Published: 4 minutes ago by Dave Adamson | Last Updated: 9 hours ago by Dave Adamson
Dave has been a website writer for WrestleTalk since October 2022, having previously written for Den of Geek, among a number of wrestling, movie and television-related sites. Dave has been around the independent wrestling scene for more than a decade, including behind-the-scenes.
WWE
WWE could be reintroducing championship titles, with names returning to a past brand-specific format that was arguably clearer.
At the time of writing, there are six championships for the men’s main roster and five for their counterparts on the women’s roster.
None of the titles screams Raw or SmackDown in their names, something that had been a feature of times past.
A recent USPTO filing for the term ‘SmackDown’ may be a shift to that strategy, but it may also be a touch more complicated:
The WWE Raw Championships
At the time of writing, the World Heavyweight Championship is held by Roman Reigns, Stephanie Vaquer is Women’s World Champion, Chad Gable holds the Intercontinental Championship, the Women’s Intercontinental Championship is in the hands of Judgment Day’s Raquel Rodriguez, and The Vision (Bron Breakker & Austin Theory) are World Tag Team Champions.
The WWE SmackDown Championships
Over on SmackDown, Sami Zayn is the Undisputed WWE Champion, Chelsea Green holds the Women’s Championship, Trick Williams is United States Champion, Jacy Jayne is Women’s United States Champion, and The MFTs (Tama & Talla Tonga) are WWE Tag Team Champions.
Hold on! What about the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship?
Currently held by Fatal Influence (Fallon Henley & Lainey Reid), although both are SmackDown stars, the title itself is an open championship, meaning it can be defended across brands.
So, this SmackDown trademark application, then?
Filed on September 18 by WWE, the USPTO serial number 50116850 covers the term “SmackDown”, with the Goods & Services category reading:
“IC 006: Trophies made primarily of common metal for use as awards, namely, championship trophy belts.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean that television championships will be switched to the SmackDown name and is far from the only time that WWE has filed an application for the term under this description.
A cursory search of the USPTO system doesn’t return a result for WWE Raw under the same Goods & Services category.
Would WWE Raw/SmackDown Championship make things easier?
That would probably depend on which side of the fence we are sitting.
There’s the Undisputed WWE Championship; the very name suggests that there is no other at that level, aside from the other top title which features on Raw. The World Heavyweight Championship sounds like serious business, with the original version of the title being highly regarded. The current iteration was introduced in 2023.
The Women’s World Championship and WWE Women’s Championship are both the top women’s titles, separated by brand and distinguished by a single word in the same way that the World Tag Team Championship and WWE Tag Team Championship are. The same is true for Raw’s Intercontinental Championship and Women’s Intercontinental Championship, and SmackDown’s United States and Women’s United States Championship when it comes to differing wording.
Having Raw and SmackDown in the championship names would fix them to a brand in an unambiguous way, something that has happened in cases up until relatively recently.
The past becomes present again
WWE leans into its history on a frequent basis, whether it be through the Hall of Fame, celebrating former stars or events such as the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
It’s a history that any professional wrestling company would be proud of, and there’s no reason that the Raw & SmackDown Women’s and Tag Team Championships couldn’t be reborn for a modern era, even if they were only relatively recently rebranded.
The top men’s titles are a tougher sell, though, with the Undisputed WWE Championship having gone through multiple name changes since its introduction in 1963 as the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship. In its current iteration, the World Heavyweight Champion is a new title, without the lineage of its 2002-2013 predecessor, and could very well become the WWE Raw Championship, with World thrown in for good measure.
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