Backstage News On Who Came Up With Idea for WWE’s New 24/7 Championship

The WWE introduced the new 24/7 Championship this past Monday on RAW, which was similar to the old Hardcore title (minus the hardcore rules) or the DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship. Anyone can win it at any time and it’s always on the line. You can get a better idea for the rules by clicking here. Like that title, WWE has plans to film people trying to win it away from the arenas.

The latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the new belt was actually an idea from the USA Network, who has been pressuring WWE to do something about the declining ratings in the third hour of RAW. We previously noted that WWE has been trying to add luster to the third hour in order to keep fans around, which is why the title was debuted to kick things off this past Monday.

USA had been pushing Vince McMahon to fix the third hour as the 10-11 PM hour had been the highest rated on RAW (even for the three hour RAWs for a time) until recently. One of the moves was the Wild Card rule, which allows Smackdown talent to appear on RAW (which will also keep Smackdown from looking like a secondary show as they prepare to move it to FOX).

USA Network has been sending “all kinds of ideas” to WWE, which were said to be “terrible”. McMahon knew he had to pick one of them so he went with the 24/7 title, which was described as the best of the bunch. While it can be defended at any time, the reason Mick Foley said that it will be for the third hour of RAW is specifically in the hopes that fans will tune in to see what happens with it.