Antonio Cesaro (United States Champion), Wade Barrett (Intercontinental Champion), and of all people Dolph Ziggler (World Heavyweight Champion) all came out on the losing end. It makes no sense for WWE to do this, the only thing this does is bring down the credibility of a championship. Why they consistently do it, I don’t know. But I do know it needs to stop soon. 

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Antonio Cesaro, the now former United States Champion, has got to be the biggest case of poor booking for a champion. Cesaro has all the talent in the world and when he won the United States Championship I was completely ecstatic. However, my joy was quickly run down thanks to WWE booking him to lose about every single non-title match he had. I hated to see him lose this week but I think it definitely had to happen. The United States Championship looks like an absolute joke if all the holder can do is manage to win title matches, but never win any others. Due to this terrible booking, I have fears for what WWE is going to do with Cesaro. I’m still keeping hope, though. 

The Wade Barrett defeat really aggravated me. First off, I’d like to say that I wish Wade Barrett wasn’t the Intercontinental Champion, I’d rather it be Miz. I think with Miz’s current status the highest he can really go is a mid card championship. Wade Barrett can go so far with his current persona. The bare knuckle brawler would be a perfect fit for the World Heavyweight or WWE Championship. But WWE doesn’t seem to think this way. So that irritates me number one. Second thing that irritates me is the fact of who he lost to, R-Truth. Seriously? R-Truth? R-Truth hasn’t won a credible match in forever and unless he’s heel, he has to have a tag team partner in order to have a good match. I just don’t get. 

Last but not least, we have perhaps the most frustrating loss of last night, the new World Heavyweight Champion Dolph Ziggler. It was all setup with Ziggler vs. Del Rio earlier in the night and I knew Swagger was going to get involved because I just knew the match wasn’t going to end clean. However, I didn’t think it was going to escalate into a Swagger-Ziggler match. I was excited when the  match was announced and I enjoyed the match in itself, but I did not enjoy the ending result. Sure, it looks great for Swagger and I’m happy it does, Swagger has a lot of talent. But I don’t believe in booking your World Heavyweight Champion to lose just a week after winning the belt.

Overall, I didn’t really like Raw this week. It wasn’t just because of the poor booking either, but that’s most of it. I liked Punk’s promo and the Ryback-Cena promo but that’s about it. If they would’ve booked these matches a little better I definitely would’ve enjoyed Raw more than I did. It might not have been by that much but I certainly know I would’ve liked it a whole heck of a lot more. 

It may sound like a Bleacher Report bit but I want to know what you think. Leave a comment, email me [email protected], or follow me on Twitter @oneeyebrowwonda.

Let me know your take!!