Ranking the WWE championships by Prestige 2017

So if you watch wrestling you know the "main goal" of the wrestlers is to win championships...and they are all supposed to mean something. Now granted some mean more than others (IE the world title is more important than the midcard titles), and we know theres a "order of prestige" WWE would like you to put the belts in. But we also know wrestling matches are real competition and they are all part of a show. And therefore the championships are basically props to help advance characters and as legitimate "awards" for "a job well done" for the wrestlers who put on a good enough show to earn them. And for many of the wrestlers, winning any title might be seen as as much a reward as any other (with the possible exceptions of the world title). But part of that "reward" is fan perception...the titles only matter as much as the fans think they do.  So in some respects it is the fans who are the ultimate arbiters of which titles are the most and least prestigious. Now because whos holding the title and how the title is booked does affect fan perception these rankings are completely fluid and change all the time (in fact in my mind I keep flip flopping on #8 and #7 and the #4 and #5 spots right now)....but at least for the near future, this is which titles are the least prestigious to most prestigious...at least on the main roster (I dont watch NXT or the UK tournaments so I wont be ranking the NXT championship, Tag titles and Womens title or the UK Championship)

9 Smackdown Tag Team Titles

Who are the Smackdown Tag Team Champions? Does anyone even care?
This is the only title on the list that didnt get defended at Wrestlemania, instead the champs competed in the Andre the Giant battle royal.  Of course, if you were like me, you forgot the Usos are currently the champions, given their win was overshadowed by Shane and AJ and the start stop nature of their rivalry with American Alpha, who won the title about 4 months too late for anyone to care from the Wyatt Family, the only champions of any note.....and only because it furthered the Wyatt Family split story line.....what I'm getting at is that none of the teams who have held this title mattered AT ALL in anyway. On the upside, the fashion police are over...so maybe if they get the belts tonight someone might care about these titles for all of a week

8 Raw Tag Team Titles

Honestly the RAW tag division isnt in much better shape than the SD division. In all honesty the record setting reign of the New Day kinda killed any interest in the division when that gimmick got stale. However its worth noting that the RAW division at least looks like it has a future with the Hardy Boyz as champs.....but of course that was the same thing people thought when the Club won the title....or when Sheamus and Cesaro won the titles. But thats actually a good thing, unlike the SD division, people actually care about who the RAW tag champs are and want to see a strong division.

7 Universal Title

The First Universal Champion was injured and had to vacate the belt instantly. Not a good start. The Second (Owens) never successfully defended the title without massive outside help, and basically fought the same two guys over and over and over and over for the entirety of his reign, which itself was overshadowed both by Seth Rollins/HHH and his own storyline with the US Champion. Champion #3 was a 50 year old man incapable of wrestling more than a 5 minute match, and Champion #4 is a part timer who usually only shows up every few months....meaning the title wont be defended nor seen that often. In fact, rumor is, the title wont change hands again until Mania next year....so its going to basically never be on TV for a whole year.  I honestly dont think anyone really cares about this belt anymore as they have done exactly squat to make it remotely prestigious, and the simple fact is, the only reason it places this high on the list is it is theoretically the top title for the show, but honestly, it might be the least prestigious title on here otherwise. Also, design counts...it doesnt help this thing is ugly as sin.

6 Crusierweight Title

Because of Neville and his fantastic rivalries with Jack Gallagher and Austin Aries, this division is starting to get interesting...I think. I'll be honest, Ive never bothered to watch 205 Live, so I only see the stuff on RAW and the PPV's.  But thats also the reason this belt has to be rated low.....so far they havnt done much to convince me to give enough of a damn to watch the show the belt is primarily used for.


5 Smackdown Womens Title

I'll be honest, the Women's division in WWE as a whole is in a weird place right now, as Smackdown clearly has the better division overall, as all the women feel like possible title contenders, yet the belt feels a bit less prestigious than the RAW version, as the two best women (sasha and charlotte) were on RAW. Still its a solid division, and has more established characters than RAW, so I expect the "stock value" of this belt to rise once the 6 woman feud ends, and it moves on to its next natural evolution of Naomi V Natalya V Charlotte. Especially because as I stated, Charlotte IS the one of the best women in the WWE right now, so once she gets her hands on that belt, watch it take off like she did for the RAW title.  Also worth noting, for better or worse the Smackdown Women's roster is going to be expanding soon when Nikki Bella returns and Lana debuts, so we are going to keep seeing fresh faces on SD.

4  Intercontinental Title

Yes this ranks higher than the Universal title. And yes that is a major problem for RAW. But lets be honest, 2 weeks ago a bunch of guys laid out the case for why they should be Universal Champion only to have Dean Ambrose come out and basically say "Screw that title, its never defended and doesnt matter mine does" And it worked....all those guys suddenly decided to fight for the IC strap. That has to count for a TON as far as elevating it over the Universal title. Not to mention everytime Miz says he made that title...he has a point. Just watch Smackdown during his 5th title run and he really did move that belt from afterthought to major deal just by how passionate he was about everything.

In fact if it wasnt for the fact that Ambrose/Miz is kinda an old and dead feud at this point (having been a feud on SD just a couple months ago), and that it only made the WM pre show, the IC strap would be a bit higher on this list by virtue of being the de facto top mens title on RAW right now.

3  Raw Womens Title

Notice I said the IC title was the top MENS title on raw? Well the top title on RAW is the Womens belt. Consider for most of the brand split Sasha and Charlotte got most of the top billing and audience attention and it should be obvious why this belt is on top. And post shakeup, Alexa Bliss seems poised to run this division, and given she was the top woman on Smackdown (and as stated before the womens division over there was more competitive and harder to stand out it) that suggests nothing but great things in the future for this belt. And in fairness to RAW its talent pool of championship caliber women is getting bigger and now Bayley, Sasha, Nia and Mickie all seem to be floating around the title picture...a nice step up from the 2 women show that ran the division for the last 6 months.

2 US Title

I honestly want to call this "1b" instead of the number 2 slot, because the belt really is that close to the WWE championship right now. Not only are we consistently seeing the US champion and contender interact with the WWE champ and contender (suggesting they are all on equal footing) weve seen the US champ say flat out he believes that being the US champ means hes worthy of a WWE title shot.

And look at who the champ is...Kevin Owens AKA the guy who for the majority of the brand split was the top champion on RAW. And the guy challenging him for it is AJ Styles AKA  he guy who for the majority of the brand split was the top champion on Smackdown. Just that simple fact alone would give the belt some status.

Consider as well, the guy Owens beat for the belt (twice) was Chris Jericho, who was arguably the most over person on the roster, and Owens took it in what was arguably the ending of the top story-line on RAW from the brand split (JericKO). Again that has to elevate the belt.  Y2J by the way took it off of Roman Reigns, who admittedly had an underwhelming run with the belt and did mimizie it a bit (often appearing without it)...but it has to be noted as champion Reigns was booked as a bigger deal than the Universal champion on multiple occasions (such as the survivor series poster) and Reigns got it off of Rusev, who did an AMAZING job getting the title over in the early part of the brand split by claiming (due to not having established the Universal title yet) that it was the top title on RAW. Basically the US titles been pushed to the moon since the brand split started, and possibly given the best booking of any title during that period


1 WWE Championship

Since the Brand Split, the weakest, least important WWE champion has been John Cena and his 2 week reign. That said, the match he won the title in was freaking fantastic. And look when the worse champion you can throw up in John Cena, your title is in fantastic shape.

Dean Ambrose managed to make the title feel like a big deal when he first brought it to Smackdown, AJ styles had fantastic matches with EVERYONE when champion and made it quite clear you had to be the best in the world to be the champ, and was clearly the focus of the show in a way the Universal Champ and title never were. Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton meanwhile had one of the most interesting storylines in recent memory, and that was even before the title belt entered the picture, and that story is still going on, and still interesting...and also seemed poised to make Luke Harper (and possible Erick Rowan) into a star, with out him having to win the belt....just being able to be on the same level as whoever holds the WWE title makes you seem like a mega star. Now yes the WWE title does have the advantage of a near 60 year linage, still you cant deny WWE clearly saw Smackdown as the B-show at the start of the brand split, and linage of the top belt alone didnt change that perception. Granted yes, things have cooled a bit since the Brand Split and the awkward abortion of the Orton/Wyatt story line, and the odd choice to make Jinder Mahal the #1 Contender....but at the same time, Mahal seems to have proven himself "worthy" of the titleshot in the eyes of the fans....and well whens the last time anyone getting a shot at any of the other titles had to be seen as "worthy" by the fans? Thats why this belt is still on top