WWE Raw Women’s Championship: The Never-Ending Game of Hot Potato

At this rate, Charlotte will be the female version of John Cena by 2018 with the way she’s been booked with the WWE RAW Women’s Championship.

Charlotte lost her WWE RAW Women’s Championship on the Monday, February 13th, 2017 edition of RAW. This marked the fourth time she lost the championship on RAW, while maintaining her thus far perfect PPV undefeated record. In doing so, her challenger, Bayley, became RAW Women’s Champion for the first time. Bayley responded in the same way she did when she won the NXT Women’s Championship: she got emotional and celebrated like only an underdog can.

It was meant to be a feel-good moment, but unfortunately, it was mired in problems. One glaring one was that this moment, which should’ve been one the single-biggest moment of Bayley’s career, was given away for free on an otherwise forgettable RAW. There was little build for this match-up, especially when compared to how much effort went into hyping NXT Women’s Championship matches.

Furthermore, Bayley is, and always has been, a perpetual underdog, and there’s a great deal of good storytelling to be done in showcasing her championship pursuit. In that regard, WWE could’ve had a ready-made storyline where Bayley, like Daniel Bryan before her, was screwed out of the championship by the authority, only to capture it without controversy at WrestleMania.

Instead, she had another match with Charlotte, only this one featured some external interference from both Dana Brooke and Sasha Banks. These moments of interference didn’t lead to a controversial finish, nor did it lead to Stephanie stripping Bayley of the title (which would’ve been the logical thing to do given the match events and the goal of making Bayley into a great underdog title chaser).

Instead, Bayley won cleanly, becoming RAW Women’s Champion for the first time, ending Charlotte’s fourth reign after only 57 days. Simply put, the game of hot potato continues.

Making a championship prestigious requires many components. The belt needs to have several contenders credible enough to win it. There need to be many high-quality matches centered on the combatants wanting nothing more than to hold that particular championship. But most importantly, it needs a strong champion that both retains the belt on a regular basis and enjoys a lengthy reign to prove they earned the right to be called the champion.

More from Raw

• WWE Raw Predictions: Seth Rollins Will BURY Jey Uso
• Three feuds for CM Punk on WWE Monday Night Raw
• Three candidates to take the Women’s World Championship from Rhea Ripley
• WWE Raw Predictions: LA Knight Will Return The Favor To Cody Rhodes
• Why Drew McIntyre turned heel during WWE Monday Night Raw

That last element is a key piece missing from the RAW Women’s Championship.

It all boils down to simple storytelling. The rarer something is, the more valuable it is. If only one person can hold something, others will naturally want to hold it as well. So the person who holds that item at any given time will have to fight to keep it, while their challengers will likewise fight to obtain it for themselves.

The more the current owner wins, the more valuable the item gets, because that person is showing how far they’re willing to go to keep it. If everyone keeps getting hold of the same item, the opposite happens. If something is so easy to acquire, it loses its inherent value. If two people, the original owner and their biggest challenger, keep exchanging ownership of something back-and-forth, they both look like fools.

This is how it is with the RAW Women’s Championship. Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and now Bayley have all been a part of one big game of hot potato. Every two months or so, one defeats the other. Sure, the matches are great, but they mean less and less each time. Bayley won on RAW, and a PPV is coming up in Fastlane 2017.

MORE FROM DAILY DDT:

• Bayley is the Raw Women’s Champion, Now Watch Her Downfall
• Finn Balor Should Return on SmackDown Live
• Predicting Future of Current Authority Figures

Given WWE’s track record with Charlotte, one can safely assume that, should Charlotte invoke her rematch clause at that PPV, she will regain it, becoming a 5-time champion in the span of less than a year. If that happens, Bayley’s first reign will mean next to nothing, just like John Cena’s 16th title reign.

It’s one thing to try and make a feud between two wrestlers feel historic if the feud is about those two people trying to prove which of them is the better athlete. If that was the entire focus of the Charlotte-Banks feud, it would’ve been great. Them exchanging wins and losses in different circumstances would’ve made sense under those conditions. But if they’re fighting over a championship, and it keeps exchanging ownership, the feud between those two wrestlers continues, but the championship becomes an indirect casualty.

More from Daily DDT

• It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles
• Tom Lawlor talks MLW return, AEW opportunity, CM Punk’s WWE return and more
• Eddie Kingston stands to gain the most from the AEW Continental Classic
• Trish Stratus on WWE NXT would help elevate that women’s division
• Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline

By booking the feud in the way they have, WWE have made the RAW Women’s Championship into a glorified joke of a championship. People are making more jokes about how many reigns Charlotte will have within the next few years than they are praising the matches she’s had. That’s the very opposite of what a proper championship feud should be. WWE are booking this championship as a glorified prop for the women to exchange, instead of making it into something that’s worth the world to them.

WWE don’t have to continue down this path. If they want to make the RAW Women’s Championship into something prestigious, all they should do is change their approach. Instead of having Charlotte keep losing on RAW and winning on PPV, they should simply make a final decision on whom they want as champion and book her to enjoy a lengthy run, during which she defends the title successfully on several occasions.

By that point, there would be enough interest in seeing a new challenger rise to the occasion, which would lead to the coronation of a new champion on a big stage. This isn’t something that’s difficult to do. CM Punk’s 434-day WWE Championship reign was great, in part because he held it for so long and defended it against a myriad of opponents. This solidified him as a top guy in WWE, and brought considerable prestige back to the WWE Championship.

Charlotte’s ideal role is that of a dominant champion that rarely loses, if ever. That image keeps becoming less and less realistic each time she loses on RAW. Sasha Banks is good as a never-say-die babyface, but even better as an arrogant, cocky heel that backs up her words with actions. But because she lost the championship so many times, her cockiness can now only be interpreted as foolishness.

As for Bayley, she’s perfect in the role of the underdog that keeps overcoming adversity until she wins the big one on the biggest stage possible. She can’t do that now that she has won the belt on RAW, and if she somehow wins at WrestleMania and ends Charlotte’s undefeated PPV streak, it won’t be anywhere near as big had that been her first RAW Women’s Championship instead of her second.

Related Story: WrestleMania 33 Card Projections 6.0; Post-Rumble

Simply put, all three of these women have been playing a never-ending game of hot potato, and now all three of them have burned their hands.