The Accidental Call-Up

WWE had some pretty high hopes when they signed Sin Cara to a contract. He was going to be built up to take over from Rey Mysterio as the promotion’s lead luchaor. That’s no small task. Since debuting in 2002 Mysterio has become one of WWE’s go-to-guys as far as short notice storylines are concerned, which requires an ability to work with talent on any level and a connection with the audience not just in matches but in promos too. He’s also the company’s second biggest merchandise shifter (behind John Cena), mainly thanks to mask sales.

Sin Cara was never going to live up to the hype within his first few months in the company and it was unfair of WWE to expect him to. It took Mysterio several years to rise to the position he’s in now, and he did so at a time when the company’s roster wasn’t as thin on name talent as it is now. That allowed him to gain acceptance from the fans by interacting with a cast of characters that were already established as headliners.

What’s hampered Sin Cara’s rise is his inability to speak English. This stops him from reading the audience as well as he might and prevents him from communicating effectively with his opponents during matches.

Unless they happen to speak Spanish that is.

When Sin Cara was benched for a month because of a violation of the Wellness Policy™ developmental wrestler Hunico was called up to portray ‘The International Sensation’. Rumours at the time suggested that Sin Cara would be released from his contract or sent down to FCW to learn the WWE style and Hunico would inherit the blue mask.

As we all know, that didn’t happen.

Hunico instead stayed on the main roster as a character in his own right, first becoming an imposter Sin Cara, then Sin Cara Black, before finally losing his mask (in a mask versus mask match that happened far too quickly) and reverting to the Hunico name. Why did this happen? Because not only does Hunico speak Spanish and wrestle the lucha libre style Sin Cara is familiar with, making him an ideal opponent for the former Mistico, but he also showed he could work enjoyable matches against the rest of the roster during his time under as “the imposter”.

In recent weeks he has been joined by fellow FCW trainee Epico and RAW star Primo. That’s good for both of those men. Epico was unlikely to get called up to either main roster on his own merit while Primo was simply killing time on the RAW brand. Neither man’s prospects were great and this gives them the chance to rise through the ranks.

I’d have liked to see Hunico debut a new mask after losing his Sin Cara Black gimmick, or see Epico debut with a mask of some sort. Sadly it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I imagine the reason is that WWE are wary of putting a mask on a heel because it makes them mysterious and indicates to kids that they’re a successor to Rey Mysterio (because children watching WWE are only used to seeing Mysterio, a lifelong babyface, under a mask and would naturally assume any new masked men possess a similar disposition). It’s a shame, but I can understand this decision.

Hunico should have debuted a new masked look following his mask versus mask loss to Sin Cara

To say Hunico has better long term prospects than Sin Cara would be foolish. WWE are clearly still behind Cara and want him to succeed as Mysterio’s replacement. But Hunico isn’t likely to disappear any time soon: he’s gotten over as a heel and can work a WWE style match with anybody on the roster (which is more that can be said for Sin Cara). He may not be a future world champion, but I think he could be on the main roster for several years.

Sin Cara’s inability to work the WWE style and communicate effectively with his colleagues may have halted his progression but it’s given two other men a chance to make a name for themselves on the main WWE roster and a third a revitalised push that would not have come his way otherwise.

Sometimes in wrestling things don’t go to plan. But that’s not always a bad thing.

A King Versus a Dragon

Did the world really need to see Bryan Danielson take on Mark Henry for a second week in a row? Probably not, but we got it anyway. Danielson’s one of the best wrestlers at WWE’s disposal and one of the few men capable of dragging a bearable showing out of ‘The World’s Strongest Man’, but two weeks in a row is not doing Danielson, or the audience, any favours.

Having watched this week’s Superstars I think Danielson’s bout with William Regal would have been a better addition to SmackDown. Thanks to Danielson’s popularity and the match taking place in Liverpool (close to Regal’s hometown of Blackpool) the contest between the two got a tremendous reaction from the crowd. The relationship between the two men (Danielson has credited Regal as his mentor and a strong influence on his career many times over the years) allowed for a natural story to be told throughout the match, both in the ring and on commentary.

Had the student versus teacher match taken place on SmackDown it would have reached a wider audience and would have possibly improved the blue brand’s ratings. Contrary to the promotion’s beliefs there are still people out there who want to see a solid wrestling match on WWE television, and Regal v Danielson is one of the best examples of such a match WWE is capable of promoting.

Had Regal and Danielson been granted a show-long build that including a backstage interview for each man and an emphasis by the commentary team on the influence Regal’s had on Danielson’s career (perhaps even mentioning the maroon trunks the former ‘American Dragon’ wears as a tribute to his mentor) the match could have made for one of the liveliest and memorable SmackDown main events in a long time.

It certainly would have been more enjoyable than another Mark Henry match, as well as being a more logical use of both Danielson and Regal.

A few months ago I wrote about how Regal deserved to wrestle the World Heavyweight champion on the Liverpool show. I still think that would have been nice, but Regal v Henry would have been nowhere near as good as the Danielson v Regal match that Superstars hosted. Once again WWE has thrown away a great opportunity to do something different, meaningful and memorable.

And they wonder why their ratings are decreasing and they can’t get new talent over.

End Game

On the October 24^th RAW Triple H was written out of WWE storylines when he was battered with a sledgehammer by Kevin Nash. Viewers were informed that ‘The King of Kings’ had been taken to a local hospital and that he would miss at least six weeks of action. At that point Survivor Series was five weeks away, which made me assume Triple H, the valiant babyface, would make his heroic comeback just in time to exact revenge at the big show.

As I write this Triple H hasn’t returned to television and with next Monday’s RAW being built around The Rock’s first appearance in months it seems unlikely ‘The Game’ will appear. Tuesday’s SmackDown taping is out of the question as the episode won’t air until Friday, which would give WWE only two days to hype the bout. And besides, nothing important ever happens on SmackDown!

It now looks as though the Triple H return may occur at Survivor Series or in the following weeks of TV. The likely reason for this is that Survivor Series doesn’t need Triple H v Nash on the card to do good business. Whether people like it or not this year’s show will succeed or fail primarily on the strength of The Rock’s involvement. Every other match will just be an afterthought as far as casual fans (who are the ones WWE need to attract) are concerned.

WWE seem to have realised this and postponed the Nash v Helmsley match in the hope that it can help attract buys for a show that’s less likely to succeed. That show is December’s TLC pay-per-view. It hasn’t yet been confirmed that the Battle of the Clique will take place on that show but it seems the most likely time to me.

But what will come after that match? Triple H is now 42 and has not worked a full time schedule since the spring of 2010. Since his full-time return to television on July 18^th it’s become clear that he is going to wrestle only occasionally and be used as a special attraction. It’s an approach that should work well for both him and WWE. At this stage in his career he’s of more use in his on-screen authority role than wrestling each week.

I imagine the immediate future holds the aforementioned bout with ‘Big Sexy’ and a possible appearance in the Royal Rumble. Beyond that nothing seems certain. Rumours have circulated for months that Triple H will once again challenge the Undertaker’s Streak at next year’s WrestleMania XVIII, and at the moment I’d say he has to be one of the frontrunners for that position.

Should that rematch take place I’d say there’s a decent chance that it could be Triple H’s final match. Shawn Michaels could only get ‘Taker to agree to a second ‘Mania match by putting his career on the line, which ultimately led to the end of his career. It would be apt to recreate that drama with HBK’s best buddy.

WWE need to make use of Triple H’s in-ring skills while they still can. A match with Kevin Nash is not going to do this. ‘The Cerebral Assassin’ ought to be wrestling his occasional matches against young guys who will be elevated by working with a main eventer with his (ahem) pedigree. Men like Cody Rhodes, Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger could all benefit from feuds with Triple H.

When all’s said and done it doesn’t matter when or where Triple H wrestles his final match, or who his opponent is. His retirement from active duty is on the horizon and a backstage role, to which he seems very well suited, awaits.

Barrett Barrage

Wade Barrett may not have done anything especially memorable for a while now but he has still quietly become one of the most reliable men on the WWE roster. The man from Manchester is on television every week, often alongside men getting a far more pronounced push than him (Sheamus, Cody Rhodes and Christian immediately spring to mind), and has racked up an impressive win-loss record over the last few months. Victories don’t really mean anything in today’s WWE but it’s still making Barrett look like a star on the rise.

Something else setting Barrett apart is his surprisingly large collection of gimmicks. He’s been wearing a long coat over his shoulders during his entrances for several months now. Sometimes it has a rose in it, sometimes not. Every week we hear of his exploits in the bare knuckle boxing scene of northern England (which is almost entirely nonsense). He’s recently started referring to the ‘Barrett Barrage’, an in-character euphemism for a renewed focus and fresh outlook on his career. Most bizarrely he has taken to wearing trunks that feature an emblem inspired by the 1944 Polish uprising in Warsaw. Not since the heyday of ECW has one wrestler had such disparate bunch of gimmicks to their name.

Barrett is one of the guys WWE should be relying on for the future. At 31 years-old he has plenty of time to make it to the top of the promotion. He’s already one of the best talkers in the company and knows how to work an audience as a bad guy. If and when the time comes for Barrett to turn face he’ll need to change his approach to promos, but that’s a challenge I think he’ll cope with better than people would expect.

With pay-per-view matches against Randy Orton and John Cena under his belt, including a disqualification victory over ‘The Viper’ and two pinfall victories over Super Cena, it’s clear WWE sees potential in Barrett. He may have been unsuccessful in his various challenges for the WWE championship last year and his push may have fallen to the mid-card level but that’s a good thing: Barrett had done everything he could at the top of the card so early in his televised career so it was perfectly logical to drop him down to the middle of the card for a while. The goal was clearly to give Barrett a strong start and establish him as a formidable heel before letting him grow naturally and at his own pace without being placed under such a strong spotlight.

Anyone who can share screen time with Cena, Orton and Vince McMahon without looking inferior clearly has star potential. Barrett has done that and shown that he can thrive in the mid-card even when given little to do. He can hold his own with internet darlings such as Bryan Danielson and drag bearable matches from lumps such as Ezekiel Jackson. That’s one of the skills WWE main event talents need. If he keeps performing like this I won’t be surprised if 2012 sees him take home a world championship.

Moving with the Times

In every match he wrestles Randy Orton performs the draping DDT. It’s a good move: it looks convincing, gets a good reaction and can be performed on pretty much anybody. That’s pretty much all its required to do.

The trouble is that it doesn’t feel special. Being used in every match has removed a lot of the shine the move once had. Orton has been performing it in his matches for several years now, but for a long time it was a sparingly used weapon in his arsenal used only when the opportunity presented itself or when ‘The Viper’ felt he was running out of options in a particularly gruelling match. That meant that the move got a louder response when it was used because people so rarely got to see it. It was unexpected, almost a treat for audiences lucky enough to see it performed.

A WWE referee makes no attempt to hide his disgust at Orton's overuse of the draping DDT

As you’ve probably gathered I feel strongly about the move’s frequent use. It looks good and would

make a very convincing finisher. As Orton uses it in all of his bouts it means that people routinely kick out of it (thanks to WWE’s edict that wrestlers must win matches with their finishing moves), which harms its credibility and aura as much as its frequent usage. I’d like to see ‘The Apex Predator’ return to using the move sporadically, preferably only on pay-per-views and big television matches (not that WWE promotes such things anymore).

You’re probably wondering what the problem is with Orton using the same non-finishing move on a weekly basis. After all, Triple H used the spinebuster in every match. Sheamus uses a brogue kick every week. Miz routinely performs a flying clothesline into the corner. CM Punk has taken to doing a Randy Savage flying elbow. The list goes on and on: moves that are used every week by the same people that never finish the match. They’re signature manoeuvres. Once they reach a certain level every WWE wrestler has a set list of such moves that they employ in every match, interspersed with punches, kicks and suplexes.

It’s the WWE style. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but the draping DDT is a move that deserves more. It should revert to being a desperation move for Orton. There are precedents for this in the current WWE product. Punk’s Anaconda Vice is the perfect example: it’s a hold that’s been established as being an effective finisher that Punk uses only when desperate. Edge used to have the lifting DDT. The same goes for the Undertaker’s Hell’s Gate submission and John Morrison’s Moonlight Drive (or whatever they call it now).

It’s an approach that works well for wrestlers outside of WWE. Most has a set list of signature moves and holds associated with them that they’ll use in each match, as well as some more impressive spots saved for occasional use. The reason for this approach is simple: the moves feel more special when used less often, entice a louder response and enable both the wrestler and their opponent to tell a more effective story in their match. This is clearly not an approach WWE are going to start taking any time soon. It’s a booking method that is alien to the promotion and its audience and would not get the desired reaction, if it was even noticed at all. But if given time this approach, or a modified version of it, could work very successfully in WWE.

The draping DDT strikes me as a move that could mean so much more if it were booked differently. But the truth is that could be said of any move of a WWE star. It would simply rely on a change in attitude that nobody in WWE’s management structure is prepared to consider. So for the foreseeable future we’re stuck with a weekly appearance of Orton’s rope-aided head-planter.

The Muppet Show

When WWE says The Rock will answer John Cena's partnership request tonight on RAW what they mean is he'll appear on the Titantron, likely in a pre-taped video. There's a fairly good chance the announce team will be instructed to claim Rock's appearing "live via satellite". It will definitely feature some anti-Cena sentiments and put downs that fall flat, mainly because Rock is at his best when playing off a live audience. Miz and R-Truth will probably be ripped by 'The Great One' too.
 
Will Rock agree to team with Cena to face The Awesome Truth at Survivor Series? Of course he will. Not only has it already been announced by WWE but it's a great opportunity to escalate their feud by having one man blast the other with their finishing move. With WrestleMania season just a couple of months away WWE will want to start working seriously on the show's lead feud.
 
Let's not forget it would be massively anti-climactic for WWE to suggest the pairing only to state one week later that it won't happen.
 
If 'The Most Electrifying Man in All of Entertainment' were appearing on RAW it would have been announced and hyped heavily in advance. At a time when ratings are slipping and RAW is going up against the NFL every week WWE can't afford not to capitalise on an appearance by The Rock.
 
But RAW tonight doesn't need 'The Brahma Bull'. It has Jim Henson's muppets and the theme of Halloween to play with! What these two things will combine to create is anyone's guess. Presumably Gonzo and co. will appear behind a specially constructed wall on the entrance stage to crack gags at the expense of heels and make a few matches. A gag about Kermit not being as green as Mason Ryan would be nice but probably isn't going to happen.
 
With WWE's current approach to booking the way it is predicting matches for RAW has become practically impossible. By modern standards tonight's show should be a good one: guest hosts that will provoke a warm (and genuine) response and what should be the establishment proper of the Rock v Cena feud.

John Cena finally learns how to sell

As long as Oscar the Grouch appears I'll be happy.

The Wrestling Channel

As you’ll likely have gathered from Michael Cole’s obnoxious bleating during the last few weeks of RAW and SmackDown there are plans for WWE to launch its own television channel. It will likely be called The WWE Network. This is far from a good investment for the company.

Setting up and running a television station costs far more than WWE can realistically afford. Worryingly Vince McMahon has stated he feels comfortable taking out loans using WWE as collateral in order to fund the scheme. That means if the channel fails Vince could lose control of the promotion he made famous. Whatever your thoughts are on the current sports entertainment product that would be a very bad thing: Vince is still very much the driving force behind the company. There is nobody yet ready to take on all of his many duties.

Instead of taking out a loan WWE should try to purchase an existing channel and rebrand it. They have reportedly looked into this and been unable to strike a satisfactory deal. The best course of action would be to wait, but instead the decision has been made to spend vast sums of money creating a channel from scratch.

Even overlooking the cost of the project it’s a bad idea. WWE intends to fill the broadcasting hours with a mixture of its current television shows (RAW, SmackDown, Superstars, etc.), the extensive wrestling backlist that’s been acquired over the years (WCW, ECW, the AWA, etc.), and new “non-wrestling wrestling-themed” programming. The backlist availability may sound appealing but how likely do you think it is WWE will actually utilise it properly? It’s had the rights to ECW and WCW footage for over ten years now and has only released a handful of DVDs. That’s not the action of a company keen to make use of its video tape library.

RAW and SmackDown being aired on the channel isn’t a bad idea either, but as both shows are available on other US channels it’s not a particularly great one either. There are plans to offer select pay-per-views too. Originally the plan was that subscribers would get to watch The Big Four shows free on the WWE Network, but this plan quickly changed when WWE realised giving away the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania for free would be a catastrophic hit on their profits.

The plan as it currently stands is that subscribers will get all or some of the promotion’s B-level pay-per-views (such as Extreme Rules and Vengeance) as part of the package. If WWE runs the same number of pay-per-views next year as this year that will be nine free supershows for subscribers. Buy rates for these shows are low as it is, giving them away free to anyone who has WWE’s own channel will only cause them to shrink further. That will have a knock-on detrimental effect with the pay-per-view providers WWE relies on for its more successful pay-per-view events.

Easily the least appealing thing about the channel is the new “non-wrestling wrestling-themed programming”. Already announced are two reality shows, one following WWE’s Divas as they tour around the current in a bus and the other focusing on “WWE Legends” living in a Big Brother style house. Watching Sergeant Slaughter make a cup of tea while Hillbilly Jim does the hovering may have a novelty appeal at first but it won’t last long.

The channel is going to appeal almost exclusively to diehard fans. That’s not a negative, but it means WWE are going to need to be prepared to offer a lot of wrestling, something they’ve tried to disassociate themselves form in recent years. The most hardcore of fans will happily watch a Santino Marella sitcom (believe me, that will happen if the channel comes to fruition – they’ll have dozens of hours to fill a week), but only if there’s some wrestling on offer as well.

Vince has tried several times to prove he can succeed away from wrestling. He can’t. The World Bodybuilding Federation proved that in the early 90s. The XFL proved it again a decade later. More recently the lamentable offerings from WWE Studios (which Vince hopes will prove his wrestler employees can act as well as sports entertain) have shown that Vince is best suited to the role of wrestling promoter.

Let's just hope they avoid dipping into the XFL and WBF video libraries...

The WWE Network, being heavily linked to wrestling, has a better chance of succeeding than any of Vince’s previous projects: he knows wrestling and how to succeed promoting it while he was essentially just a fan with a lot of money when it came to the WBF and XFL. It’s still a poor idea though. WWE risking going into severe debt just so it can air shows about Divas riding around in a bus and some old AWA matches that could just as easily be released on DVD is not the direction the company should be heading in. They should be putting their money back into their one successful product instead.

The Invisible Man

Think back to the SmackDown ladder match at Money in the Bank. There were several men fans felt were potential winners: Wade Barrett, Sheamus, Cody Rhodes, and even Sin Cara. But none of them left victorious. That honour instead went to Bryan ‘Daniel Bryan’ Danielson.
 
It was a move that surprised everyone, mainly because WWE had done nothing with the former ‘American Dragon’ for months. His last appearance on a WWE pay-per-view had been a disappointingly brief showing in the Royal Rumble six months earlier. Since then he’d been limited to TV appearances and pay-per-view dark matches against the likes of Drew McIntyre and Ted DiBiase. There was also the infamous decision to bump his US title match with Sheamus from WrestleMania and turn it into a pre-show battle royal.
 
Many assumed, perfectly reasonably, that Bryan winning Money in the Bank would be the start of a renewed push. That wasn't the case. Bryan cut a promo on the July 22nd SmackDown in which he announced his intention to cash-in his shiny blue briefcase at WrestleMania XXVIII in Miami. Following that he... well, he didn't do much frankly.
 
Bryan's sole pay-per-view appearance since becoming 'Mr Money in the Bank' was at SummerSlam, where he lost a very enjoyable bout to Wade Barrett. Losing to Barrett, a man who has been pushed consistently as a future world champion and is an established upper mid-carder in WWE, didn’t hurt Bryan at all. But it also did nothing to establish him as someone who would be wrestling for a world championship any time soon. At SummerSlam it was Barrett who left looking like the bigger star with the brighter future, and as it is Bryan who is currently ‘Mr Money in the Bank’ that should not have been the case.
 
WWE should have changed its attitude towards the former ROH champion when it booked him to win the blue brand’s ladder stunt-fest. If Bryan is to be accepted as a serious contender to a world championship (and that is what WWE wants otherwise they wouldn’t have booked him to win) then the weekly burials by ‘The Voice of WWE’ Michael Cole and the nonsensical losses to men that should be beneath him have to end.

Whether WWE intends for him to win his cash-in match or not it would be better for business if Bryan is perceived as a genuine threat to the champion, whoever it is, when he challenges for the gold. If he’s built up with convincing wins and is treated like a star on the rise by the commentary team (the guys who are paid to put the talent over, remember) then Bryan could become a star even if he loses to the world champion.

Perhaps WWE don’t want him to succeed. It’s no secret that Vince McMahon is not a fan of any wrestler who has been embraced by “the internet wrestling community.” The nastiness that Cole directs at Bryan each week is fed to him by none other than Vince himself. In Vince’s world (which, sadly, WWE is) Bryan becoming the first man to unsuccessfully cash-in a Money in the Bank briefcase will “prove” that he doesn’t have what it takes to be a WWE Superstar™.

Hopefully that’s not the case. Hopefully there’s a long term plan in place that necessitates Bryan being lumbered with the dreaded losing streak gimmick recently. Perhaps he will cash-in on an unsuspecting champion early in 2012, win the title and then brag about how he fooled everyone into thinking he’d wait until WrestleMania. A heel Daniel Bryan would be a tremendous addition to the current WWE product and would make a great opponent for a babyface CM Punk.

Or perhaps WWE really will manage to hold off and save Bryan’s championship match for WrestleMania. It’s pretty much guaranteed Bryan would have a great match with whoever the champion is (and I’m including Mark Henry in that statement!). The best choices for his opponent at ‘Mania would be Randy Orton or Christian: both are accepted by fans and would wrestle a great bout with the challenger.

The happy-go-lucky smiley babyface we get right now isn't doing Bryan Danielson, the fans or WWE justice. Neither is the claim that he "won't shave his beard" until WrestleMania. WWE should be doing everything it can to get the guy ready for a top spot. The fact that “internet fans” like him is irrelevant and should be forgotten: simply put, Daniel Bryan at the top in WWE would be good for business.

Sooner or later WWE are going to have to promote 'The American Dragon'. He’s too talented for them to overlook for much longer.

Roode Awakening

TNA rushed it again at their latest TV tapings. Let’s backtrack a bit before we get to that...

The company spent a considerable amount of time preparing Bobby Roode for his title match with Kurt Angle at Bound For Glory. He had been pushed so strongly as the promotion’s next breakout star slash saviour that most fans felt it was a certainty that he would defeat Angle for the championship. Anyone who saw the match will know that didn’t happen.

I wrote two blogs on Roode’s main event chances and the decision to have Angle retain shortly before and after the pay-per-view. They’re available here and here. In short I thought Roode had the potential to make a difference to TNA’s stale main event scene and that the decision to have him lose made him look weak, as well as making the time and effort that had gone into his push ultimately pointless.

Since Bound For Glory TNA has continued the baffling booking with regards to their world championship. At the October 18^th IMPACT taping James Storm defeated Kurt Angle in a nippy little match to become the new TNA world champ. The result and the match itself had come out of nowhere: there was no build-up for ‘The Cowboy’s’ title victory. Shocking the audience is all well and good but in this instance it had come at the expense of another potential main eventer who should have been protected (Roode).

At last night’s IMPACT taping (which will air on November 3^rd in the United States) Storm lost the TNA world championship to Bobby Roode. That match should have been built to gradually over a course of months and been put on pay-per-view. Instead it was rushed through in three weeks of television.

James Storm would have made a fine TNA world champion had he been given the chance to establish himself in the role. As it is he only held the championship for six days and clearly only received it in the first place to facilitate a heel turn by his Beer Money tag team partner. A three or four month title reign for ‘The Cowboy’ would have allowed him to get over as a true main event star and restored some much needed credibility to the currently fairly worthless TNA strap.

Had Bobby Roode turned heel gradually by exhibiting signs of resentment and jealousy at his friend’s success the eventual heel turn would have been more impactful. A longer approach would have given fans the chance to anticipate the betrayal and resulting feud. The approach TNA has gone with feels like something that’s been thrown together in a very short period of time with no thought being given to the future.

Following Roode’s title victory it was announced that he would defend the gold against AJ Styles at Turning Point. AJ could have played a key role in the slower approach and it would have been nice to see him face Roode in a singles match on pay-per-view in which Roode used heelish tactics to gain a tainted victory, foreshadowing his heel turn. The match we’ll see in a few weeks should be fine but it won’t have as much meaning as it could have done.

The decision to put the title on either man is fine: both have qualities that will help them establish themselves as main event performers if they are given the company’s support. The decision to split them as a team is also a good one as the two men have achieved everything they can as Beer Money Inc. Fans like both men and can believe in them as world title competitors. The problem is simply that TNA did not devote anywhere near enough time to what should have been, from beginning to end, six months of programming. The writing team has made its job much harder by doing things this quickly.

The feud should be good. But it could have been so much better.

Avenged

It's been a while since we had a pay-per-view as jumbled as Vengeance. The best matches went on first, the matches with the most hype and the biggest names filled out the middle, and the disappointments went out last. Perhaps WWE was trialling a new approach to wrestling booking, starting with a bang and building up to a whimper.
 
The WWE tag team championship opener was an exhilarating back and forth affair that saw Air Boom retain the gold against challengers Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler. Kofi and Evan work well as an opening match act, providing lively, fast-paced bouts that pump the crowd up and get them in the mood for the rest of the show.
 
Following his unsuccessful tag match Ziggler had to immediately defend his United States title in contest number two. His opponent was 'The Woo Woo Woo Kid' Zack Ryder.
 
I was expecting this match to be good and it didn't disappoint. In fact it surprised me by being the match of the night. Ziggler looked suitably fatigued and pensive as Ryder made his entrance which really helped to get the challenger over as a genuine threat to the gold. It was exactly how a heel champion should look in that situation.
 
Sadly it wasn't 'Long Island Iced Z's' night. 'The Heel' retained the belt after a beautifully executed finishing sequence: 'Long Island Iced Z' blocked a Zig Zag before booting an interfering Swagger in the face, only to turn around into a surprise superkick from a recovering Ziggler.
 
While it felt like this would be Ryder's night the fact that Ziggler needed help to keep hold of his belt could indicate we'll see a rematch at Survivor Series. That's not a bad thing if Ryder wins the belt there: it allows him to be booked as the hungry underdog chasing the champion for the next month and gives Ryder his first singles strap at one of the Big Four pay-per-views.
 
WWE Divas' champion Beth Phoenix defended her title against Eve Torres (who debuted some fairly dodgy new entrance music) in match number three. By the standards of the challenger and WWE women's bouts in general it was a good contest. 'The Glamazon' surprised no one by retaining via the Glam Slam.
 
The heel turn by one of the faces that I've been expecting for months failed to materialise. I'll mention it again in my Survivor Series blog.
 
Sheamus v Christian was an entertaining encounter that, as expected, featured a lot of the Irishman's Clubbing Blows™. A highlight of the match was Booker T claiming he called the punches Irish hand grenades. It trended on Twitter moments later. Booker's ability to create a meme is alive and well.
 
While the match was good the wrong man won. 'Great White' had pinned Christian at Hell in a Cell which meant Vengeance should have been 'Captain Charisma's' turn to go over, evening the feud up and keeping it alive for another month. This didn't feel like a feud ending bout, but with Christian having lost two straight supercard clashes and multiple TV encounters why should anyone care if the two meet again? Sheamus has proven the Canadian is no match for him.
 
I expect these two will have one more match (pun very much intended) between now and Survivor Series before aligning with the respective face and heel teams for the ten man tag team main event. Should that happen expect 'Captain Charisma' to be the first man eliminated.
 
The match that should have gone on last got shoved down to the middle of the card due to a spot in the World Heavyweight title match that would have made a non-gimmick bout impossible. Awesome Truth made the best entrance of the night with their "You Suck" routine and proceeded to have a perfectly competent match with CM Punk and Triple H (who appears to be on the Stan Hansen diet right now). Had these guys gone on last (with a functional ring) I think they would have gone longer and included more memorable spots. As it was this match did everything required of it without doing anything fancy.
 
A run-in was inevitable and was provided by 'Big Sexy' Kevin Nash. Sporting a svelte physique and lashings of Just For Men Nash appeared out of nowhere as 'The Game' brawled with R-Truth at ringside, blasting his former best mate with a punch before taking him into the ring for a Jackknife powerbomb behind the referee's back.
 
Just because outside interference was predictable doesn't mean it was a bad booking decision. It kept the Laurinaitis/conspiracy storyline ticking over and helped to set up the Survivor Series main event. This match needed interference to achieve all its goals.
 
Orton versus Rhodes was predictably enjoyable. Both men got good crowd reactions and entered crisp performances. Cody was particularly impressive, busting out two moonsaults, amusing facial expressions and finally encouraging his bag men to get involved in the bout, something that an underhanded heel should've been doing for months now.
 
As good as this match was it didn't quite equal the US title match in my eyes. I'm sure most people will disagree with that but the title match featured fewer regular (perhaps even overused) spots and a man who is nowhere near as overexposed as 'The Viper' and Rhodes are and so it felt fresher as a result.
 
I predicted Mark Henry versus Big Show was going to be a train wreck. While it was better than I expected it still wasn't an enjoyable affair. I suppose if big man matches are your thing you may well have a different view.
 
The finish borrowed from a Big Show v Brock Lesnar match in 2003 in which a superplex caused the ring to collapse. The spot provoked just as loud a response as it did eight years ago, and both Henry and Show deserve credit for agreeing to take such a risky bump (at their size it could have killed them had something gone wrong). Both men sold the collapse for several minutes and the match just halted in a disappointing no contest. I expect we'll see a gimmick rematch of some description between the two on November 20th in New York City.
 
Teddy Long and John Laurinaitis came out to oversee the medical staff tending to the two mounds of blubber. After several minutes of concerned facial expressions it was Laurinaitis (the heel) who was chosen to make the announcement that the show would continue as planned while Long (the face) ambled off to the back. If WWE want to get Laurinaitis over as a heel they cannot give fans any reason to cheer him, which is precisely what they did with this announcement. While there's no chance of him turning accidental babyface giving fans reason to cheer during his promos is only going to confuse matters. Limit him to contemptuous smirks and pro-heel decisions and let Teddy take care of babyface announcements from now on.
 
With the worst match on the card out of the way we were treated to the second worst in the main event position. Although Alberto Del Rio is one of WWE's best all-rounders and Cena does his best work in gimmick situations the two still haven't clicked and found their chemistry yet. As such this WWE championship match was decent but nothing more.
 
Cena, who entered wearing a new T-shirt far less garish than his old red one, made a large number of ridiculous comebacks, usually climbing briskly to his feet at around the count of seven. That undermined his opponent and made it difficult for viewers to suspend their disbelief and buy into the near falls. But that's nothing new: Super Cena pulls stunts like this on a weekly basis. It's part of the reason WWE is finding it hard to create new main event stars.
 
After what must have been around twenty minutes Truth and Miz returned to the ring to beat down the challenger. Despite being left laying from a vicious beating from two of the promotion's top heels Cena clambered back to his feet before the ten count looking only mildly phased. He was immediately put back down, for good this time, by ADR, who had spent over a minute selling an AA through a table. The chasm between how the two men were booked was never more glaring.
 
'The Essence of Excellence' posed with his WWE championship belt as Vengeance went off the air, with Cena pouting and doing his puppy dog expression in the ring. I expect these two will meet in the Survivor Series main event next month before moving on to new feuds in December. I hope that happens anyway, because I'm not interested in seeing another pay-per-view singles contest between these two.
 
Vengeance was far from disappointing. There were several matches and storyline developments worth tuning in for. It's just that the running order seemed a little questionable. That's a problem unlikely to affect WWE's next PPV extravaganza. Survivor Series has clearly been planned months in advance with the aim of blowing off multiple feuds and storylines while kickstarting new ones to begin the build up for the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania XXVIII. Vengeance played it's part in setting the stage for the show and as such can be considered a success for WWE.

Vengeance preview

Mark Henry versus Big Show. John Cena versus Alberto Del Rio. These are matches the average wrestling fan will be physically incapable of getting excited about. They are also two of the bouts headlining WWE's Vengeance pay-per-view on Sunday. But wait, it's not as bad as it seems...
 
Big Show v Mark Henry isn't going to be the best match on the show. We all know that. In fact it will probably be the worst. What it has in its favour is freshness. After months of Christian v Orton and then two straight Orton v Henry confrontations on consecutive pay-pay-views it's nice to be offered something different, no matter how bad it may be. It's not a match I want to see again and again but as a one off Show works as a challenger. If WWE were tried harder to have a different challenger for every show, giving champions more varied title reigns, I’d be all for it. I think that approach would benefit Henry and the World Heavyweight championship greatly.
 
I’m picking Henry to retain. With the push he received over the summer I think it’s unlikely he’ll lose the title so soon.
 
Of course the other thing this match has going for it is this video:



You're not getting that anywhere else in wrestling.
 
Alberto Del Rio and John Cena will face one another for the third pay-per-view in a row. Their match at Night of Champions was forgettable but their Hell in a Cell battle a month later was an improvement (though some of the credit for that has to go to the third man in the match, CM Punk) and I'm expecting another decent entry in their feud at Vengeance. Why? Because ADR is one of WWE’s best wrestlers and Cena tends to perform better when he has shortcuts at his disposal. A Last Man Standing match will allow to use all the shortcuts he likes.
 
The gimmick match rules also allow WWE to have Cena lose to ADR without being pinned. It may seem counterproductive to avoid having your lead star put over an up and comer but that's WWE all over: Cena must be protected at all costs.
 
It's not impossible that the inevitable whacky finish to this match will involve interim RAW General Manager and Executive Vice President of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis. As you’ll read below I think WWE are setting up a clash between top babyfaces and heels for Survivor Series, with Triple H wrestling for the faces and Laurinaitis organising and or managing the heels.

Christian and Sheamus will continue what’s been a fairly underwhelming feud so far. Their matches are enjoyable thanks to the charisma of both men and the reactions they get from crowds, but they tend to consist of little more than ‘Great White’ pounding Christian on the back over and over again. Since Sheamus won at Hell in a Cell three weeks ago I’m expecting ‘Captain Charisma’ to pick up the win this time around.

Beth Phoenix will finally have a pay-per-view match against someone that isn’t Kelly Kelly. Yes, we’re finally getting Beth Phoenix v Eve Torres on pay-per-view! Natalya and Kelly Kelly are likely to be at ringside and I’m still half expecting one of the faces to turn heel on the other. Until a week or two ago I was expecting Eve to go to the dark side but Double K looked perturbed after Eve’s loss to Natalya on RAW so it’s not impossible she’ll do the turn. Would a Kelly Kelly heel turn work? It could. It would certainly be different and would provide a fresh dynamic for a number of matchups in WWE’s women’s division.

The heel turn could happen no matter who wins. Should Eve win the title Kelly could attack her in a jealous rage whereas if Beth retains Kelly could attack her pal for letting the side down. I can’t see the title being switched from ‘The Glamazon’ so quickly, I’m expecting her to retain.

One of the matches I’m most looking forward to is Randy Orton v Cody Rhodes. WWE has been trying hard to elevate Cody throughout the year while ‘The Viper’ has had one of the best years of his career in the ring. Capitalising on the errant blow Orton gave Rhodes a few weeks ago SmackDown by giving the two a full blown feud is a smart move by WWE: the two will have solid matches and Rhodes will rise up the card by rubbing shoulders with a star of ‘The Apex Predator’s’ standing.

As this is the first pay-per-view match of what I assume will be a long feud I’m expecting Orton to get the win and Cody to attack him after the match to keep the rivalry alive. Rhodes scoring the upset would be nice to see but I don’t think it will happen. They’ll save that for the higher profile Survivor Series.

On the subject of upsets: expect a big pop after Zack Ryder beats Dolph Ziggler for the United States championship. I’m assuming ‘The Heel’ will team with his tag team partner Jack Swagger to challenge Air Boom for the duos gold and lose before tangling with ‘Long Island Ice Z’. If the tag bout happens first Ryder can be booked as taking advantage of a fatigued Ziggler.

Both matches should be good. It’s a shame I have to predict two losses for Ziggler but I can’t see a way around it: being booked in two matches almost guarantees he’ll lose one and makes losing both fairly likely. Ryder deserves a chance to show what he can do though, and Ziggler will definitely put him over the right way.
 
The match I expect to headline the show is the tag team contest pitting Triple H and CM Punk against The Miz and R-Truth. This one is bound to give us a ton of storyline advancements, which I don’t think is a huge problem, and I think the action will be good. I like Miz and Truth as a team and I’m more interested in Triple H than I have been for about eight years thanks to his recent COO elevation (though that’s not necessarily a good thing: WWE should be building new stars rather than re-establishing old ones).

In fact the guy I’m least interested in is CM Punk, because the push that started in June and had so much potential has been massively fumbled. He’s still a good wrestler and an entertaining character but he’s not on the level he could have been by now, and I find that frustrating.

As far as winners goes I think this match could go either way. Because I’m expecting some John Laurinatis-related ringside shenanigans (probably from Kevin Nash but David Otunga isn’t that unlikely a possibility) I’m going to predict a heel win. Having Laurinaitis and his cronies involved in Triple H’s match sets up a Survivor Series clash between the companies top faces (Triple H, CM Punk, and Cena, alongside The Rock) and the GM’s inner circle (Miz, Truth, ‘Big Sexy’, and Alberto Del Rio). Should WWE want to try elevating some younger guys (which isn’t guaranteed, sadly) the Survivors bout could go from an eight to a ten man match and each team could get a mid-card wrestler added to the team.

Vengeance looks far superior to Hell in a Cell on paper and is clearly being used as a setup show for Survivor Series. If it’s entertaining and leaves us with a clear picture of what’s in store at Survivor Series then Vengeance will have done what it’s supposed to.

Monster Push

WWE has spent six months preparing Mark Henry for a run at the top of the card. He was credited with seriously injuring Kane and Big Show, he pummelled Sheamus at SummerSlam, and he pinned Randy Orton clean to win the WWE World Heavyweight championship. That’s an impressive run by anyone’s standards.

At 40-years-old and with fifteen years of experience Henry was finally given the chance to show he could wrestle at a main event level. He can’t. His various pushes over the years, and there have been many, have made that very clear. He is a slow, uncoordinated, injury-prone lump. I’ll admit that he’s more over now than at any other point in his wrestling career, but that’s not saying a great deal.

Even if everything worked out perfectly and Henry was embraced overnight as an acceptable addition to the main event crew the fact still remains that he’s closer to the end of his career than the beginning. Mark Henry has weighed in excess of 400 pounds for around two decades. That will have resulted in incredible stress being places on his knees and back.

Even Henry’s current low standards will decrease within a few years as his joints fall apart. Essentially WWE have promoted a man with a fairly short shelf life who the majority of fans find boring to watch and can’t relate to. It’s not the best call ever made is it?

A better candidate for Henry’s recent push would have been Brodus Clay.

Look back at any episode of NXT season four and you’ll see a man with a clearly defined character who possesses verbal skills superior to the majority of the current WWE roster, a unique look and an understanding of how to carry himself as a monster heel. Brodus Clay did everything he could during that series to set himself apart from his peers and managed to do so so successfully that he took the runner up spot. That show left a lot of people, myself included, wanting to see more of Snoop Dogg’s former bodyguard.

The one thing ‘The World’s Strongest Man’ has brought to his recent push is an air of believability: you can accept he really is that aggressive and dangerous a man. Clay would have been just as convincing and would have provided superior verbal skills and a feeling of freshness to the role. Henry has faced pretty much everyone on the roster during his fifteen years with the promotion would have provided entirely fresh matches. 

It’s too late for anything to be done about the situation now. Henry is entrenched at the top of the card and is unlikely to leave for some time to come. WWE should consider giving Brodus something more meaningful to do than beating jobbers every week on Superstars. He deserves television exposure because he is one of the most promising wrestlers to have appeared for the company in several years. At the very least he could be paired with another young talent to bulk out the promotion’s tag ranks.

At 31-years-old there’s not a rush to elevate Brodus. WWE can afford to take its time. But he needs to be put on TV now so that fans can watch him develop and cultivate a bond with him. He has far more long term potential than Mark Henry. Personally I can see him being a surprise hit as a babyface if he’s allowed to establish himself as a heel first.

Sooner or later Mark Henry will be gone and WWE will once again begin the search for a new monster heel. Brodus Clay will be waiting.

Leg Drops and Ankle Locks

Bound For Glory was yet another wasted opportunity. Bobby Roode should have dethroned Kurt Angle for the TNA world heavyweight championship. Instead TNA booked a screwy finish in which Roode broke the count by grabbing the ropes without the referee seeing. Meanwhile the semi-main event saw Hulk Hogan job to Sting and then save him from a post-match beat down from his Immortal teammates. ‘The Hulkster’ cemented his face turn by lamping Eric Bischoff.

Hogan making the save was an absolute waste of time. Not only did it render the months-long feud between the two veterans/dinosaurs pointless, it also deprived a young babyface the chance of rising up the ranks.

It would have been easy to book Hogan to try and save ‘The Insane Icon’ only to be bettered by Immortal’s superior numbers before a young babyface came out to even the odds and send the heels packing. But that would have deprived Hogan of the opportunity to get himself over, so it didn’t happen. Had someone other than Hogan and Sting been elevated there would have been some sort of reason for the match happening.

Presumably Hogan will now join forces with Sting to feud with Immortal. Great. Two fifty-somethings battling washed-up WWE stars and tattooed jobbers. What a lead feud that’s going to be!

While you could be forgiven for thinking that TNA’s lead heel is Eric Bischoff (he was treated as such in that post-match angle after all) that spot is actually inhabited by world champion and Immortal member Kurt Angle. With the Olympian having retained the gold against Roode and Hogan looking like he’s headed into a feud with the faction what are the odds that we see Hogan v Angle for the TNA world championship in the near future?

As much as I’d like to see a scenario in which Hogan and Sting endorse a group of young babyfaces (Fourtune would be the best candidates) Hogan’s recent comments regarding Roode make that look unlikely. Instead we’re likely going to get Sting and then Hogan facing Angle on TNA pay-per-views. With Angle still determined to compete at next year’s Olympic Games it’s possible he’ll need to drop the title in the next couple of months. That means there’s a very real chance we could see Hogan as TNA world champion before the year is out.

Should you be interested in a Hogan v Angle match I suggest you check out their clash at WWE King of the Ring 2002. Coming from a time before Angle’s body had fallen to pieces and Hogan had had his hip replaced it’s far superior to anything they’re likely to churn out these days.

That’s not going to stop TNA from booking it though.

That RAW Recap 10.10.11

October 10^th was the one year anniversary of the culmination of TNA’s awful They storyline. It will also go down in wrestling history as the night John ‘Johnny Ace’ Laurinaitis was finally given the on-screen promotion he’s clearly been scheming for for the last several months. It may have been an incredibly enjoyable development but it was also one that made sense and was executed well. Sometimes you don’t need surprises in wrestling, you just need things to make sense. Arguably one of the times when things need to make sense the most is in storylines focusing on fictional political wrangling concerning who’s in charge.

After twenty minutes of promos from Triple H, Sheamus, John Cena and CM Punk (during which we were told the rest of the contracted WWE employees were in the car park (but weren’t told who was working the camera and cueing up entrance music)) the first match of the show started between Sheamus and John Cena, with Punk on commentary and timekeeper duty and ‘The Game’ functioning as ref.

Viewers got to see about two minutes of this match before Vince McMahon made a surprise appearance to cut another lengthy promo, in which he stated that the Board of Directors couldn’t keep Triple H in the role of COO if it meant wrestlers walking out and that they’d decided to replace him with an “interim General Manager”. That IGM was Johnny Ace.

Why the Board had opted to replace the COO with a General Manager of RAW and the identity of the anonymous RAW GM who hasn’t been heard from in months (and whom Laurinaitis has now presumably replaced) were questions that weren’t answered. It was also unfortunate that there was nobody at commentary to explain how Vince McMahon was still able to stroll out onto RAW despite having been removed from TV a few months ago. It would have been useful had JR been there to state that Vince was just removed as the head of day-to-day operations for WWE and that he was still the Chairman of the Board of Directors. If WWE want to do these power grab storylines they need to make them understandable for people who don’t watch every single week.

Throughout the evening Laurinaitis displayed his trademark lack of charisma in a backstage segment in which he was alleged to be on the phone to his wife, welcomed wrestlers back into the building following their protest, and was threatened by Triple H. He also demonstrated a wonderful misunderstanding of how to successfully deploy the dramatic pause. Promos never were his strong point. But then they didn’t need to be when he was throwing out Ace Crushers and lariats in Japan.

The main event was briefly CM Punk v Alberto Del Rio but was changed to a tag team match when the interim GM became bored and or drunk on his own power. The opponents? The newly re-signed Awesome Truth.

This was a nice development as it furthers the conspiracy storyline that’s been bubbling under for a while now by clearly showing that Laurinaitis, Miz and Truth were in cahoots. Why else would the fired wrestlers have been in Oklahoma City with their wrestling gear? Why else would Laurinaitis have been so quick to re-sign them to contracts? I think it was a nice twist and allowed RAW to end on a much more dramatic note than if we’d just had Punk v ADR.

Del Rio ended up walking out on Punk, allowing The Awesome Truth to brutalise ‘The Voice of the Voiceless’, resulting in them getting disqualified. That didn’t seem to bother them as they continued beating him down until Triple H made the save. As the faces made a comeback and cleaned house a random shot of Laurinaitis and David Otunga (of all people!) was shown in which the new RAW head honcho made CM Punk and Triple H v The Awesome Truth for Vengeance.

It was also announced that John Cena will face Alberto Del Rio again at Vengeance (“remember what I’ve been saying about elevating new stars?” he asked rhetorically). Hopefully this will be the last singles match between those two for a while because their feud has been far less successful than most people thought it would be. I wouldn’t be surprised if Del Rio is one of the opponents for the Rock and Cena team and Survivor Series. The two should no longer be facing each other after that event.

Elsewhere on the show...

Randy Orton faced off with Mark Henry and looked as though he was finally going to get that (recently) elusive win over him until Intercontinental champion Cody Rhodes interfered. This is good news as it indicates WWE are moving towards an Orton v Rhodes feud which should provide ‘The Viper’ with an opponent who can give him good matches while elevating Rhodes up the card.

Laurinaitis fired Jim Ross for being “a hayseed, redneck, Oklahoman ingrate”. He felt this way because JR walked out on Triple H last week. No reason was given as to why Laurinaitis didn’t feel exactly the same way about everyone else who walked out. I don’t expect one will ever be given. JR will be back on TV sooner or later.

Christian won a brief but enjoyable match against John Morrison, which both wrestled in their street clothes as they’d “only just returned from the strike”. After the match Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, and Cody Rhodes (he was on double run-in duty) came in and hit their finishers on ‘The Monday Night Delight’. Hopefully this will set up a rematch between Morrison and ‘Captain Charisma’ at Vengeance. I think they could put on a good match if given the time.

Eve and Kelly Kelly beat Rosa and Tamina in a match that meant less than nothing. Beth Phoenix and Natalya were shown watching on a monitor after the match. Looks like Kelly Kelly and Beth Phoenix will scrap again at Vengeance. It’s a shame WWE hasn’t done more to hold on to talented female workers this year, then Beth would have brighter prospects for her future title defences.

David Otunga teamed with Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger (as I’ve said before this team should be known as Zig Swag) in a losing effort to Mason Ryan and Air Boom. This will likely lead to another tag title match at Vengeance. Better that than a singles match between Otunga and Ryan...

In the ring RAW wasn’t a bad show but it was clearly more about advancing the promotion’s lead storylines and feuds before Vengeance. With WWE television coming from Mexico next week it made sense to set up Vengeance earlier than would have been usual because a show heavy on English promos would create a restless crowd south of the border. That said I do think a Del Rio and Punk v Awesome Truth match would have been much better received in Mexico than in Oklahoma. Hopefully WWE have devised another way of making ADR look like a babyface next week, because he’s clearly going to be very popular. Everyone will have to work hard to better this week’s show though. It was a good effort from all involved.

Old is the New New

At last Sunday’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view the latest tool in the Cody Rhodes push was revealed: a new Intercontinental championship belt. Well, I say new but it’s actually the design that was used from 1986 to the late 90s. The only change is that the old logo is, naturally, nowhere to be seen.

This is the belt that was held by Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Shawn Michaels, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Rock and dozens of other big names throughout the years. That the decision has been made to resurrect this design indicates WWE and Rhodes himself are serious about trying to restore the prestige of the belt. The white strap, which was used sporadically throughout the first half of the 90s, is strongly associated with Shawn Michaels so Cody’s not in bad company there.

WWE are clearly hoping that putting a retro design on Cody Rhodes will help him to be seen in the same light as the greats that have held the title. I’ve always felt that the last design (the one used throughout the last decade) was the best, but it’s been time for a change for a while now.

WWE has been building up Cody Rhodes for most of the year. He had the best WWE feud of the first half of the year with Rey Mysterio, dragged decent performances out of Ezekiel Jackson and Ted DiBiase (not easily done), and is now playing a key part in the “walkout” storyline and is on the cusp of a feud with Randy Orton. A new championship design isn’t going to make him a main event talent by itself but it will help to set him apart from the rest of the roster and help in the restoration of the title.

If WWE carries on the way it has been Cody Rhodes and the Intercontinental championship should continue to mean more and more to WWE audiences. It shows that when WWE put their minds to something, and have a talent who is capable and willing to put the work in, new stars can be made.

Elevation Game

Triple H running WWE as the Chief Operating Officer has been the promotion’s lead storyline for a few months now. It’s been inventive, well executed, and easy to follow but there’s something about it that still feels wrong.

It’s not that it’s obvious where the story’s headed. It seems pretty clear that John ‘Johnny Ace’ Laurinaitis is leading (I can’t bring myself to say “masterminding”) a conspiracy to topple ‘The Game’ from power in the hopes that he’ll be next in line for the job, and that’s fine. It’s new enough to be worth doing. Even the possibility of Vince McMahon being revealed as the true power behind Laurinaitis wouldn’t be disastrous.

The problem lies in the lack of talent elevated by the story. So far the only people who have received a raised profile from this story are John Laurinaitis, Kevin Nash, The Miz, R-Truth, CM Punk and Triple H himself.

Did Laurinaitis and ‘Big Sexy’ really need a television presence in 2011? No. Laurinaitis is being prepared for the role of lead on-screen authority figure, but there’s no reason a young heel talker could have been introduced as a WWE executive and been booked in exactly the same way (beyond the fact that WWE no longer has any non-wrestling personalities in its developmental system, heel or otherwise).

Nash was brought in primarily to establish the situation as “real” (and as any attempt to cast doubt in the minds of internet fans) and did that well enough. If he’s not used again then there will be no harm done but there are still rumours of him facing CM Punk at some point: not something that’s going to help elevate any new talent. Or Punk come to that.

Miz and Truth were already at the top of the card when they were selected for the firing angle. That’s part of the reason they were given the role in the first place, the angle needed established stars with enough savvy to know how to make what transpired seem real. Had Tyler Reks and Primo been used instead no one would have cared.

But The Awesome Truth haven’t been elevated by the faux firing: they were as high on the card as they were going to get any time soon when they were “fired”. They can’t be considered beneficiaries of the Triple H COO storyline either.

Has CM Punk benefitted from Triple H’s increased on-screen presence? While he got to wrestle ‘The Game’ on pay-per-view the answer still has to be no. That match was rushed into, didn’t make a bigger star of either man, and made a lie of Punk’s newly adopted ‘Best in the World’ moniker.

Unfortunately the way Punk’s been booked since he returned two weeks after Money in the Bank has harmed his growing popularity. He’s still very over and one of the biggest success stories WWE’s had in years, but he was booked to cut far too money promos throughout August and September.

Punk should have talked one week and wrestled the next in order to protect him from overexposure. Having ‘The Voice of the Voiceless’ show no interest in regaining his WWE title for over a month whilst talking about how wins, losses and championships should matter more was an odd booking decision. And having him state that WWE’s television product hasn’t changed since Triple H “took over” when there have been significant changes (not all of which the Punk TV character can acknowledge I admit) was an odd choice too.

Monday’s RAW was the perfect example of no new talent being elevated. It was a great opportunity to have someone get the rub from Triple H with minimal effort.

Having given a vote of no confidence in ‘The Cerebral Assassin’ the WWE roster filed backstage in groups getting boos from the crowd. Top stars such as Orton, Punk, Cena and Kelly Kelly (yes, she’s protected to the same extent as John Cena on occasion) were excused the voting duty, apparently because the booking team suspected that the crowd would boo anyone walking out on the COO. So if they suspected that reaction why didn’t they select one guy to stand loyally beside Triple H? Had a young guy entered the ring, shaken hands with Tripper and stayed as everyone else left that guy would been elevated in the eyes of fans.

What’s frustrating is that after the show went off the air Zack Ryder went back out to the ring and got a big pop for doing so. Ryder staying behind on TV wouldn’t have been out of character as he owes his increased television time to Triple H and it would have made the guy even more popular. WWE threw away a golden opportunity with one poor decision.

As I said above the storyline is far from over and there are going to be plenty of chances over the next few weeks to elevate guys using this storyline. Survivor Series could be a good time to push some guys up the card by having Triple H endorse or pick a team of five guys to face a heel team picked by Laurinaitis or comprised of men involved in the lawsuit against him.

At this moment in time WWE has squandered a lot of chances with Triple H’s new on-screen position. If they get him putting guys over in promos and sharing screen time with lower card guys they can still turn it around. Hopefully they do just that.

Walking a Golden Mile

On 8th September William Regal tweeted the following:

Trying to think if Teddy Long owes me a favour.I need to get a World Championship match on Smackdown on Liverpool.

Maybe the last chance I have of becoming the first English World Champion in front of WWE's loyalist fans.

Regal has been considering hanging up his boots for several years now. His sporadic in-ring appearances, increased agent-style work backstage and move to the announce desk are all direct results of his decision to wind up his career and find a new role in the company.

Being good friends with Triple H (Levesque teamed with Regal, under the hilariously poor ring name Terra Ryzing, as the Blue Bloods during his brief stint in WCW) Regal is always going to have some sort of job in WWE. His track record with helping to train young wrestlers isn’t going to hurt his job prospects either. Bryan Danielson, Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, Samoa Joe, and CM Punk all join Triple H in counting Regal amongst their teachers. It should be clear from that list that Regal knows how to pass on good advice.

But job security isn’t enough. Regal wants to retire with a meaningful world championship accomplishment on his CV. And who can blame him? Having wrestled all over the world for nearly thirty years Regal is one of the most talented WWE employees never to win a world championship.

Besides anything else if Mark Henry is getting a world title reign Regal deserves one too.

I’m aware of how unlikely it is to happen but it would be a nice gesture on WWE’s part, not just to Regal but to British wrestling fans. Davey Boy Smith may still be Britain’s most famous wrestler but over the years British fans have gradually gained respect for Regal and a love of his character and ring style. He may not be capable of the feats of strength Smith could pull off but there’s something loveable about a man calling someone a silly pillock on US television and wiping his feet before getting into the ring.

A world title reign for Regal would be an acknowledgement of his hard work and dedication to WWE and wrestling in general.

Is a world title win in Regal’s future? It’s not likely. But a challenging for a world title isn’t out of the question. If WWE properly promoted a Regal title challenge during their autumn tour they could shift a few extra tickets and bump up their Sky ratings. Whether or not they’d bother promoting a match for these relatively minor gains is debatable but it’s not impossible.

By the time WWE returns to Britain it’s possible there will be two different world champions knocking about. Mark Henry looks like he’s in for a lengthy title run but by today’s standards anything over the five month mark in WWE can be considered “lengthy”. He may have dropped the title to Orton, Sheamus, Christian or someone else entirely by the time of Liverpool’s SmackDown taping in November. That means we shouldn’t rule out hope of Regal getting a competitive match for WWE’s younger world title belt.

Of the two current champs Cena would be the preferred opponent for the Brit as his size would allow him to work a more believable and competitive match than ‘The World’s Strongest Man’. Plus you’d also get the patented Cena Mixed Reaction™. Regal v Cena in Britain would have a fantastic atmosphere.

In an ideal world CM Punk or Bryan Danielson would be a world champion by the time of the tour and would be involved in a match with Regal. Both men have enough respect for the veteran to treat him as an equal and have a highly competitive and enjoyable match (before beating him).

Whoever holds the gold when RAW and SmackDown roll into Liverpool  hope WWE sees the potential and books a Regal in a world title match. Even if he doesn’t win it would mean a lot to him and his fans. And if Regal’s talk is to be believed there may not be many similar opportunities left.