Vince Russo said the WWF's influx of new singles titles was something that naturally happened and believes their purpose was to get more wrestlers over with the crowd.
For many years, WWF mainly featured a couple of singles titles before the Attitude Era: the WWE and Intercontinental titles. But around 1997, other titles such as the Light Heavyweight and Hardcore titles made their way to WWE television.
Russo appeared on "The List & Ya Boy" podcast and said WWF didn't really have a set plan to introduce the new titles, saying that it was an organic process. But once those titles were made, writing storylines for those titles was the same as writing storylines for the main titles.
"It kinda happened organically," Russo said. "We didn't sit there and said, 'in June, we're bringing this title, come November we're going to break in this title.' It just happened organically. I still believe that a title should be a means of getting someone over. I still believe, if done correctly, titles could still be very, very valuable, but I don't think they use them well in WWE. I don't think titles mean much today... Once the titles were in play, we would just write for those performers like we would for anybody else."
Since the Attitude Era ended and the WWF was rebranded as the WWE, other singles titles were introduced, such as the Cruiserweight, United States and World Heavyweight titles. There have also been several incarnations for women's titles, including the Divas, Raw and SmackDown Women's championships.
You can listen to the podcast in the video above. The segment with Russo starts around 37:30 mark. "The List & Ya Boy" with Sean Ross Sapp and Fightful owner Jimmy Van is live on Fightful and on YouTube every Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET.
