WWE Hall of Famer “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase recently appeared on an episode of his “Everybody’s Got a Pod” podcast, where he discussed a number of topics including which belt was more prestigious – the NWA World Heavyweight Title or the WWE Title.
DiBiase said, “It’s hard to just flat out make [that call]. Because you know, in some ways it’s like, we’re maybe comparing the apples to oranges here. Because again, the NWA World Champion[ship] was defended in like five or six or seven, however many territories in the country that were affiliated with the NWA… I don’t know. Back in that day when all of wrestling was regional, I would say absolutely hands down, the NWA World Title was the most prestigious. But once Vince was established nationally, and then obviously internationally, yeah. You know, it’d be great for the — yeah, then I would have loved to have had that belt. Because you’re the guy.”
On why WWE likes for their champions to be babyfaces:
“Because it’s not so much, you know — obviously it is selling tickets, but also it’s like selling merchandise. It’s kind of like, you want your champion to be the hero for the little kids so they can go out and buy the action figures and all that stuff. But the flip side of that is you know, I had a lot of action figures too. Why? Because the good guys got to have somebody to wrestle.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)