Prior to the then WWF’s declining popularity in the mid 1990’s the company had little reason to put their title holders on each and every show. As a result television programs such as WWF Superstars, WWF Challenge, and WWF Prime Time often featured midcarders competing against jobbers, with a main event player or two thrown in.
With the WWF’s fall from grace and WCW’s rise to popularity, the Monday Night Wars were able to develop and weekly wrestling cards would never be the same again. For the first time, regularly on mainstream television, main event players fought against other main event players.
This allowed for fighting champions to break onto WWF television. Likewise WCW strengthened in the quality of weekly matches being booked, though less so, as WCW never quite had the same dependence that the WWF had on squash matches.
The first fighting champion during the Monday Night Wars was Bret “Hitman” Hart. First winning the then WWF Championship in 1992, Hart would hold the title off and on again for the next three years prior to the conflict between the WWF and WCW. During this time Hart was able to cement his status as a fighting champion by putting his title on the line constantly against all comers.
By contrast, the WWF Champion that the company began the Monday Night Wars with, Diesel was not a fighting champion. Aside from most importantly putting the belt up for grabs far less, his matches were much more one sided.
In other words unlike Diesel, Hart put considerable effort into defeating each and every opponent. Aside from making Hart look like a working man’s champion this in turn made wrestlers such as Fatu, Kwang, and even a green 1-2-3 Kid look credible.
However, in the modern world of wrestling, fighting champions are not always the best type of champion that a company can have. For example with TNA’s limited television time, it does not make sense to have a fighting champion. If a fighting champion was used by the company, then the already brief time allotted for the under card would be reduced even more so. Additionally NWA World Heavyweight Champions mostly putting their titles on the line solely at pay-per-view events is one of the few ways that these events garner a bigger feel than weekly television shows.
That is not to say that the idea of a fighting champion cannot work in contemporary wrestling. To the contrary, one company that has used the concept excellently is Ring of Honor. First, with Samoa Joe and then with Bryan Danielson, giving both athletes lengthy title reigns helped the company become one of the most successful independent promotions the United States has ever seen. Furthermore, the fact that these champions took on a number of difficult opponents and that Danielson worked through an injury for much of his reign added significantly to the competitive feel of ROH.
As important as length may have been in Joe and Danielson’s reigns, more than just length is needed to build a fighting champion. The previously mentioned title reign of Diesel lasted for nearly a year, but by rarely putting his championship on the line in highly competitive matches, calling him a fighting champion is almost laughable.
A more recent example of a reign that is Diesel-like so to speak is the WWE Cruiserweight Championship reign of Gregory Helms. Helms held his title even longer than Diesel, but in many ways his reign was even less impressive. While Diesel may have not won highly competitive matches at least he won matches. Helms on the other hand often wrestled against non-cruiserweight wrestlers such as the Undertaker, Batista, and King Booker, being soundly defeated nearly every time.
If Helms was not strong enough to compete against larger wrestlers in kayfabe, then that would have been one matter, but Helms also commonly lost matches against cruiserweight and near cruiserweight competitors. When a champion is regularly losing to Matt Hardy, who has been stuck in midcard Hell for months, it is safe to say that, that champion’s title is being devalued.
Perhaps the best example of a fighting champion in the WWE today is ECW Champion Bobby Lashley. Much can be said about Lashley as he naturally appears to be a wrestler that few if any can be indifferent towards. Fans can either love Lashley or hate him and in the long run whether it is for better or worse the majority of fans have chosen to love Lashley.
One argument that can be made as to why fans are likely to either feel strongly one way or the other towards Lashley is that he is a man of definite characteristics. For example Lashley definitely has one of the strongest looking builds this side of Scott Steiner. However, less impressive is that Lashley definitely has one of the most feminine sounding voices—male or female—that has been heard on WWE television in years.
In fact one of the only aspects of wrestling that viewers cannot say Lashley either is great or terrible at is in-ring competition, one of the most important areas of the industry. While Lashley is far from the level of a Bret Hart, Dynamite Kid, or Ricky Steamboat in the ring, he always appears to put at least some effort into his matches. When looking at a Lashley match side by side with a Batista, Test, or recent Big Show match, it is obvious that he is putting in much more time and energy into his performance than the WWE requires.
Because of his willingness to improve his skills, making Lashley a fighting champion is perhaps the best move the WWE can make with the disaster that the reformed ECW has become. Though ECW’s television ratings have far from skyrocketed since Lashley’s title win, in truth the program’s ratings apart from the first few weeks were never stellar.
Since changing their name from Eastern Championship Wrestling back in the early 1990’s, the “E” in ECW has always stood for extreme. By losing a match via disqualification at WWE’s No Way Out, Lashley has proven to be perhaps the least extreme champion the title has ever been held by. However, if the WWE wants to push Lashley as a world champion, going the route of a fighting champion is the best way to go.
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