Don't know if this is unpopular but I would like to see the WWE bring back the Cruiser Weight Belt. Would give the high flying talent/the talents coming in from Japan a chance to shine. A lot of these talents would never get a legitimate shot otherwise. Maybe convert the U.S. Title thus forcing WWE to legitimize the IC again?

The European title would solve all our problems, friend...

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What problems? That the lower tier titles are under valued? Yeah lets fix that by adding more titles!

Bring back hardcore title 24/7 rules.

Not unpopular opinion, just fact.

If he was to come back full time though he deserves a big push and all the belts. Jericho was always one of my favourites.

He apparently has good intentions but at some point he is going to have to win some matches and feuds or the ability to put people over will be mostly lost. Newer and casual fans aren't going to think of him primarily as some huge star. They will remember what he has done recently if they remember anything at all. Hardcore fans will find his feuds too boring and predictable.

In my view, he should be selective about who he puts over. Don't put over random clowns like Fandango. Come back and win a feud or two against somebody who probably is a career mid carder then put over someone with potential at least.

Too bad the timing didn't work out to put him over Bootista before he went to shoot a movie or whatever.

It seems like pure lunacy that they had Jericho put over Fandango. Did they think that was going to be a ME level gimmick or something?

As silly as this sounds, Jericho might want to put Wyatt over for pure ego, showing that he could do what Cena couldn't. I think he has this thing in him to prove to other guys that he can put over everybody and still be a star. He has to beat Miz/Fandago/Del Rio or whoever first though. He badly needs some credibility.

In what sense that Cena can control did he not put Wyatt over? I don't think Bray's status suffered from that feud, and while it would have been a much better story if he'd gone over, you can't put that on Cena.

I agree with the point that Aubrey Sitterson makes about Wyatt/Cena. The feud legitimizes Wyatt simply because he became a guy who is big enough to be in a feud with the company's top guy. Yeah, there were a lot of specifics about it to dislike, but in terms of the outcomes for the workers I think it actually accomplished what it was trying to do.

One of Cena's biggest weaknesses as a pro wrestler is selling vulnerability. Not just during a match, but during an angle. He was as bad as ever during that Wyatt business, aside from that one crab-walk moment at WM.

To an extent, yes, just being in there with Cena elevates a guy, but if you're an up and coming talent, would you rather have what Evolution did for the Shield or Cena did for Wyatt?

Certainly it's better to elevate people with feuds against wrestlers that get mostly uniform reactions. The fact that a bunch of the audience hates Cena makes it hard for Bray to get as much of a rub as you'd like from the whole thing.

Still, Bray certainly didn't come out of that feud in bad shape.

Oh, totally agree. There's a ton to dislike about Cena, I just don't think much of it really did damage to Bray in that feud. Because Cena's always superman, it doesn't matter if you're Kane or Kofi, he's going to no-sell you.

But in a sense that's also why you can't really fault him for not putting people over, because his gimmick is basically not doing that. Now I wish it wasn't, but you can't fairly contrast him to somebody like Jericho, because he's not being asked to do the same things.

I have a hard time buying that Cena isn't asked to sell vulnerability to put his opponent over. He basically gets booked like Hogan, and for all of his flaws Hogan was generally pretty awesome at making his opponent look like the biggest threat that Hulkamania had faced yet.

They try to tell the "Cena overcomes the odds" story in practically all of his matches, which to me necessarily indicates that he should be working to make those odds look as stacked against him as possible before eventually going over.

Oh- I think that's totally valid. I'm just talking in terms of pure wins and losses, not the fact that he doesn't sell well in-ring. I just think people conflate that with blaming Cena for not putting people over. (and because he's no sold for so long that it's not super damaging to folks when he doesn't).

I haven't watched enough Hogan to really say- but I'm I think Hulking up no sells about as bad as anything in a more kayfabe breaking way. (as does a leg drop finisher and ugh I just dislike Hogan so much).

Hogan in the 80's never had to worry about elevating people. Once they got to him, that was it. He was the only top guy. No more were needed because WWE produced about as much television in a year as they do in 2 months now. You saw Hogan maybe 5 or 6 times a year and the only time guys were on TV, but not beating on enhancement talent was on Saturday Night's Main Event. It was other people's job to put guys over on their way to Hogan. Once they got to Hogan and got beat, they went back down again. Now, with all the hours of TV they produce, you need a few guys on that level.

Then the 90's happened and Raw and Nitro and people were seeing Hogan pull his **** every week and they started booing the crap out of it. Heel turn.

LKJ is spot on about Cena. The booking isn't his fault, he just can't sell well.

Not sure if unpopular but I would like to see the King of the Ring return as well as other tournaments. The KOTR is just an easy way to elevate someone without committing them to a title shot. Tourns are always fun to watch when they're done right as well. I'd also like to see them try doing some best of 7 series. I mean we get at least that many matches in a feud these days anyway. The WCW Booker/Benoit series was great. I can't remember much about their WWE series but I remember it not being as good. TNA actually had some entertaining best of 5 series where each match had a different stipulation.

King of the Ring was fun, and I didn't like them doing away with it, but I can't muster a lot of passion for its return when they already have tools for elevating wrestlers (the midcard titles) that they just bungle on a constant basis.

Agree with that, it's not the reason I want it back though, just an added point. Even the year Regal won when it was just a set of matches spread across Raw and Smackdown instead of PPV was fun to watch. As a counter point, the last 3 they did resulted in pretty awful king gimmicks.

Admittedly, my first thought when I saw your post talking about bringing it back was, "Well they can't do that, it's dead. They let Billy Gunn win it."

Always been really disappointed that Regal killed his championship run after winning this

Was Regal in line for the strap before he got suspended?