Also lol at Headbanger Thrasher being a non-jobber

My first thought as well

I could never call a former tag team champ a jobber

The days of traditional jobbers doesn't really exist anymore unless you count "local competitors". Also championships mean nothing these days.

Zack Ryder went from jobber to tag champ to jobber to US champ to jobber to intercontinental champ and now back to jobber again.

This. Thrasher didn’t really compete in singles to my recollection, but he was a tag champ. The Bangers were generally booked kind of strongly.

According to wikipedia Thrasher was Hardcore champion for 43 seconds.

Sure at the beginning, thats true. But when Vince got bored of the "lol, look, theyre wearing a dress" humor, they went pretty much to the bottom of the pile.

I haven't watched much current product but the fact that championships dont mean anything saddens me

I van sorta see it creeping in where Im up to on my watchage now close to year 2000

The seal was broken when Val ****ing Venis won the IC Title in February 1999.

Before then, that belt was exclusively given to people who had a reasonable chance of ending up as main-eventers. Obviously it still passed through some highly successful hands after that, but the standard was first shattered with IC Champ Val Venis.

Dean Douglas won the IC belt. No clue who that is.

Ricky Steamboat is who I blame for what happened to the IC belt. Because he was leaving they had to drop the belt quick and they saw how people reacted to a title change and next thing you know it changes hands 5 times in 1992. If Steamboat stays he probably holds it for a year or so.

Shane Douglas had plenty of potential and I don't regard it as regrettable that he got the belt under that Dean Douglas character. His shelf life was really short because he had political opposition from Shawn Michaels and co. from day one, but Douglas continuing to rise even further up the ranks is not far-fetched to me. Obviously a number of these didn't work out, but we can only assess the names on the list based on how reasonable it was to consider them to be wrestlers of legit potential.

The Steamboat example is interesting because he did end up dropping it to a guy in Honky Tonk Man who I think is a less deserving IC Champ than Douglas was, in that it's hard to imagine HTM having ever made it much further up the card. That said, I just can't see Steamboat/HTM as the dividing line given how many highly credible guys held the belt in the years that followed.

Lol say what you want about Val but he was a very talented guy, great performer!

If the pornstar gimmick dies down a bit and he transitions to something more legit he couldve moved up. I think Mankind tried to help push him and Al Snow in 99 but it hasnt seemed that effective thus far.

Mick obviously saw something in them though

I was thinking more Chyna winning it started to devalue it

I wished they just left the euro/hardcore titles to mickey mouse around with

For me, the number of belts is a problem. I honestly have no idea what they all are and who has them all.

Obviously not Val's fault specifically, but there's just such a clear demarcation line after Ken Shamrock. If Val stood alone then it could be like the earlier-mentioned HTM situation where they got back to using it as a serious launching pad for people who did, or more reasonably could have, reached the biggest stage.

Venis --> Road Dogg --> Goldust --> Godfather, all in the period of two ****ing months mind you, was a clear announcement that the days of the belt as a launching pad were dead. It was now just going to be a cheap midcard prop. Giving it to Goldust in 1996 was understandable. In 1999 he obviously wasn't going any further up the card.

I don't know about any particular person rather than the booking of the champion itself becoming the problem. Same thing with the tag belts. When the champs are losing non-title matches every week, it's going to be an issue. This and the Monday Night Wars necessitating that every match was kind of a big deal. Didn't make the lesser belt holders, who might main event a TV show a lot in the past, feel like they were such a big deal anymore.

this discussion.

BTW, any notion that Honky Tonk Man devaluing the IC Title is immediately refuted by the following.

https://youtu.be/hzmWjqzOtfk

Agree that the Attitude Era put the Title in life support for a long, long time.

By the way, while having five title changes in 1992 isn't ideal, I can't put it on Ricky Steamboat for dropping the title earlier than was hoped. My understanding is that circumstances - rather than any changed booking philosophy from something that happened five years prior - caused them to zig-zag a bit. Bret dropped it early in the year to protect against the possibility of him bolting for WCW while still champion, and the Mountie just happened to be his house-show program at the time. Mountie not really being a worthy champion, they were smart to transition it to Piper for that great Piper-Hart WM match, which certainly did good things for Bret and also finally gave Piper a singles title reign in the process.

The fear of too many title changes is that it will devalue the title, but the title main-evented SummerSlam and then the IC Champ challenged for the WWF Title at Survivor Series, so if anything the title grew in stature that year.

I think for me the IC title was the one that was always fought with these intense battles and rivalries that would go on for months and sometimes years. Tito/Muraco, Tito/Valentine, Tito/Savage, Steamboat/Savage, and after that The guys who typically would be winning the IC title were winning the Heavyweight belt.

Wow i had no idea Edge won the IC title at a house show then dropped it back to Jarrett the next night

Seems like strange booking, Edge was super green at that point

Edge is from the Toronto area, and that's where the house show was. It surely had to do with that.

Ahh that makes sense

At least all of those IC champs in 99 were mega over

Apart from Jarrett I guess, I hated him but he was decent in 99 WWE with his woman beating gimmick lol

"He made a mistake. He's killing everybody.". Everybody's "a mistake"?

I hate Nash so much.

Like JP Sarro, I think that Nash is just constantly full of ****, and yet I find his shoot interviews irresistible.

I enjoy the timeline shoots so I've seen that one but his others I've tried watching and never get through. I just hate the too cool for school attitude.