The big news from yesterday's WWE Fatal Four Way PPV was that WWE changed both their World champions on the same night again, a practice that has become fairly common for WWE over the last 20 months. This time, Sheamus pinned John Cena to win the WWE title in a Fatal Four Way match with Edge and Randy Orton after interference from the NXT Season One Guys, and Rey Mysterio pinned Jack Swagger to win the World Heavyweight title in a Fatal Four Way match with Big Show and CM Punk after Kane interfered and took care of Punk. Though both title changes furthered current WWE storylines and put over the Fatal Four Way PPV gimmick, long term they were counterproductive as they continued to further the trend of WWE devaluing their own World titles through frequent changes often with screwy finishes. Indeed, Dave Meltzer went on a passionate rant about this issue on his June 21st Wrestling Observer radio show:
Dave Meltzer: The thing is that when you switch all the titles, you know, this is one of the problems, and again this is the thing where it's sort of frustrating, OK, when you see this, because if you had told me you remember that they were gonna go and every single PPV practically they were going to start changing the titles, OK, I would go there's gonna come a point where people aren't gonna give a shit about the titles and then your numbers are gonna be down, which is exactly what happened. I mean it wasn't even, I mean anyone could have thought of that because it's like there's so much history that tells you that, you know, if you keep switching the titles, that the title changes don't mean anything. And I mean the worst thing that happened, and luckily this wasn't on the show, is after John Cena gets this big beating, OK, he recovers and he's fine and he's doing mic work on the live thing going like you know I'm not that mad about losing the title because titles change all the time anyway, I'm mad about these guys interfering on my turf, you know the turf war thing.
Bryan Alvarez: He better not say that tomorrow.
Dave Meltzer: I bet you he does.
Bryan Alvarez: Oh God.
Dave Meltzer: I bet you he was practicing for his interview tomorrow.
He later confirmed that Rey's title win was a transparent attempt by WWE to placate him for cancelling his planned one month vacation after The Undertaker, originally scheduled for Rey's spot in the Fatal Four Way title match at the PPV, suffered a broken orbital bone and needed the summer off to recover:
Dave Meltzer: The reason for this title change is because you know they told him that you know he was getting a month off, and then they took it back, and they knew he was mad and it was just you know largely to make him happy you know because Rey's one of these guys where you know if you make him World champion, you know he's from that old school where that's gonna make a difference, so they knew that if they put the belt on him, plus they weren't really happy with Swagger, you know which God only knows it was Swagger's fault with the way he was booked, but I mean whatever, that's fine.