WWE Officially Retires One of Its Championships
WWE officially retired the WWE 24/7 Championship this week, as confirmed by WWE.com on Wednesday. The website has officially removed Nikki Cross as one of its active champions and now lists the 24/7 title as one of its inactive championships, putting its timeline from 2019-2022. The title was introduced in May 2019 with the same 24/7 defense rule that the Hardcore Championship had back in the early 2000s. And while it produced plenty of viral moments, the title immediately disappeared from TV once Triple H took over WWE's booking in late July.
From that point on, the title was only seen and defended at live events, leading up to a number of shows where multiple people would win the title before Dana Brooke would win it back. She finally got the chance to defend it on this week's Raw and lost to Cross, who promptly dumped the title in a trash can.
"I'Il do whatever I want with it. Dump it on the Floor, inside the trash, outside in a dump, an incinerator.....bury the thing in a graveyard. Please, by all means, try and argue with me, try to stop me. I welcome it please. Hehehehehehehe honestly I won't bite," Cross wrote while posting the video from Raw. The title's history ends with R-Truth as the longest-reigning champion at 423 days across 53 reigns.
Dana Brooke's 24/7 Championship Outrage
Meanwhile, Brooke was incredibly frustrated the by entire ordeal — "Everything I have worked for & tried to elevate… LITERALLY IN THE TRASH!" Brooke had previously tried to pitch the idea in interviews of turning the 24/7 title into a midcard championship for the women's division a la the Intercontinental Championship.
"I've been wanting to transition the 24/7 Title into an IC title. I think it would be amazing," Brooke told NBC Sports Boston earlier this month. "We're building a roster, we have amazing women on the roster. With everyone coming back, why not? We have the tag team titles, but not everyone is teamed up. You have the storylines that are going for the women's titles, but the rest are just little stories in the mix. Why not go for an IC Title? This way, it's not secondary, it's just another thing to pour your heart and soul in and have that title and be given that opportunity and enhance the women's division."