too many titles?

It's been recently announced that NXT is going to introduce a secondary title, which is to be introduced at the TakeOver event during WrestleMania weekend. The title is going to be the North American Title. If I've heard this right, it'll be determined in a 6-man ladder match.

After the WrestleMania weekend, the 205 Live brand is expected to introduce Cruiserweight Tag Team Titles. Last time I saw this was in WCW during their dying days.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out if adding more titles is a brilliant idea or simply overkill. Honestly, I feel these decisions could go either way. There are pros and cons to this.

The pros?

NXT currently has the a heavyweight title, tag team titles, and a woman's title. A secondary title could be beneficial for those who aren't in a tag team, not a female, or for those who simply aren't ready for the heavyweight title. Secondary titles do give wrestlers something to shoot for that aren't involved in the top title. Many wrestlers have benefitted from holding secondary titles over the years. Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Triple H & many others often held titles like the Intercontinental Title long before holding the WWE title.

Secondary titles do help promotions to groom wrestlers to eventually become top stars. Adding the North American title to NXT could be helpful when it comes to grooming people in NXT.

Plus, you can only have so many people involved with the NXT title at any given time. You only want your best people fighting for the title. For those that should have a title but aren't ready for the heavyweight title, a secondary title would be something for them to fight for.

In 205 Live, I'm not so sure about adding tag team titles. How many people does the brand have on the roster? 16?  How many of those people are in a team?

Honestly, I haven't kept up with a lot of WWE programming as of late, so I'm not entirely sure how many cruiserweights they have under contract. Depending on how many cruiserweights they're working with, adding tag team titles for the division could be pulled off.

Personally, I wouldn't make the cruiserweight title or their tag team titles exclusive to the 205 Live brand. I would allow the titles to be defended on Raw AND Smackdown Live. Again, I haven't paid much attention to WWE as of late, so I don't know if they're still on Raw or not. Not even sure if they get any time on Smackdown.

To be honest, I would even allow the titles to be defended on NXT as well.

If WWE is still planning on doing a brand specific to the United Kingdom, perhaps the cruiserweight & tag titles could be defended on the UK show as well. This would give the titles more challengers. At the same time, fans would have another reason to watch the show.

Speaking of a UK brand, I don't know if WWE is still considering a brand for the UK. They still have the United Kingdom Championship. It's been defended in NXT, treated like a secondary title, as well as independent promotions in the United Kingdom.

Is this something WWE is still planning or working on? Maybe I should just get off my ass and try to find out sometime.

While more titles could be beneficial, there are also downsides to this.

As an example, WWE does have a lot of titles already. Let's break it down a bit.

RAW:
Universal Title
Intercontinental
Tag Team
Women's

SMACKDOWN:
WWE Title
United States
Tag Team
Women's

NXT:
NXT Title
WWE United Kingdom Title
Tag Team
Women's

205 Live:
WWE Cruiserweight Title

In the different brands, we've got 13 championships already being defended. 13 different titles to build storylines around. 13 titles that you need to keep a fresh supply of challengers for.

My concern is that WWE is going to devalue it's titles by adding more. I feel there's too much saturation as it is. Like it or not, but fans have a short attention span as it is. If fans have too much to try and remember, this could hurt the product if they have too much to think about.

I hope WWE can make this work. With WWE branching out, perhaps having more titles is a necessity. We'll see.