Normally, a championship changes hands and that’s as simple as can be. Sometimes, though, a new belt is created from nothing, undergoes a name change, has to be vacated due to injury or is even merged or retired outright.
These more oddball circumstances have happened quite a bit in 2023 throughout World Wrestling Entertainment, All Elite Wrestling and Ring of Honor. Enough so that it’s worth dissecting all the different instances to see just how much of a change the rosters have undergone this year.
Let’s break down all the times this year that the championships in WWE, AEW and ROH did anything outside of a standard title change.
New Championship Titles Created in 2023
WWE World Heavyweight Championship
To compensate for Roman Reigns barely showing up, rarely defending his two world titles and clearly not dropping them until at least WrestleMania 40 (if not longer), WWE created the World Heavyweight Championship for the Raw roster. To date, Seth Rollins is the only person to hold that title, and it is still considered (for some reason) to be a different belt lineage than the World Heavyweight Championship from before.
Still to Come: AEW Continental Championship / Triple Crown Champion
If I’m being honest, I still don’t even fully 100% understand how this concept is going to work. However, the information that has been put out there states that Eddie Kingston’s ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship are both on the line in the AEW Continental Classic tournament. The eventual winner of the tournament will capture both of those, as well as the AEW Continental Championship.
They keep referring to this as the Triple Crown Champion, and that it will be cross-branded from AEW, ROH and New Japan, but I’m still confused about the logistics. Is there actually going to be a Continental Championship belt created? Will this champion carry that and the other two belts? Is it just going to be one belt? Will all titles be defended in perpetuity? Surely, they can’t TRULY plan on keeping those three titles combined for well over a year, can they? Why sacrifice the ROH world title if that’s the case, rather than the television title? Or will we see one of these belts fracture off?
It sounds crazy, but until we get more clarification, we just have to speculate.
Championship Titles Given New Names in 2023
NXT UK Heritage Cup → NXT Heritage Cup
Last year, the NXT UK brand saw its titles merged with NXT at Worlds Collide. Strangely absent from that event, though, was the NXT UK Heritage Cup. It seemed like that would combine with the NXT North American Championship, but WWE was completely silent on the issue.
Then, randomly, Noam Dar popped up months later, cup in possession, with zero explanation. WWE just acted like it was perfectly normal for nobody to have addressed this for such a long time.
In the process, the United Kingdom association was dropped, leading to this becoming simply the NXT Heritage Cup.
Personal opinion? I don’t see the point in this, and I wish they would have just merged the cup with the North American title and moved on. WWE seems to like these matches and the concept, though, so it seems like it’s sticking around for the foreseeable future, even if it just revolves around Noam Dar as if it’s his personal title.
AEW All-Atlantic Championship → AEW International Championship
In a major step in the right direction, in my opinion, AEW realized how clunky the name “All-Atlantic Championship” was and decided to rebrand it the International Championship.
Granted, every time titles are associated with a location and it doesn’t actually have any rules that enforce that region (ie, the United States title isn’t just defended in America, and what is the difference between World Championship and Intercontinental Championship?) it is a bit odd to me. But at least with this name, it wasn’t continuing the error of having a non-atlantic region associated with it anymore.
Raw Women’s Championship and SmackDown Women’s Championship → WWE Women’s Championship and WWE Women’s World Championship
Stick with me on this, because it’s a bit confusing when you lay it out in text. By the end of the draft, Rhea Ripley was holding the SmackDown Women’s Championship as part of the Monday Night Raw roster. Iyo Sky was then holding the Raw Women’s Championship as part of the SmackDown roster.
In the past, WWE just had people swap titles and be done with it. This time, they opted to rename the titles, instead.
Since the Raw Women’s Championship has the lineage that technically goes back to the WWE Women’s Championship from 2016 when it was merged with the Divas Championship, WWE opted to call that title the “WWE Women’s Championship” belt. Even though, if you look at it, it actually says “Women’s Undisputed Championship”.
It isn’t undisputed. Not even in the sense that Roman Reigns has the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. That belt, by the way, is still two separate titles, and then, a third world title on the opposite brand, which means WWE clearly does not functionally understand what the term undisputed means.
The SmackDown women’s title was then rebranded the Women’s World Championship to coincide with how Raw has the World Heavyweight Championship that looks like the same design.
That means we now have 3 world titles for the men with 1 of them being “undisputed” while consisting of 2 titles, and one of them is called the “WWE World Heavyweight Championship”, but the Raw brand has the “WWE World Heavyweight Championship” in a different way, AND it is different than the “WWE World Heavyweight Championship” from 2002-2013, and an “Undisputed WWE Women’s Championship” that has never once been called that by anyone, but it is labeled as such whenever you look at the actual belt.
Insane. Especially when you think about how at some point, these belts are going to merge if they ever decide to end the brand split, and we’ll end up with a TRUE Undisputed WWE Women’s Championship, and they’ll just call it the WWE Women’s Championship that they currently call it!
Championship Titles Unified or Merged in 2023
NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship
The NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship didn’t make sense from the start. Yes, in theory, having titles for that brand is logical. However, when the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship was created, it was specifically stated over and over again how those titles were cross-branded not just between Raw and SmackDown, but that they could leave the main roster and go to NXT, too.
Then, WWE just opted to have NXT tag titles anyway, and started a terrible run of champions.
The entire history of the belt goes as follows:
-
- The first champions lose them immediately.
- Less than 2 months later, new champions are crowned.
- Just over 2 months later, new champions are crowned.
- Io Shirai and Zoey Stark, a makeshift team, set the benchmark with 111 days.
- Toxic Attraction lasts 157 days.
- Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez win them back again, and drop them back to Toxic Attraction, bringing their grand total of time as champions to 3 days.
- Toxic Attraction drops the titles 3 months later to Cora Jade and Roxanne Perez.
- Cora breaks up her team after 2 weeks and throws her belt in the trash. The belts are then just considered Roxanne’s for 7 days, before she vacates them.
- Katana Chance and Kayden Carter become the longest-reigning champs at 186 days.
- Makeshift “can they coexist” team Kiana James and Fallon Henley hold the belts for less than 2 months.
- Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn hold them for 83 days and get drafted to the main roster in the meantime.
- The belts are merged and unified with the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, only for Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler to drop the titles a week later and split.
Adios, NXT women’s tag titles. Your potential was never once realized. Good riddance.
Championship Titles Fully Retired in 2023
AEW “Real” World Championship
CM Punk had a roller coaster ride with the AEW World Championship. Not too long after winning it, he had to relinquish it due to an injury.
This led to Jon Moxley becoming interim champion, before eventually beating Punk for the right to become the undisputed champion, only to drop the title to Punk a few days later, just for Punk to get injured in THAT match at All Out, cause the Brawl Out incident, get suspended, and see the title once again vacated.
Skip that part of 2022 and eventually, Punk came back to action in 2023 claiming that he never lost the title, and he was in possession of the REAL World Championship.
This AEW Real World Championship was never established as a true title, yet it was defended as if it was, strangely. We can assume it was meant to culminate in some sort of title unification match against MJF, but that never got to play out. Instead, Punk last defended this pseudo-title at All In, got into yet another fight backstage, was fired, and the Real World Championship was never mentioned again.
Every Time a Championship was Vacated in 2023
I’m actually surprised this list isn’t bigger, as I had a perception that there were a lot more titles being relinquished this year. Here’s the list of instances when someone vacated a belt this year:
WWE Titles Vacated in 2023
- Indi Hartwell vacated the NXT Women’s Championship
- Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez vacated the Women’s Tag Team Championships
AEW Titles Vacated in 2023
- Nobody actually vacated an AEW title this year. Every time they needed to, they actually dropped the title in a match.
ROH Titles Vacated in 2023
- Samoa Joe vacated the ROH World Television Championship
What do you think will happen with the titles in 2024? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
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In the world of professional wrestling, championship titles are a significant part of the industry. They represent the pinnacle of achievement for wrestlers and add excitement and prestige to their matches. While title changes are a common occurrence, there are also instances where championships undergo unique circumstances such as name changes, creation from scratch, retirement, or merging with other titles. In this article, we will explore some of the interesting occurrences involving championship titles in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), All Elite Wrestling (AEW), and Ring of Honor (ROH) in 2023.
One notable event in WWE was the creation of the World Heavyweight Championship for the Raw roster. This decision was made to compensate for Roman Reigns’ infrequent appearances and reluctance to defend his two world titles. Seth Rollins became the inaugural holder of this new title, which is considered a separate lineage from the previous World Heavyweight Championship.
In AEW, there is the upcoming AEW Continental Classic tournament, where Eddie Kingston’s ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship will be on the line. The winner of the tournament will not only capture both those titles but also the newly introduced AEW Continental Championship. The logistics of this tournament and the future of these titles remain unclear, leaving fans speculating about how it will all unfold.
Title name changes were also witnessed in 2023. The NXT UK Heritage Cup underwent a rebranding and became the NXT Heritage Cup. This change occurred after a prolonged period of silence from WWE regarding the future of the cup. Although the name change may seem unnecessary to some, WWE seems committed to keeping this concept alive.
AEW made a positive step by rebranding their All-Atlantic Championship as the AEW International Championship. This decision eliminated the confusion caused by associating a title with a specific region when it was not enforced in practice. The new name aligns better with AEW’s global reach and avoids the inconsistency of having a non-Atlantic region associated with the title.
WWE also made changes to their women’s championships. The Raw Women’s Championship and SmackDown Women’s Championship were renamed the WWE Women’s Championship and WWE Women’s World Championship, respectively. This decision was made to acknowledge the lineage of the Raw Women’s Championship, which traces back to the WWE Women’s Championship from 2016. However, the labeling of the Raw Women’s Championship as the “Women’s Undisputed Championship” despite not being undisputed raises questions about WWE’s understanding of the term.
In terms of unification and merging, the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship faced an unfortunate fate. The title, which never lived up to its potential, saw a series of short reigns and inconsistent champions. Eventually, it was merged with the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, only to be dropped a week later by Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler.
On the retirement front, the AEW “Real” World Championship had a tumultuous journey. CM Punk won the title but had to relinquish it due to injury. This led to interim champions and eventually a disputed reign by Punk. The idea of a “Real” World Championship was never fully established, and after Punk’s departure from AEW, the title was never mentioned again.
Surprisingly, there were fewer instances of championships being vacated in 2023 than expected. In WWE, Indi Hartwell vacated the NXT Women’s Championship, while Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez vacated the Women’s Tag Team Championships. AEW did not witness any title vacancies, as titles were dropped in matches instead. Samoa Joe vacated the ROH World Television Championship in ROH.
As we look ahead to 2024, fans can only speculate about what will happen with these titles. Will there be more name changes, unifications, or retirements? The wrestling world is full of surprises, and anything can happen. Wrestling enthusiasts can stay updated on all the latest news and developments on eWrestlingNews.com or through their social media channels.
In conclusion, championship titles in professional wrestling are not immune to unique circumstances. From the creation of new titles to name changes, unifications, and retirements, the wrestling landscape is constantly evolving. These changes add excitement and intrigue to the sport, keeping fans engaged and speculating about what the future holds for their favorite championships.