Oh, hi everyone. Welcome to the first of hopefully many editions of ‘Checking Champions’. In this column we will take a look at the current week of WWE main roster programming and only focusing on the championships, champions and how they were presented on Raw and Smackdown Live. Occasionally, we will also talk about the current special event of the month, or pay per view, or whatever they are actually called.
The Heavyweight Championship
WWE Universal Championship
- The Universal Champion is Brock Lesnar
- After the first segment on Raw there was a bumper before commercial hyping a segment that will air later in the show. We also had recaps of last weeks championship segments to refresh viewers or get first time viewers caught up. Throughout the show there were more recaps and bumpers that really made Brock’s appearance seem special.
- The segment that Brock was in happened later in the show and was a quick promo by Paul Heyman saying that they are sick of the “can Lesnar survive predicament”. Paul argues that the narrative should change to “who will Brock Lesnar pin?”. The promo goes on to state that Brock Lesnar is the most dominate champion ever, which is hard to argue in some cases.
- As the champion and his advocate make their way to the back, number one contender Kane attacks Brock and they brawl to the backstage area. Where both of the men are ambushed by the other number one contender Braun Strowman. Braun dominates both of his adversaries and finishes the job by doing his best Batman impression and taking a grappling hook, securing it to a lighting rig and pulling the construction down onto Kane and Brock Lesnar.
WWE World Championship
- The WWE Champion is AJ Styles
- Smackdown Live opens up with a video package showing Styles on the losing end of a contest with Sami Zayn after interference and shenanigans.
- AJ Styles starts the show with a sitdown interview with Renee Young. He talks about regretting the fact that he told General Manager Daniel Bryan that AJ wanted to face both Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens in a handicap match with Styles championship on the line. He presents himself as a fighting champion, even with regret, by saying he has a strategy to beat his two challengers.
- This brings out the challengers making a claim that they will be the first ever co-WWE champions after defeating AJ Styles at the Royal Rumble event.
- This brings out Commissioner Shane McMahon, showing us that the champion is the main focus of the show and the championship is a catalyst for multiple storylines.
- The main event is set with AJ Styles teaming with Nakamura and Randy Orton to take on Sami and Kevin. AJ isn’t featured much in the match and isn’t even apart of the winning celebration.
Verdict: Both champions were presented as strong in the beginning only to look vulnerable and weak by the end of their time on the show. Neither brand can really say they made their champion look stronger than the other brands champion.
Mid-Card Title
Intercontinental Championship
- The Intercontinental Champion is Roman Reigns
- Raw opens their show with a video package about the semi-blood feud between Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns. They have what Corey Graves calls a classic match with Roman coming out the victor last week.
- Roman comes out to start the show with a promo and while he is making his entrance the commentators put over how two “main-event players fought for the championship last week”
- The promo Roman cuts doesn’t say much because he is interrupted by 5 different people. Which sets up the main-event of Roman teaming with the tag champions of Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan taking on Balor Club.
- Later in the show The Miz makes his return after being hyped by bumpers all night. When the Miz finally arrives he cuts a promo about the importance of the Intercontinental Title and how he will be fighting hard to regain it. This also set up a title match for the special 25 year anniversary Raw.
- Roman was a main proponent in the dominance his team showed in the main-event even though they lost. He was not the reason for the loss.
United States Championship
- The United States Championship was vacated by Dolph Ziggler a few weeks back because.. well because he didn’t think the belt was worth it.
- There is a tournament taking place on Smackdown Live to crown a new United States Champion. The tournament features eight competitors and only one former World Champion out of the eight.
- We have Bobby Roode at ringside to scout competition because the winner of the match will face Bobby in the semi-finals of the tournament.
- The match is Mojo Rawley vs. Zack Ryder, who before this feud were a floundering tag team that broke up because they lost too much. Both Rawley and Rider spent a bit of their entrance admiring the United States title that was on display. Mojo won clean to advance and that was about it.
Verdict: Not only did the Intercontinental Championship mean more this week, it meant the most out of any belt. With the U.S. Title languishing in near obscurity with a low-card tournament happening, it was easy for the IC title to have more prestige. The Intercontinental Champion had multiple segments and more former World Champions clamoring for a shot at it over the supposed top title on Raw.
Woman’s Championship
Raw Woman’s Championship
- The Raw Woman’s Champion is Alexa Bliss
- Alexa didn’t get a mention or show up until half way through the show. It was a backstage segment with Alexa admitting she got beat beat by Asuka and will need her best friend Nia Jax to do the dirty work that Bliss cannot do on her own. She also shows up a little bit later to get partially involved in a cruiserweight storyline that Nia is featured in.
- Alexa ends her time on television again trying to convince Nia to beat up Asuka because Alexa knows she has no chance at dominating the Empress of Tomorrow.
- She was such a non factor she wasn’t even in any YouTube videos on WWE’s page.
Smackdown Live Woman’s Championship
- The Smackdown Live Woman’s Champion is Charlotte Flair
- Charlotte is first advertised as being in the corner of Becky Lynch during Becky’s match against Ruby Riott.
- When the match happens Charlotte gets an entrance sandwiched between Naomi and Becky. During the entrance the camera cuts away so the commentary team can introduce themselves to us.
Verdict: This is a tough one but Charlotte had more of a presence on her show. Which isn’t saying much when Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan had more of a presence on SDL than Bliss had on Raw. Very poor performance from both shows in making their champions mean something
Tag Team Championship
WWE Raw Tag Team Champions
- The WWE Raw Tag Team Champions are Jason Jordan and Seth Rollins
- They were also the focus of the opening segment on Raw. The story for them is that Jason Jordan might be good in the ring, but he is less than adequate in being a partner. Jordan foolishly believes he makes a good replacement for Grand Slam winner Dean Ambrose. He is the Redman to the Shields Wu-Tang if you will.
- Because of the team miscommunication in the main event which can be attributed to Jordan, the ‘Champions Club’ lost their first match as a unit.
Smackdown Live Tag Team Championship
- The SDL Tag Team Champions are The Uso’s
- The Uso’s weren’t featured on the show but they were mentioned in one of the many tag team segments on Smackdown Live.
- The number one contenders Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable had a lengthy segment with Daniel Bryan which set up the title match at Royal Rumble. The segment was mainly about how the Uso’s lost the belts but due to referee’s mistake which made the championship loss null and void.
Verdict: Raw gets the nod here. They had their champions start the show and get featured in the main angle. The Uso’s weren’t even present and were unable to defend themselves making their opponents look like the main focus of the feud and The Uso’s an after thought.
It looks like in the second week of January, Raw presented their champions better than Smackdown Live. There are too many champions losing or not even existing on Smackdown Live which makes it really hard to care about the champions or their championships. As we go on in the weeks hopefully we can keep these champions in check and bring some prestige back to what it means to be champion
Thank you for the read and please share this on your respective social media accounts
Until next time, I am Jake and I am here to keep the championships in check.
Passion For Wrestling 