images (1).jpg

By Liam Byrne. Catch him @tvtimelimit on Twitter.

The Rules:

Every match involving the champion is a title match. No matter whom they are fighting, as long as they are competing as a singles wrestler, the title could be successfully defended or unfortunately lost. In my eyes though, that wasn’t enough.

The second rule I decided upon was that titles can change hands on DQ/Countout. When it comes to sports, a win is a win and a loss is a loss. If the champion has the misfortune of getting themselves disqualified, then the title belt goes to their opponent.

A third rule, in terms of making it so that the title isn’t bouncing around between several different people every week, is that house show matches don’t count. Effectively, if it wasn’t on TV or PPV for me to witness it, it didn’t happen.

The final rule of note was that inter-gender matches didn’t count. This may sound like an odd choice to add to the list, but very early on in my research, the lack of this rule could have caused potential issues – I’ll tell you when we get there.

With 2001 coming to a close, the WWE made the decision to unify the two World title so as to have one Undisputed Champion. Chris Jericho, with the help of Vince McMahon and Booker T, was the chosen one, the man who would carry the WWE on his shoulders into the new year. Considering he had the backing of the part owner of the WWF at the current time (more on that in a little while), and only a few weeks to go, he overcomes some adversity and achieves it, before heading to a Wrestlemania showdown with Triple H.

That is unless the rules changed and a champion could lose their title on a disqualification.

Here we have the first severely branching path that we will take in tracking the ‘real’ world champion. Just over a week after Jericho took down both The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in one evening to become champion, the man who had invested his time and effort in making him the lynchpin of the company as the WWE moved into 2002 would be the ultimate cause of Jericho’s downfall.

If it hadn’t been for Booker T though, Jericho could have been a one day champion. In a sign that we are firmly entrenched in the aftermath of the Monday Night Wars, Jericho ends up defending his newly won gold the next night against Stone Cold Steve Austin in a cage match, which is a ludicrous match to give away on free TV in hindsight. As the rules of the match are escape only, the way is clearly paved for some shenanigans, even when the whole point of a cage match is to stop those types of interactions.

Austin destroys Jericho, who is left bleeding badly in the middle of the ring. Channelling St Valentine’s Day Massacre Vince McMahon, the double bird from Jericho is enough to keep Austin from leaving the ring when he has the champion beat. Unsurprisingly, the next time Austin looks to head out of the cage, Booker T arrives and slams the cage door on Austin’s bald dome. Jericho crawls to the door and retains the title by the skin of his teeth.

At this time, Ric Flair had bought shares off of Shane and Stephanie McMahon at the tail end of the Invasion storyline, leaving him and Vince as co-owners of the company. The following week on Raw, Ric Flair demanded that Jericho defend his title once more, with Ric Flair the referee. His opponent – Rob Van Dam. To ‘even’ the odds, Vince McMahon would join the commentary booth to give him a close-up view of proceedings in the 17th December Raw main event.

In some ways, the match highlights why Rob Van Dam probably never was a bigger star than his athleticism probably warranted. Sure, an early five star frog splash tease turns into a crossbody to the outside in a visually impressive spot, but the majority of the match is fairly pedestrian, the crowd only really getting interested by a Van Dam cannonball senton off of the top rope. It felt like the crowd knew that Rob Van Dam never really had a chance to take the gold, even after he breaks the Walls of Jericho by grabbing the ropes.

When there is a face guest referee and a heel champion, a clash is always inevitable, and Flair and Jericho get in each other’s faces, leading to Flair shoving Jericho into a Van Dam spinkick. Just as it seems that RVD might pick up the victory with the five star frog splash, McMahon drops his headset and grabs Flair out of the ring for the disqualification. Jericho keeps his belt, but we get the fan friendly visual of Flair and Van Dam slapping duelling figure fours on Jericho and McMahon.

In real life, McMahon did the only thing he could do and saved the title for his chosen champion. In this alternate reality, McMahon, by getting involved, hands the title directly to Jericho’s opponent.

Welcome your new WWE World Heavyweight Champion – Rob Van Dam.

download (1).jpg

 

This means the title, rather than being contested by wrestling luminaries such as Jericho, Austin or The Rock, would now spend time mired in the mid card. How long can Rob Van Dam hold it for? Does he make it out of the year as champion? Who will be the next ‘real’ world champion? Find out next week on ‘Tracking the ‘Real’ World champion’.

Standings:

  1. Chris Jericho (1 reign, 1 title defense)
  2. Rob Van Dam (1 reign)