One of those clichés in pro wrestling that’s become its own thing and grossly warped and distorted is the saying, “The money is in the chase.” It’s not untrue, but it’s been distorted due to a certain industry leader and sometimes their top challenger brand seeming to have all the energy for big title changes but has nothing for the follow-up.
The funny thing to me is that even the industry leader doesn’t believe that. Forget going back to the 1980s. Once John Cena broke through, how much time did he spend chasing the world title (or WWE title or whatever the true top title was) as opposed to holding it? Seems the money was in his being a champ. Roman Reigns. Same.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman, MJF, is the longest reigning AEW World champion to date. What was the big chase angle for his win? Where was the big chase angle for his loss to Samoa Joe? It seems like Tony Khan thought the money was in his holding the title.
“The money is in the chase” has become some slick cover for terribly unprepared title reigns, usually by babyfaces. If the thought isn’t just drop it back to the previous champ, companies booked in goofy ways will struggle to find compelling challengers or run through what they have in hotshot angles.
Kofimania was big fun and led to a big title win by a guy many thought would never be champ. Then he got a spring and summer of cold challengers in AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Kofi Kingston vs Randy Orton should have been hot, but they blew through that to feed him to Brock Lesnar. Where was his rematch? Smelt like a good time for Kofimania II with an even stronger champion. Get that chase money. Nope.
In the territory days, they believed the money was in the chase, so the top faces would very often get a lot of relatively short title reigns to keep them perpetually chasing gold. Tommy Rich was a three-time Georgia champ, three-time National champ, and seven-time tag champ. Rarely held any of them longer than a couple of months.
I’m not recommending the return of hot potato title runs. Companies ran that into the ground. Now we have multiple guys with double-digit world titles just for WWE alone, without counting WCW, TNA, or AEW. Just relax on applying classic wrestling booking to current TV pro wrestling. They don’t need any help making up their own kayfabe.
I mean, they do going by some of these angles, but they don’t.
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