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RAW's Secondary Titles:
Intercontinental Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Jeff Hardy
Ending: 12/31/08: William Regal
Number of times Title has changed hands: 4
The Intercontinental Title looked decent this year. It looked like in 2008 that Jeff hardy would loose the title and get a WWE Title Run. Well Jeff Hardy did loose the title, because he received Strike 2 on the WWE Wellness Policy to Chris Jericho. Jericho with his record breaking 8th Intercontinental Title win puts him as the most successful Intercontinental Champion of all time. Jericho lost the title to Kofi Kingston because WWE was at a time where they were trying to push the younger talent and Kingston looked good at the time. Kingston lost the title to Santino Marella due to a “Winner Take All” match at Summerslam where the Intercontinental & the Women's Titles were both on the line. With this title run Marella decided to go for a comedy run with the debut of “The Honk-O-Meter” which was a gimmick to countdown Marella's title reign to beat the wrestler with the longest Intercontinental Title reign ever: The Honky Tonk Man. But “The Honk-O-Meter” broke as Marella lost the title to William Regal when RAW was in Manchester England (his hometown) because whomever is the hometown hero they always get the instant win, and Regal was the hometown hero. 2009 looks like a short title reign for Regal as CM Punk gets a shot at his title.
World Tag Team Titles:
Starting 1/1/08: Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly
Ending 12/31/08: John Morrison & The Miz
Number of times Title has changed hands: 5
Five Title changes is pushing it at times. WWE doesn't like to do tag team runs anymore so they used the titles this year as more of a prop. We start off with Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly. Rhodes' & Holly's World Tag Team Title run was pure death. There were stretches of months when they didn't even defend the titles. In the category of the “most confusing title loss ever”. Hardcore Holly & Cody Rhodes lost to...Ted DiBiase Jr. & Cody Rhodes. Confusing huh? Here's the explanation. On the Pay-Per-View “Night Of Champions” where Rhodes & Holly defended the titles versus DiBiase & a “mystery partner”. Turns out that mystery partner was Rhodes and in that weird match Rhodes lost & won a Tag Title. Then Rhodes & DiBiase lost the titles to John Cena & Batista because it was to push their “Summerslam” match of Cena vs Batista in the “enemies as tag champions” for the one billionth time. Then Cena & Batista lost the titles back to Rhodes & DiBiasie. Then Rhodes & DiBiase lost the titles to CM Punk & Kofi Kingston for the reason of Randy Orton putting DiBiase on the “disabled list”, which is code for DiBiase is doing “The Marine 2”. Then at a house show in Ontario, Canada. Punk & Kingston lost the titles to ECW's John Morrison & The Miz for the reason of Punk's Intercontinental Title Match. Morrison & The Miz were great successes with the WWE Tag Team Titles (see WWE Tag Team Titles) they were given the World Tag Team Titles to carry. Looks like 2009 the Tag Titles are in good hands.
Women's Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Beth Phoenix
Ending 12/31/08: Beth Phoenix
Number of times Title has changed hands: 2
Two is usually a good number for title changes. But in this instance. Nope. Beth Phoenix had the title. Lost it to Mickey James, then won it back in that “Winner Take All Match” (see Intercontinental Title). Why did I say that two wasn't a good number. This year all the wrestling “Divas” were mostly injured and placed on the “disabled list”. James & Phoenix were the healthy ones left! Phoenix's “monster heel push” didn't look all that convincing this year. But in 2009 Phoenix looks like could be more humanized thanks to one Santino Marella.
Smackdown's Secondary Titles:
United States Title:
Starting 1/1/08: MVP
Ending 12/31/08: Shelton Benjamin
Number of times Title has changed hands: 2
The U.S. Title did great this year. Started out with MVP, who had some good early months before the start of his “loosing streak” later in the year. Lost the title, FINALLY, to Matt Hardy to end that snake bitten feud once and for all. But when Hardy was sent to ECW via the Draft, Hardy lost the title to Shelton Benjamin. It's been a while since Benjamin held any single's title. And in 2009 it looks like Benjamin will continue to have a great title run.
WWE Tag Team Titles:
Starting 1/1/08: John Morrison & The Miz
Ending 12/31/08: Carlito & Primo Colon
Number of times Title has changed hands: 2
Once again the WWE Tag Titles suffered the same fates as the previous years as not getting any tag teams to defend the titles. But in 2009 there was some entertainment to those titles. Started out with Morrison & The Miz. Most people, including myself, thought that this would be a disaster. But Morrison & The Miz proved us all wrong. They turned their WWE Tag Title run into something entertaining that the fans liked even though they were still the heels. Titles changed hands to Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins, who fans had called “The Edgeheads”, in order to push their “La Familia” stable on Smackdown. Then The Edgeheads lost the titles to the brothers Colon, Carlito & Primo to be more exact. The reason was this is somewhat of a punishment to tell you the truth. Since WWE didn't like Carlito's work ethic and his attitude they figure that teaming his up with his brother Primo maybe Carlito can learn some good things from him. 2009 looks like the trend to make the Tag Titles “entertaining” to continue with the brothers Colon defending the titles and hitting on The Bella Twins.
Now unfortunately in March 2008 WWE retired the Cruiserweight Title. But a new title was created in July 2008 to replace it. The Cruiserweight Title has been replaced with the Diva's Title.
Divas Title:
Starting 7/20/08: Michelle McCool
Ending 12/31/08: Maryse
Number of times Title has changed hands: 1
As RAW's Women's Title focused more on the wrestling “Divas” meaning the women that have a wrestling background and that can perform. The Diva's Title is the exact opposite. The Diva's Title is designed for the “Divas” that were hired because of the following: They were a part of the “Diva Search” contest, they were hired for their modeling backgrounds, or they were hired just for their looks. The title was created and matches were made to determine who would wrestle for the title. Michelle McCool & Natalya won their matches to wrestle to be the first ever Diva's Champion and in the end McCool won. Ever since McCool was crowned champion and the title was created their has seen to be heat with it. McCool & the title not getting any respect in WWE, McCool's relationship with her boyfriend The Undertaker, The Diva's Title considered by the fans as the ugliest title in history. It seemed like McCool was going to close out the year as champion but on the last episode of Smackdown for the year Maryse got the title win. Why did that happen? To start McCool's heel turn by kicking Special Guest Referee Maria's ass that's why. 2009 and The Diva's Title is going to start out rough because a few days later after Maryse won the title, she received a knee injury that can place her on the “Disabled List”. Will Maryse relinquish the title in 2009? Let's find out.
Now we go to WWE's Main Titles: The WWE Title, The World Heavyweight Title, and the ECW World Title. The WWE Draft happened again so the WWE Title went back to Smackdown and the World Heavyweight Title went back to RAW. And it's an unfortunate thing that I have to say that there's for the first time ever in this column's history we have a tie for the “Most Changed Title” this year. WWE & TNA have singles title that changed hands more than anybody. Your going to have to find out later what TNA Title changed hands the most. But for WWE. The title that changed hands the most was one of their World Titles, or to be more precise the World Heavyweight Title!
WWE Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Randy Orton on RAW
Ending 12/31/08: Jeff Hardy on Smackdown
Number of times Title has changed hands: 3
Three is a decent number compared to the other two titles. Started off with Randy Orton & his “Age Of Orton”. Orton provided to be so much of a douchebag even on his title run that people were happy that Triple H won the title. Triple H, the same man what inspire so much hate with the controversy that he gets most of his recent World Title reigns because he's married to the family. In this instance family wasn't the reason why he won the title. With Smackdown moving over to “My Network TV” WWE thought they needed a big name and since Triple H is as big as they had at the moment they sent him & the WWE Title to Smackdown thanks to the Draft. Title changed hands to a returning (and refreshed) Edge. But at the end of the year that push to the WWE Title finally happened as Jeff Hardy won the title off Edge. If this was the Jeff Hardy from earlier in the year people would be happy that he won the title. But this is the Jeff Hardy that received Two Strikes total from the WWE Wellness Policy later on in the year. Some say that Hardy with the title is a major risk while others are waiting Hardy to get that Third Strike hoping that WWE will in fact punish & fire Hardy for violating the Wellness Policy. Can Hardy prove the critics wrong and maintain job security in 2009? Let's find out.
World Heavyweight Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Edge on Smackdown
Ending 12/31/08: John Cena on RAW
Number of times Title has changed hands: 8
How did this happen?!? Officially the title hasn't changed this many hands since the days of WCW when Vince Russo was a part of the booking in 2000. But can one World Title cause this much trouble and headaches which in the end caused some shoddy booking? Well let's start off early in the year with Edge & the title on Smackdown. And he had a pretty good title reign too. That is until Wrestlemania and he lost the title to The Undertaker because THE UNDERTAKER DOESN'T LOOSE AT WRESTLEMANIA!!! But this time after Wrestlemania GM Vicki Guerrero decided to strip Undertaker of his title and declare it “Vacant” because storyline wise it was due to his “Hell's Gate” Choke Hold that's how he won the title. Undertaker & Edge bounced around for a bit until Edge won the title. Normal so far right? Well thank the WWE Draft for this one. With Smackdown having two World Title's (Edge's World Heavyweight Title & Triple H's WWE Title) something had to give. Well it did in the form of Edge visiting RAW and thanks to a series of random events, CM Punk used his “Money In The Bank” Briefcase on a beaten Edge to win the title. So RAW now has a World Title again thanks to Punk. But here's the problem. A lot of fans were surprised that Punk won the title, some hated the idea that Punk had the title. Punk's World Title run was his to loose and he did loose it. With fan backlash and WWE not wanting to make Punk look weak, Punk was abused by Randy Orton and a bunch of other wrestlers. Unable to compete in his “Championship Scramble Match” at the “Unforgiven” Pay-Per-View it was Chris Jericho who quite literally “Saved Us” and became the World Champion. Jericho in his new heel run was getting fans happy but not the ratings that WWE needed. So Jericho lost the title to Batista. Then WWE realized something. John Cena was coming back from injury, and a Cena/Bastista II would be great money wise. But the problem was that it was too soon so Batista became a “boomerang champion” (a champion who wins and looses the title to the same person) and Jericho won it back. And remember what I said earlier that John Cena was coming back from injury? Well from WWE's perspective John Cena = Ratings! So even though the only fans that like Cena nowadays are women, kids, and stupid fans who think wrestling is real. John Cena won the title from Jericho. 2009 is going to look like the same ole RAW, the same ole John Cena as World Champ, but with a different title. And all of this happened in 2008 thanks to the WWE Draft and shoddy booking from the RAW Show.
ECW World Title:
Starting 1/1/08: CM Punk
Ending 12/31/08: Matt Hardy
Number of times Title has changed hands: 4
CM Punk had a decent ECW World Title run. Then lost it to Chavo Guerrero to push the “La Familia” stable. Then lost it to Kane in an embarrassing way. Chavo got defeated in 9 seconds. Kane almost broke the record for the fastest pin in Wrestlemania history (that goes to King Kong Bundy). But when Kane went to RAW thanks to the WWE Draft, Kane lost the title to Mark Henry. Henry's title reign caused a lot of controversy. Some said that it was the logical thing to do since Kane was going to RAW the ECW World Title needed to stay on ECW and they gave it to Henry, while others said Henry was given the ECW World Title as a way to shut him up due to the racially stirred incident that he had with WWE Creative member Michael Hayes. Either way Henry lost the title to Matt Hardy thanks to the “Championship Scramble Match” at Unforgiven. Matt Hardy with a World Title made some fans happy. And in 2009 it looks like the era of Mattitude will keeps fans even happier now that Matt & his brother Jeff are both World Champions.
RAW's Secondary Titles:
Intercontinental Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Jeff Hardy
Ending: 12/31/08: William Regal
Number of times Title has changed hands: 4
The Intercontinental Title looked decent this year. It looked like in 2008 that Jeff hardy would loose the title and get a WWE Title Run. Well Jeff Hardy did loose the title, because he received Strike 2 on the WWE Wellness Policy to Chris Jericho. Jericho with his record breaking 8th Intercontinental Title win puts him as the most successful Intercontinental Champion of all time. Jericho lost the title to Kofi Kingston because WWE was at a time where they were trying to push the younger talent and Kingston looked good at the time. Kingston lost the title to Santino Marella due to a “Winner Take All” match at Summerslam where the Intercontinental & the Women's Titles were both on the line. With this title run Marella decided to go for a comedy run with the debut of “The Honk-O-Meter” which was a gimmick to countdown Marella's title reign to beat the wrestler with the longest Intercontinental Title reign ever: The Honky Tonk Man. But “The Honk-O-Meter” broke as Marella lost the title to William Regal when RAW was in Manchester England (his hometown) because whomever is the hometown hero they always get the instant win, and Regal was the hometown hero. 2009 looks like a short title reign for Regal as CM Punk gets a shot at his title.
World Tag Team Titles:
Starting 1/1/08: Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly
Ending 12/31/08: John Morrison & The Miz
Number of times Title has changed hands: 5
Five Title changes is pushing it at times. WWE doesn't like to do tag team runs anymore so they used the titles this year as more of a prop. We start off with Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly. Rhodes' & Holly's World Tag Team Title run was pure death. There were stretches of months when they didn't even defend the titles. In the category of the “most confusing title loss ever”. Hardcore Holly & Cody Rhodes lost to...Ted DiBiase Jr. & Cody Rhodes. Confusing huh? Here's the explanation. On the Pay-Per-View “Night Of Champions” where Rhodes & Holly defended the titles versus DiBiase & a “mystery partner”. Turns out that mystery partner was Rhodes and in that weird match Rhodes lost & won a Tag Title. Then Rhodes & DiBiase lost the titles to John Cena & Batista because it was to push their “Summerslam” match of Cena vs Batista in the “enemies as tag champions” for the one billionth time. Then Cena & Batista lost the titles back to Rhodes & DiBiasie. Then Rhodes & DiBiase lost the titles to CM Punk & Kofi Kingston for the reason of Randy Orton putting DiBiase on the “disabled list”, which is code for DiBiase is doing “The Marine 2”. Then at a house show in Ontario, Canada. Punk & Kingston lost the titles to ECW's John Morrison & The Miz for the reason of Punk's Intercontinental Title Match. Morrison & The Miz were great successes with the WWE Tag Team Titles (see WWE Tag Team Titles) they were given the World Tag Team Titles to carry. Looks like 2009 the Tag Titles are in good hands.
Women's Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Beth Phoenix
Ending 12/31/08: Beth Phoenix
Number of times Title has changed hands: 2
Two is usually a good number for title changes. But in this instance. Nope. Beth Phoenix had the title. Lost it to Mickey James, then won it back in that “Winner Take All Match” (see Intercontinental Title). Why did I say that two wasn't a good number. This year all the wrestling “Divas” were mostly injured and placed on the “disabled list”. James & Phoenix were the healthy ones left! Phoenix's “monster heel push” didn't look all that convincing this year. But in 2009 Phoenix looks like could be more humanized thanks to one Santino Marella.
Smackdown's Secondary Titles:
United States Title:
Starting 1/1/08: MVP
Ending 12/31/08: Shelton Benjamin
Number of times Title has changed hands: 2
The U.S. Title did great this year. Started out with MVP, who had some good early months before the start of his “loosing streak” later in the year. Lost the title, FINALLY, to Matt Hardy to end that snake bitten feud once and for all. But when Hardy was sent to ECW via the Draft, Hardy lost the title to Shelton Benjamin. It's been a while since Benjamin held any single's title. And in 2009 it looks like Benjamin will continue to have a great title run.
WWE Tag Team Titles:
Starting 1/1/08: John Morrison & The Miz
Ending 12/31/08: Carlito & Primo Colon
Number of times Title has changed hands: 2
Once again the WWE Tag Titles suffered the same fates as the previous years as not getting any tag teams to defend the titles. But in 2009 there was some entertainment to those titles. Started out with Morrison & The Miz. Most people, including myself, thought that this would be a disaster. But Morrison & The Miz proved us all wrong. They turned their WWE Tag Title run into something entertaining that the fans liked even though they were still the heels. Titles changed hands to Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins, who fans had called “The Edgeheads”, in order to push their “La Familia” stable on Smackdown. Then The Edgeheads lost the titles to the brothers Colon, Carlito & Primo to be more exact. The reason was this is somewhat of a punishment to tell you the truth. Since WWE didn't like Carlito's work ethic and his attitude they figure that teaming his up with his brother Primo maybe Carlito can learn some good things from him. 2009 looks like the trend to make the Tag Titles “entertaining” to continue with the brothers Colon defending the titles and hitting on The Bella Twins.
Now unfortunately in March 2008 WWE retired the Cruiserweight Title. But a new title was created in July 2008 to replace it. The Cruiserweight Title has been replaced with the Diva's Title.
Divas Title:
Starting 7/20/08: Michelle McCool
Ending 12/31/08: Maryse
Number of times Title has changed hands: 1
As RAW's Women's Title focused more on the wrestling “Divas” meaning the women that have a wrestling background and that can perform. The Diva's Title is the exact opposite. The Diva's Title is designed for the “Divas” that were hired because of the following: They were a part of the “Diva Search” contest, they were hired for their modeling backgrounds, or they were hired just for their looks. The title was created and matches were made to determine who would wrestle for the title. Michelle McCool & Natalya won their matches to wrestle to be the first ever Diva's Champion and in the end McCool won. Ever since McCool was crowned champion and the title was created their has seen to be heat with it. McCool & the title not getting any respect in WWE, McCool's relationship with her boyfriend The Undertaker, The Diva's Title considered by the fans as the ugliest title in history. It seemed like McCool was going to close out the year as champion but on the last episode of Smackdown for the year Maryse got the title win. Why did that happen? To start McCool's heel turn by kicking Special Guest Referee Maria's ass that's why. 2009 and The Diva's Title is going to start out rough because a few days later after Maryse won the title, she received a knee injury that can place her on the “Disabled List”. Will Maryse relinquish the title in 2009? Let's find out.
Now we go to WWE's Main Titles: The WWE Title, The World Heavyweight Title, and the ECW World Title. The WWE Draft happened again so the WWE Title went back to Smackdown and the World Heavyweight Title went back to RAW. And it's an unfortunate thing that I have to say that there's for the first time ever in this column's history we have a tie for the “Most Changed Title” this year. WWE & TNA have singles title that changed hands more than anybody. Your going to have to find out later what TNA Title changed hands the most. But for WWE. The title that changed hands the most was one of their World Titles, or to be more precise the World Heavyweight Title!
WWE Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Randy Orton on RAW
Ending 12/31/08: Jeff Hardy on Smackdown
Number of times Title has changed hands: 3
Three is a decent number compared to the other two titles. Started off with Randy Orton & his “Age Of Orton”. Orton provided to be so much of a douchebag even on his title run that people were happy that Triple H won the title. Triple H, the same man what inspire so much hate with the controversy that he gets most of his recent World Title reigns because he's married to the family. In this instance family wasn't the reason why he won the title. With Smackdown moving over to “My Network TV” WWE thought they needed a big name and since Triple H is as big as they had at the moment they sent him & the WWE Title to Smackdown thanks to the Draft. Title changed hands to a returning (and refreshed) Edge. But at the end of the year that push to the WWE Title finally happened as Jeff Hardy won the title off Edge. If this was the Jeff Hardy from earlier in the year people would be happy that he won the title. But this is the Jeff Hardy that received Two Strikes total from the WWE Wellness Policy later on in the year. Some say that Hardy with the title is a major risk while others are waiting Hardy to get that Third Strike hoping that WWE will in fact punish & fire Hardy for violating the Wellness Policy. Can Hardy prove the critics wrong and maintain job security in 2009? Let's find out.
World Heavyweight Title:
Starting 1/1/08: Edge on Smackdown
Ending 12/31/08: John Cena on RAW
Number of times Title has changed hands: 8
How did this happen?!? Officially the title hasn't changed this many hands since the days of WCW when Vince Russo was a part of the booking in 2000. But can one World Title cause this much trouble and headaches which in the end caused some shoddy booking? Well let's start off early in the year with Edge & the title on Smackdown. And he had a pretty good title reign too. That is until Wrestlemania and he lost the title to The Undertaker because THE UNDERTAKER DOESN'T LOOSE AT WRESTLEMANIA!!! But this time after Wrestlemania GM Vicki Guerrero decided to strip Undertaker of his title and declare it “Vacant” because storyline wise it was due to his “Hell's Gate” Choke Hold that's how he won the title. Undertaker & Edge bounced around for a bit until Edge won the title. Normal so far right? Well thank the WWE Draft for this one. With Smackdown having two World Title's (Edge's World Heavyweight Title & Triple H's WWE Title) something had to give. Well it did in the form of Edge visiting RAW and thanks to a series of random events, CM Punk used his “Money In The Bank” Briefcase on a beaten Edge to win the title. So RAW now has a World Title again thanks to Punk. But here's the problem. A lot of fans were surprised that Punk won the title, some hated the idea that Punk had the title. Punk's World Title run was his to loose and he did loose it. With fan backlash and WWE not wanting to make Punk look weak, Punk was abused by Randy Orton and a bunch of other wrestlers. Unable to compete in his “Championship Scramble Match” at the “Unforgiven” Pay-Per-View it was Chris Jericho who quite literally “Saved Us” and became the World Champion. Jericho in his new heel run was getting fans happy but not the ratings that WWE needed. So Jericho lost the title to Batista. Then WWE realized something. John Cena was coming back from injury, and a Cena/Bastista II would be great money wise. But the problem was that it was too soon so Batista became a “boomerang champion” (a champion who wins and looses the title to the same person) and Jericho won it back. And remember what I said earlier that John Cena was coming back from injury? Well from WWE's perspective John Cena = Ratings! So even though the only fans that like Cena nowadays are women, kids, and stupid fans who think wrestling is real. John Cena won the title from Jericho. 2009 is going to look like the same ole RAW, the same ole John Cena as World Champ, but with a different title. And all of this happened in 2008 thanks to the WWE Draft and shoddy booking from the RAW Show.
ECW World Title:
Starting 1/1/08: CM Punk
Ending 12/31/08: Matt Hardy
Number of times Title has changed hands: 4
CM Punk had a decent ECW World Title run. Then lost it to Chavo Guerrero to push the “La Familia” stable. Then lost it to Kane in an embarrassing way. Chavo got defeated in 9 seconds. Kane almost broke the record for the fastest pin in Wrestlemania history (that goes to King Kong Bundy). But when Kane went to RAW thanks to the WWE Draft, Kane lost the title to Mark Henry. Henry's title reign caused a lot of controversy. Some said that it was the logical thing to do since Kane was going to RAW the ECW World Title needed to stay on ECW and they gave it to Henry, while others said Henry was given the ECW World Title as a way to shut him up due to the racially stirred incident that he had with WWE Creative member Michael Hayes. Either way Henry lost the title to Matt Hardy thanks to the “Championship Scramble Match” at Unforgiven. Matt Hardy with a World Title made some fans happy. And in 2009 it looks like the era of Mattitude will keeps fans even happier now that Matt & his brother Jeff are both World Champions.
