Essentially what I’m going to do here is to try and talk out a fundamental logic of challenge titles. Obviously, my main interest is in pro wrestling, but a lot of this is drawn from my fairly shallow look into how boxing and MMA titles are handled. I’m not sure if I can say there’s a “point” to this. I am, as always, trying to give more ammunition to a “sport-style” presentation for pro wrestling, and this is part of that. My hope is that this investigation can help provide a more realistic basis for wrestling stories than backstage attacks and burning down houses. But I’m not saying this is going to be a definite be-all end-all for how people have to look at titles. This is really more for my own purposes, but I think these types of investigations should be done for sports and I’m happy to join in.
What is a championship title? We could break out the dictionary but I think we get what it is on that level. But what is a title to a fighter? Terence Crawford, the undisputed super middleweight champion in boxing, just recently retired in 2025 and vacated all the titles he held. Crawford is 38 and I think he’s still got a few more years in him. This doesn’t seem to be a “real” retirement, in that it’s pretty likely he will fight again; he’s not retiring like a regular worker does, where they expect to not work anymore in their lifetime. But this event I think is pretty revealing of several important facts about titles:
- Fighters don’t rate having titles for the titles’ own sake.
- Fighters don’t make money just by holding the title.
- Fighters are primarily interested in the money side, at least as far as it concerns titles.
- A fighter’s salary does not necessarily increase due to holding a title.
All of these facts are actually apparent in pro wrestling, especially if you listen to guys talk about having the title; Jake Roberts was famously ambivalent about it when talking out-of-character, for instance. Actually holding the title doesn’t matter much. If Roberts etc. were going to make more money at this while champion, they probably would have valued holding the title more, but they never did. And I want to emphasize something that I probably should have known but simply never thought deeply about: champions don’t make more money than non-champions. There is no “title bonus” or clause in a contract that says you get more money if you hold a belt; if there is, it’s not common. I’ve seen a lot of talk about salaries, bonuses, revenue share, etc., and nowhere does anybody talk about such an incentive.
To be straightforward about this analysis, we’re going to assume that fighters only care about money. This obviously isn’t true; fighters care about competition, they care about history, they care about glory, they care about grudges, etc. etc. But as far as final decisions, a lot of those choices will be made in the light of money. A fighter might care a great deal about history and yet be willing to put that aside if the money is good enough. These other concerns can be considered after the money question. That is to say, if we’re looking at this in terms of pro wrestling motivation, money is the baseline motivation for being involved and trying to get higher on the ladder, while other motivations are like additions to that.
If we’re saying that a fighter is only fighting because of money, we have to assume that the titles matter to fighters for money as well. But if the titles don’t come with guaranteed bonuses or salary increases, how do they lead to more money? To understand this, we have to look at things from the promoter’s side. We’ll assume that they mostly want money, too. How do they get it?
The promoter is the one who actually stages the match. They organize the venue, they advertise the show to get people to arrive, they organize any broadcasting to be done, etc. A fighter’s manager is the one that negotiates for fights on the fighter’s behalf. These negotiations will be with the promoter and with the other fighter’s manager. This is how it goes in a general format. In MMA and in pro wrestling, it’s common for the promoter to also be the manager for all of their fighters; in boxing, managers and promoters are often separate (this is legally enforced, at least in the USA (at least for now)). When the match is staged, the promoter is the one who gets the money and then they disburse that money to the fighters, the venue, the broadcasters, and anyone else who needs to be paid; in boxing, sanctioning bodies take a cut as well. Money generally comes from tickets paid by individuals (including pay-per-view buys) and rates negotiated by any broadcasters involved, generally somehow linked to their expected or actual individual viewership (in the US, often through selling ad space on the broadcasts).
This sets up several parties, who we can categorize thus for our purposes: the promoter; the fighters (and their management); the middlemen (including the venues, broadcasters, sanctioning bodies, etc.); and the public. There’s also another party: the media. The media is really part of the public, but it’s also it’s own thing. The media acts like a conduit which funnels the real world into a form which is palatable to the public. It “stands for” the public in many ways, but not completely. The split between media and public can be seen when the media hypes up a show only for it to be poorly attended. Why does the media “stand for” the public in this incomplete way? It’s because the media reaches the whole public and, therefore, is thought to reflect the whole public, while also being produced by a relatively small group. Therefore it’s easier to simply look at what is said in media and take it to be a reflection of the public than it would be to attempt to understand the public as individuals.
Anyway. The job of the promoter is pretty simple in these terms: put on a show which will draw the highest amount of the public possible, because more people watching means more money for the promoter. How does the promoter do this? Again, we’re going to have to simplify, this time for the public. I think an investigation as to why certain sports are popular and certain sports aren’t deserves its own full thorough scholarly treatment. That’s not something I have the resources for. I say that because the full question of “how does a promoter draw” can’t be answered without that kind of investigation. Instead, we have to take it for granted that the public does enjoy the kind of show being put on (boxing, MMA, wrestling, etc.). If that’s the case, the most obvious conclusion here is that the public will be most interested in the most excellent show possible. If it is a boxing show, it should be the most excellent boxing show that can be put on, and so on. To put on an excellent show, one must have excellent fighters. If there are a number of fighters existing, some will be more excellent than others, and some will be the most excellent. That is who the public is most interested in seeing. Following that, the best of the best is the one who the public is most interested in, and that is the champion.
Obviously, we can find exceptions to this as a strict rule, but even those cases play into my point. Conor McGregor was known for his “larger-than-life personality” but he was also a dominant fighter and a champion. Chael Sonnen, also known for being an entertaining personality who possibly carried the promotion for his big fights, nevertheless did not become a major star partly because he did not become a UFC champion. Outside factors do play a huge part, but it is still very important that a fighter be able to claim that they were the best of the best as a sign of their particular excellence and, therefore, of potential interest from the public. We call a fighter “exposed” when the level of hype they were able to build is not met by their skill in the match, and an “exposed” fighter generally loses the public’s interest unless they can redeem themselves in further fighters.
It’s in the promoter’s interest to be able to put on a show where they can have a championship match because that signals that they have a “best of the best” match: the most excellent match possible. For someone who is not highly informed about the event, this communicates very clearly that an excellent match is being presented. This helps draw in more of the public than might otherwise have been interested, and therefore makes the promoter more money.
As I get into this, I realize that this may read as somewhat condescending, but I’m not laying this out as if it isn’t known; I’m laying it out so that it has been laid out. While I think that many people are aware of this process, having it on the page allows me to think through it more clearly. If I’d read an account of this somewhere else I would probably just be pointing to that, but I haven’t. Let’s continue.
As far as the fighters go, it’s pretty obvious that a promoter will be willing to pay more money to a fighter who is more excellent than to one who is less excellent. Therefore it’s in the fighter’s interest to prove their excellence. The easiest way to do this is to win a championship title.
However, one thing has to be made very clear: no one gets paid if there is no show. If the promoter can’t put on a show, they don’t get any money. If the fighter doesn’t take part in the show, they don’t get any money. It is in both parties’ interest to put on successful shows. After this point, though, the interests of both parties diverge once again. Beyond putting on a successful show and their money, the main thing a fighter is interested in is their health, since that’s what allows them to keep going. Similarly, we can say that a promoter is primarily interested in their reputation. I say reputation rather than financial health or anything similar because a promoter can get financial backing as long as their reputation is good, but a promoter without a good reputation cannot promote effectively. Both “health” and “reputation” are simplifications but they will hold for the moment.
The title becomes a site of tension between a champion and the promotion. The champion wants to maximize the amount of money they can make while minimizing the damage to their health, which usually means they are more willing fight a less excellent opponent if they will end up with a similar amount of money. As I said earlier, this idea of “excellence” is a simplification, but I think it deserves a little hypothetical expansion as a way to clarify why that is. Going by what I’ve already said, a fighter will always make more money fighting against a more excellent opponent. In simple terms this is true, but when actually analyzing a fight, this is complicated.
What I’m going to present is still much more simple than the reality. If we’re talking about fighter excellence, we can obviously be talking about a kind of overall skill, generally derived from an analysis of a fighter’s skills in multiple different areas. However, it’s these different areas which can prove extremely decisive when we’re talking about health. Let’s say that “overall excellence” is represented by a “fighter ranking”, with a higher ranking meaning a more excellent fighter. A fighter could be highly ranked and renowned for their speed, or for their strength, or for their technical precision, and so on. Multiple fighters can be similarly ranked for different combinations of skills, and certain skills are more dangerous to certain fighters than others. A fighter who is able to move quickly might be less intimidated by a slow strong opponent and more intimidated by a similarly fast opponent, though both opponents are considered equal in overall terms and would bring an equal amount of money in the final accounting. In this situation, a fighter would choose the opponent they have a better chance against.
On top of this level of subjectivity, there are also the facts that actual skill does not always equal to “drawing ability” or popularity, and that the single excellence of the champion can be enough of a draw on its own. While a promoter is likely to prefer a match between two highly ranked fighters, it can be the case that a champion’s popularity is enough that their shows will be considered worth attending as long as their opponent is of some significant quality, even if not a fellow “star” themselves. There is also subjectivity in what a promoter will accept; this is the real world, after all, and compromises must be made. While a big “money match” might make a splash, if it leads to the dethroning of a popular champion, it may not seem to be worth it.
Again, this conclusion may seem counterintuitive, since the claim so far has been that it is a fighter’s excellence that leads to more money, not the label of champion. But it is better to say that it’s the perception of a fighter’s excellence which leads to more money, not the excellence itself. Most people don’t really understand the intricacies of boxing, even fans. Same for pro wrestling, mixed martial arts, etc. I include myself in “most people” here. I couldn’t give the kind of granular analysis required to rank a fighter’s skill out of 10 in different areas. We rely on these matters being broken down for us. One of the most important ways this is done is by having an official body with a solid reputation name someone as a champion.
Let’s take the example of Terence Crawford again. He did absolutely “retire” and vacate his official titles, but he already achieved recognition as The Ring magazine’s champion as well as holding the lineal championship in his weight class. Despite lacking his official titles, he has not actually given up the title of being the best super middleweight. For those who have not achieved that status, however, having an official title is key to maintaining a claim upon being the best. Crawford could afford to relinquish all titles because his leverage is secure. A less-accomplished and less-famous champion, however, relies upon the confirmation of the title to tell everyone that they are still the best of the best (or at least, have a solid claim to be such).
The promotion, on the other hand, wants to keep its reputation high and it is generally willing to sacrifice fighter health in order to do that. They want to put the most excellent fighters against one another as often as possible; if fighters didn’t object to working constantly, promoters would only vary which fighters they used for reasons of presenting variety itself. The promotion does not want to allow a fighter to duck any highly-ranked opponents because this looks bad for the promotion; it looks bad for the fighter as well, but an excellent fighter can ignore most criticism of this kind as far as making money is concerned. In order to protect its reputation, a promotion will try to put on the “best match” unless their champion (or other star fighter) objects to the point where it would be disruptive. Certain stars are popular enough that they can take lower-level competition, refusing potentially more lucrative match-ups as well as harming reputations, and still make more money for all involved than if they simply left and were replaced. It’s in this way that a title can be “held hostage” by a fighter: the promotion doesn’t want to lose the fighter and therefore accedes to their demands.
But remember: monetarily speaking, the title is of no importance. It does not on its own lead to higher pay. It instead gives a fighter a certain amount of leverage in future negotiations. A championship title is a kind of contract between the promotion and a fighter, in which the promotion agrees to recognize that the fighter is indeed the champion of their competition pool. This recognition endures; a champion might lose the title but they still remain a former champion. Even erasure should not be considered as removal but instead as a covering over of truth with a new truth; a fighter was crowned champion but they were found to be cheating and thus they have been un-championed: less “removed as champion” and more “recognized as a false champion”. For their part, the fighter agrees that they remain champion only on terms set by the promoter, with the understanding that the current champion is always considered to be the best even over former champions who might have some claim (a disputed win over the current champion, accusations of the champion ducking a match, etc.).
The note about erasure becomes important again as it concerns how a fighter loses the title. The only uncontestable way for a title to be lost is for the champion to be defeated in a sanctioned fight. Every other type of loss creates a potential dispute, leaving the defeated ex-champion with some piece of the title; this is called a title claim. While the “new champion” is generally regarded as the titleholder, the ex-champion may still claim to hold that title since they were not truly beaten. This can end up shifting the drawing power benefit of the title away from the official titleholder, in part or in full. While a title may be officially moved from one fighter to another, circumstances exist which may leave that former reign not fully covered over and therefore still active.
Of course, I have to clarify here that there are two planes or senses of erasure happening: first, erasure of the historical fact of a title reign; second, erasure of the current fact of a title reign. The second erasure does not imply the first, but the first erasure can imply the second (if the reign is also the current one). Let’s say that fighters A, B, and C have been the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd champions respectively, with C being the current champion. If D then wins the title, this is an example of the second erasure: C’s current title reign has been erased in favor of D’s title reign. If D was found to have been cheating, though, this would be an example of both the first and the second erasures: the first erasure is that D is no longer recognized as a champion at all, while the second erasure is declaring the title vacant instead of being held by D.
I think this ultimately leaves us with two classes of titles: competition pool titles (or “real” titles) and secondary titles (or “vanity” titles). Pool titles are what they say they are: they designate the best-of-the-best in a certain competition pool. A competition pool could be a weight class, gender split, territory, or some combination; there might be other criteria as well but these are the most common. Any other title is a vanity title. The difference is really found in where the kinds of title derive their primary meaning. The meaning, or legitimacy, of a pool title is as said: it shows that the holder is the best in the group. It may also have some historical or other socio-cultural weight to it that makes it important, but its key meaning comes out of its position. Vanity titles, on the other hand, only have that cultural cachet to fall back on.
Take the WWE Intercontinental Championship for example, perhaps the most significant secondary title in United States pro wrestling history. What does this actually mean? What does it represent? It’s obvious that there is no clear place for this belt in the pecking order. It certainly doesn’t restrict itself to any territory or other sort of division. What makes it a significant title is that it is presented as important by WWE and that it has a long history of being associated with top wrestlers and great matches. Unlike the pool titles, though, vanity titles have no urgency. There is no “mechanistic statement” being made here: winning the Intercontinental title doesn’t necessarily change your position in WWE at all, it doesn’t make you the top of a lesser mountain, it isn’t a real distinction of any kind. The Intercontinental champion is, at any moment, as far away from the WWE’s overall pool championship (currently the WWE Undisputed Championship, I think?) as any other wrestler on the roster is.
Contrast that with both boxing and the UFC. Boxing has a multitude of vanity titles to the point that many sanctioning bodies have muddied the waters around their pool titles as well. In boxing, the purpose that this multitude serves is that it allows for title matches to be put on even when the main world champion is not available. Because boxing is so widespread globally, has many levels to its competition, and has no single governing body, these titles do provide opportunities where they might not otherwise exist. There are of course pool titles which are lower than the world title, such as regional titles, but the relevance of these is minor compared to the world titles; the situation is similar for belts like the WBC Silver titles. On the other hand, the UFC does not have any permanent vanity or sub-world pool titles, and this is because UFC is a single promotion with a relatively small roster. They don’t need to rely on having “lesser” titles in order to drum up interest in their fighters. There is one vanity title, the so-called “BMF title”, and its reputation and usage is exactly the image of a vanity title: it’s derided by most fans and only put on fights which have no “real title” implications and which are already interesting. The BMF title does not increase the anticipation for a match because it means nothing. It’s a prize which exists only to exist.
I wanted to go a little bit further, but I think I’m going to hold off for now. I have a larger wrestling project percolating and more things to think on. Hopefully this piece has interested you.
P.S. I will say this: If you’ve read my previous attempts at thinking through how booking might work, the next project is going to take a hard turn, even though the destination remains the same.