On the second day of AEW's Fyter Fest, Taz presented his protégé, Brian Cage, with his own World Title: the FTW World Heavyweight championship. Long-time fans may remember that title. Unfortunately, while Taz' promo was decent, he did not exactly do a great job in explaining what the title meant and why it was created. As it has been 23 years since then, it might be worth taking a walk down Memory Lane.In 1998, Taz was on a roll in ECW. Taz was red-hot and insanely over. Under the guidance of Paul Heyman, he had been carefully crafted into wrestling's first MMA-hybrid gimmick. Over the course of almost two years, he basically never lost. It wasn't too surprising that Taz was going to be the next ECW World Heavyweight champion.
There was just one problem: the reigning champion, Shane Douglas, was out for months with an injured elbow. However, ECW had built towards that match. Douglas was the biggest heel in the company. ECW needed the payoff, and Taz needed that final win.This is where Heyman's creative genius came through as he made the best of a bad situation. Taz, who had lost the TV title to Douglas' Triple Threat teammate Bam Bam Bigelow earlier in the year, decided that since neither Douglas nor ECW management wanted to give him a World title shot, he would defend his own title: the FTW title.The Human Suplex Machine went on and defended his FTW World Title, until he lost it intentionally to Sabu in December 1998, when he pulled his former partner and rival on top of himself. Why? Because Douglas' return to the ring was imminent and Taz, therefore, did not need the title anymore.A few weeks later, in January, Taz defeated Douglas at Guilty As Charged 1999 and became ECW World Heavyweight Champion. Two months later, at Living Dangerously 1999, Taz unified the ECW and FTW World Titles by beating Sabu. After that, the belt disappeared, having served its storyline purpose.
Until now, that is. Taz never went into the history of the title, although that history is crucial to understand the angle as to why Cage was now presented with the belt. In both instances, the belt is brought about because a champion dodges – or in this case, has to postpone – a match with a legitimate challenger. In 1998, Paul Heyman created the title because he needed a World champion while Shane Douglas was on the shelf - for months. Compare this scenario to now, where the title match has been postponed by one week and the central idea of the title – to create a "true" World Champion in the absence of another – is not met.
Another question is how the FTW title will be used going forward. If Moxley wins clean next week, the entire angle – and belt – have had zero impact. Brian Cage, therefore, needs an "out," meaning a legit argument as to why he should be World Champion in order to continue with the FTW world title concept. For example, Cage could either have Moxley pinned while the referee is out or distracted, or Moxley could cheat to win. In any way, to continue the storyline, AEW will need to give Cage a legitimate grievance. Why? Because that is the whole reason to have the FTW World Championship. Otherwise, the entire angle last night makes little sense.