5 Ways The 24/7 Title Has Been A Bust (& 5 Ways It Has Been A Success)

In 2019 WWE introduced a new championship on the May 20th edition of Monday Night Raw. It was the 24/7 Title, a curiously designed green and gold belt that would be defended 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. As a result, the title could be won at any time -- and not held for very long, either.

The establishment of a new title is always an exciting prospect, but to many fans, the 24/7 Title has largely been a failure, even if you take it at face value. To others, it’s actually been a successful way to spice up WWE programming.

10 A Bust: Disappointing from the Get-Go

WWE may have shot itself in the foot thanks to the way they initially rolled out the title. They promised a new championship and got Mick Foley to introduce it, building up fan expectations that they were going to revive the defunct Hardcore Title.

As soon as Foley unveiled the 24/7 Championship belt, the fans in the arena booed it out of the building. From there, it was an uphill battle to get anyone interested in it.

9 A Success: R-Truth Spotlight

R-Truth has enjoyed the strangest career. The guy is a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, held multiple tag belts in WWE and TNA, his partnership with The Miz was so dangerous that it made WWE an unsafe work environment, and he’s also spent the last several years as a pure comedy wrestler.

WWE loves comedy but rarely rewards it, so there being an entire division devoted to R-Truth’s antics is great, especially considering that he’s now won the title over 40 times. If there’s any justice, that number will reach the triple digits.

8 A Bust: A Graveyard of Talent

Aside from R-Truth, most of the participants in the 24/7 Championship are wrestlers normally stuck at catering. Guys like EC3, Eric Young, and Bobby Roode who creative doesn’t have anything for. It’s cool that these underused, undervalued talents are given something to do, but given how often they just engage in cartoonish chases down hallways, it mostly feels like they’re glorified extras.

The whole situation gets even more depressing when you remember that one such undervalued talent, Ember Moon, got so injured during one of these 24/7 segments that her wrestling career was nearly ended.

7 A Success: Fun Title Changes

Because the rules of the 24/7 Championship stipulate that the title can change hands anywhere and anytime, that means that title changes don’t necessarily have to happen in traditional in-ring bouts or even be won by WWE-contracted talent.

Several celebrities have won the title, inducing electronic musician Marshmello, and title changes have happened on planes and at Drake Maverick’s wedding. In that sense, the Title has really lived up to its promise.

6 A Bust: Inconsistent Rules

The one problem with the 24/7 Championship is that WWE immediately broke its own rules by having its title holders compete in traditional matches where the 24/7 rule was suspended.

Sometimes this makes sense, like when the match in question was actually for the 24/7 Title in order to keep other wrestlers from disrupting the match. However, sometimes the 24/7 Champ would just compete in non-title matches, which feels like it goes against the spirit of the belt.

5 A Success: Great Use of Social Media

Initially, the 24/7 Championship was met with a great deal of criticism because it would only be “defended” on Raw or SmackDown.

But soon enough WWE started posting videos online of title changes happening outside the ring and sometimes even outside the arena, at which point the title really started coming into its own. R-Truth pinning a sleeping Jinder Mahal on a plane, for example, is a classic title change.

4 A Bust: No Eternal Brock Lesnar Reign

It feels like there’s a lot of potential for the 24/7 Championship to fall into the hands of an unbeatable monster, which would either be a great way to deactivate the title or change direction with it. It’s something that felt like it was going to happen in that great lead-up to the 2020 Royal Rumble with R-Truth and Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar, briefly tickled by Truth’s antics, ended up delivering an F-5 to Truth, laying him out on the mat. It seemed like the moment was ripe for Brock Lesnar to pin R-Truth and keep the title forever. It would be a deeply cruel thing to do, considering Lesnar was already the WWE Champion and had no need for it, and therefore a perfect heel move.

3 A Success: Anyone Can Win It

Because the 24/7 Title is so frivolous, that means that it doesn’t matter who wins it -- but in a good way. As stated, multiple celebrities have won it, but that doesn’t cheapen the belt because the ability for anybody to win it is part of the fun.

It also allows aging WWE Legends to have a little more to do when they make their inevitable cameos, like the time “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase bought it from Alundra Blayze.

2 A Bust: The Worst Comedy Belt

The 24/7 Title is hardly the first devoted comedy belt in wrestling. Over in Japan, DDT Pro-Wrestling has the DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship, which has similar 24/7 rules and a powerful streak of absurdism running through it.

And Dragon Gate Pro-Wrestling had the Open the Owarai Gate Championship, a comedy title where winners were often determined by how funny fans found a wrestler’s performance -- or, in one case, a referee’s. The amount of creativity and silliness those titles inspired makes the 24/7 Championship, which is entirely determined by surprise roll-ups, pale in comparison.

1 A Success: A Place for WWE Comedy

WWE loves goofy, lowbrow comedy -- the kind so childish that even a kid would balk at it. Having a championship division entirely devoted to WWE comedy is a wise decision, as it compartmentalizes it for fans who want their pro wrestling to be more serious.

Just imagine if they established this title in 2010 -- Vickie Guerrero surely would have been a 456-time 24/7 Champion by the time she left WWE.

NEXT: 10 Funniest Things R-Truth Ever Said, Ranked