WWE: WWE's New Title History - interesting notes arise

WWE.com has updated their title history section, which they are relaunching. Originally, they just had the history of the Intercontinental title but now they have the history of the WWE Title as well as the WWE (Smackdown!) Tag Team Titles. All histories have pictures of each title holder with the belt at the time they held it.

However, with the publishing of the WWE Title history, two very interesting notes arise.

The first concerns the way WWE chooses to refer to Hulk Hogan. In the WWE Title history, the icon of sports entertainment is never referred to as Hulk Hogan, but rather Hollywood Hogan. The reason for concern about this is that Hogan did not take the Hollywood part of his name until he jumped ship to WCW, yet all of his title reigns, especially his one in 1984, refers to him as Hollywood Hogan, and not Hulk Hogan.

For those who don't know, Marvel Comincs and WWE have been fighting for claims to the "Hulk" name for years, and by this, it seems that WWE has finally caved to Marvel.

The second note revolves around WWE's reluctancy to reveal actual history of the title. With the creation of the IC Title history, WWE released a lot more information about its creation and history than ever before. Many took this as a sign that WWE would start to release more information on the history of all their titles, not just the IC Title. With the release of the WWE Title history, it looks like WWE isn't going to be releasing much information about their titles. Instead of giving the readers the complete history, WWE continues to shroud the creation of the title and its first champion, Buddy Rogers. Instead of explaining the situation with the NWA, WWE continues to push the bogus "Rio De Janerio tournament" story that they used for practically every title in the early days of the WWWF/WWF/WWE. To go with this, WWE refuses to recognize that Antonio Inoki ever won the title.

For those who do not know, Inoki won the title from Backlund on the 30th of November in 1979 in Japan. Backlund won the title back almost a week later, but due to interference, the title was returned to Inoki who refused to take it. Backlund defeated a local jobber to win the belt back in America. After all this, WWE wiped out this history and refused the whole fact that Inoki ever won the title. In the old Title History section of WWE (which was around in 2001), WWE was at the time recognizing the change. Many are boggled as to why WWE would refuse to acredit Inoki now, as they already have; but with the coming shows in Japan, many say that perhaps some bad dealings, meetings, or situations have been going on between Inoki and Vince, and Vince is just punishing Inoki by doing this.

It would not be the first time Vince and WWE has wiped someone out of WWE history as a means of punishment, so do not rule it out.

Wrestling Exposed