WWE's vanishing title defenses: Is it time to bring back the 30-day rule?
Jade Cargill went more than three months without defending her WWE title. Is that a problem?WWE via Getty ImagesIf you watched WWE during the Daniel Bryan era, you'll remember the 30-day rule the idea that a champion has to defend their title within that period or risk forfeiting the gold. The rule wasn't always applied in practice, but it did at least speak to a legitimate concept in pro-wrestling: That champions shouldn't be allowed to rest on their laurels.I was thinking about the 30-day rule this past week when I was weighing upon one of the biggest mysteries on "SmackDown." No, not the contents of that ridiculous crate, but the question of how Nick Aldis usually presented as the more competent of WWE's two weekly general managers allowed Jade Cargill to go 104 days without defending her WWE Women's Championship.It wasn't like the champ was injured. During that period, Cargill actually had three separate singles matches on "SmackDown;" for some reason, they were all just deemed to be non-title matches. In fact, if it wasn't for Cargill occasionally flexing her belt during various segments with Jordynne Grace, you could have plausibly forgotten she even won the Women's Championship back in November in the first place.Cargill isn't the only one in WWE to go months without a title defense. It's now been 86 days (and counting) since Dominik Mysterio defended the Intercontinental Championship he so proudly won back from John Cena at Survivor Series in November. It's true that "Dirty Dom" has been nursing an injury, but that's something he picked up while wrestling on an AAA show rather than defending his belt in WWE.Is it becoming normal for champions to put their feet up? When I crunched the data on the past two years or so of WWE booking, I found there were several examples of titles going undefended for months. In fact, the problem has become so common that The Judgment Day managed to go 84 days without defending their tag titles on two separate occasions: Once in 2024, and then again last summer.And the worst offender of all? Logan Paul clocked up 118 days in 2024 between defending his U.S. Championship at WrestleMania XL and mounting his next defense at SummerSlam. During that time, he was still active in WWE he even wrestled Cody Rhodes at King of the Ring in Saudi Arabia but just didn't get around to defending his championship.LONGEST GAPS BETWEEN WWE TITLE DEFENSES (SINCE 2024)Logan Paul, U.S. Championship: 118 daysJade Cargill, Womens Championship: 104 daysIyo Sky, Womens Championship: 93 daysDominik Mysterio, Intercontinental Championship: 86 days (and counting)Gunther, World Heavyweight Championship: 85 daysJudgment Day, World Tag Team Championships: 84 daysJudgment Day, World Tag Team Championships: 84 daysIyo Sky, Womens World Championship: 84 daysSeth Rollins, World Heavyweight Championship: 83 daysCody Rhodes, WWE Championship: 78 daysIs there any merit in bringing back the 30-day rule to put an end to champions squatting on their gold? You can see how it might even help juice up the creative process a bit, allowing "Raw" and "SmackDown's" general managers to declare a surprise opponent once a champion has exceeded their leeway.Imagine it: Dominik Mysterio has been weaseling out of a match against say Sami Zayn for weeks. Adam Pearce can then summon the heel champion to give him an ultimatum: 'Either say yes to the match you've been offered tonight or I'll pick someone for you to face next week.' Then who does "Dirty Dom" see entering the room afterward? Why, it's only Oba Femi looking for his next opponent."Go ahead, Dom, make my day." - Adam Pearce, probably.WWE via Getty ImagesOf course, the 30-day rule works perfectly well in the realms of my own fantasy booking scenario, but we shouldn't overlook the obvious drawbacks. For a start, it would place a big constraint on the creative process, requiring WWE to occasionally book matches for the sake of it rather than when the moment feels right.Take our Judgment Day example from last year back when they racked up 84 days without a title defense, was anyone really crying out to see another match between them and The New Day? That sort of repetitive and uninspired booking would likely lead to resentment toward the 30-day rule.WWE also has a lot more belts sitting around its Stamford offices than it did 10 years ago. You now have four separate singles titles on the women's side of things (compared to just one in 2014), while the men's tag-team belts have been split across the two brands. That's a lot of title matches that would need to be booked on a regular basis, leaving less time for everything else.And let's not forget the fact that the current booking schedule practically necessitates gaps between certain title defenses. When the whole point of the Royal Rumble is to set up a main-event match at WrestleMania the one that's supposed to help sell those struggling stadium tickets there's little sense in having the champion defend in the meantime.Perhaps it's better, then, to just let the various championships establish their own rhythm. We've already seen how the revived open challenges for the men's U.S. Championship which has led to near-weekly title matches over on "SmackDown" has been a huge hit. We've also had CM Punk busting out regular defenses on TV, including some we weren't expecting, like Punk vs. AJ Styles in January.That sort of flexibility is probably better than any rigid rules around title defenses. But that doesn't mean WWE should lose sight of some of the more egregious examples of lazy champions we've seen lately. A 30-day rule would have stopped Jade Cargill going three months without a single defense but then again, so would a simple bit of common sense.
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