We are almost one full week into the new era of the WWE brand extension. We’ve seen the first Smackdown Live and we’ve sat through the WWE Draft. We’ve debated the merits of the moves and we’ve watched the first post-draft pay-per-view. But what we DON’T know is what is going to happen with the WWE Championship, which is still held by Dean Ambrose, who is exclusive to Smackdown.
Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the original plan for the world title and the tentative plans as of right now — although things could and often do change in the world of WWE — is for the title to be split, or a new world title to be introduced, by the end of August. Which would indicate that a new title would be introduced around the time of SummerSlam, or perhaps something fishy would occur at SummerSlam, leading to the creation of a new title.
For those unaware, the WWE Championship picture began to get muddled in 2001, when it was unified with the WCW Championship. After the first brand split began in 2002, the World Heavyweight Championship was created and was presented to Triple H by Eric Bischoff. The brand extension ended in 2011 and the two titles floated around for a while, but were unified once again in 2013 when Randy Orton defeated John Cena for both belts at TLC.
WWE is expected to announce how the WWE Women’s Championship and the WWE Championship will operate across both shows within the next couple of weeks, perhaps clearing things up as early as Monday night’s episode of Raw.
One thing is for sure: if they announce a multi-week tournament for the new world title, I will forgive whatever foolishness comes along with it. Championship tournaments are the absolute best and I will always be up for one.
