No title in either the WWE, or any other promotion really, has changed hands more than the 24/7 Championship.
Though it was only christened in 2019 and handed to Titus O'Neal by none other than Mick Foley, the belt has changed handed on 177 different occasions since its inception and has been held by everyone from R-Truth and Akira Tozawa to Doug Flutie, The Gobbledy Gooker – seven times – Rob Gronkowski, both of the Singh Brothers, Santa Claus, Pat Patterson, and both members of the team now known as FTR at the exact same time.
That's… a lot.
With some performers quite literally only employed to chase after the title, which can be defended 24/7 as long as a referee is present, watching a swarm of 24/7 Geeks – as Brian Alvarez would put it – chase around a performer in the backstage area, during a match, or, on the rare occasion, out in the wild, the belt is loved by some, loathed by others, and tolerated by the vast majority of fans who have accepted that it's a part of the WWE's weekly television and presumably one of Vince McMahon's favorite parts of the show.
But on the July 18th edition of RAW, the belt jumped the shark, or should I say, The Gobbledy Gooker, in the most ridiculous way with not one, not two, not three, not four, not even five, but six title changes in the matter of about a minute, with the poor referees and ring announcers barely able to keep up with who did what in the middle of a female trios match headlined by Alexa Bliss.
If you love the title, this was peak entertainment. If not, well, read on, and you can watch how far the belt inspired by the old Hardcore Championship has fallen.
WWE booked an all-time 24/7 Championship sequence on RAW.
When Alexa Bliss hit the ring for a trios match that also featured Asuka, Dana Brooke, Doudrop, Nikki A.S.H., and Tamina, most fans at least had an idea of where things were about to go. Brooke had her 24/7 belt in the promotional picture, and while that graphic isn't created by the performers – obviously – in this case, it couldn't become any more prophetic, as, mere minutes into the match, things broke down in the worst possible way.
Things started off normally enough… at least until Akira Tozawa hit the ring and pinned Brooke for the 1-2-3. He held up the belt like Gollum finally getting his Precious before, in quick succession, A.S.H. pinned Akira Tozawa for the win, Bliss pinned her former tag team partner for the win, Doudrop pinned Bliss for the win, Tamina pinned her current trios partner for the win and then, before her name could even be announced, Brooke swung in, rolled her up, and got her belt back yet again.
Multiple 24/7 Champions were crowned, but the night ends the way it started with @DanaBrookeWWE as the champ! #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/LLc7DvnZwH
— WWE (@WWE) July 19, 2022
Now, theoretically, the match should have been over when Bliss pinned A.S.H., as the duo were on opposite sides of the v.s. symbol and her shoulder were on the mat for long enough for a referee to count to three but for one reason or another – read: comedy – that wasn't the case. No, after failing to take part in any of the shenanigans, Asuka swooped in, pinned A.S.H. for the second time in the match, and was awarded the victory, with the “Empress of Tomorrow” dancing it out with Bliss as the show went to commercial break.
If you love smart, savvy, old-school wrestling loaded with in-ring psychology, lockups, and believable finishes, this probably drove you up a wall; this, you probably said, damaged the business and is the type of stuff wrestlers like “Joey Nutella” pull off in their backyard outlaw mud shows, but on the same show that once featured the likes of Ric Flair, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
And yet, for fans of the aforementioned backyard outlaw mud shows, as well as children, pets, and fans of the sort of slapstick comedy made famous by the likes of the Marx Brothers or Charlie Chaplin a century ago, this was a successful segment that packaged an unreal number of pops into double-digit seconds.
Hey, if RAW‘s PG rating is about to become a thing of the past, at least it's going down swinging.
In the grand scheme of things, dedicating roughly 10 minutes of a three-hour wrestling show to the 24/7 championship isn't the worst thing imaginable, especially since it doesn't happen every week. The belt has its fans, it gives contracted performers something to do, and, considering how release-happy the WWE has been over the past two years, it's likely the only reason R-Truth and Akira Tozawa still have jobs.
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