Dear WWE Creative,
The upcoming brand split between RAW and SMACKDOWN is the ample opportunity to get creative and give new importance to certain aspects of your product. I’d like to focus on the opportunity you have in front of you in regards to the Intercontinental Championship.
Raw is the flagship program and no matter how much you try to portray SMACKDOWN as an equal entity in your business, we all know that simply isn’t the case. SMACKDOWN is the “B” show and that is what leads me to this idea. Don’t have the WWE World Heavyweight Champion bouncing back and forth between both brands and don’t have two separate heavyweight titles for the shows. Keep the WWE World Heavyweight Championship as the main attraction on the main show and make the Intercontinental title exclusive to the Smackdown show.
Allowing the Intercontinental title to be the main focus on the “B” show will bring back the prestige that the IC championship once garnered and may also bring a new glow to a once great championship. When Paul Heyman was writing exclusively for Smackdown, it became a show based around so called “mid-card” talent being able to find their characters and tell great stories between the ropes. Have the Smackdown talent all vie to become IC champ and hint at them being the “Next Big Thing” in the buisness of professional wrestling. This will of course build up this talent so that when they eventually get drafted over to Raw, it’s a big deal. (Think, when Cena was originally drafted to Raw for the first time.)
You could possibly bring back the Cruiserweight title and have that as a Smackdown only attraction as well. This will give Smackdown two exclusive singles titles for the talents to pursue.
It’s a simple formula to bring a fresh feel to the IC title. Here you go WWE Creative, make the IC title great again.
Sincerely, a lifelong fan of midcarders.
TNA iMPACT! Wrestling every Tuesday at 9 pm eastern time. Only on POP TV.