wrestling / Columns
Schmozzes And Screwjobs 01.16.2007 The Road To WrestleMania
First of all, let me apologize in advance; the column’s a little shorter than usual this week due to me having a very busy week at the moment with too much stuff going on to go into right now. The only thing you’ll be missing out on is the False Finishes section, and seeing as I didn’t have anything I wanted to talk about anyway, you’re really not missing much. OK, so we’re taking a break from the normal format this week as I don’t have a Screwjob to talk about as such. Instead, I’m going to tell you how we are all so very screwed. No time to waste, so let’s get a move!
The Screwjob: The Road To WrestleMania!
It’s Saturday morning and I’ve just woken up. I’m lying in bed thinking that I should get up and make a start on this column, but I haven’t decided what exactly it is I want to write about. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to do the traditional screwjob this week, and I had a couple of ideas I could use. The one was to talk about WrestleMania 23 and how I thought it would turn out. Giving this some more thought, I realised we could be heading for the worst Mania we’ve ever seen. And then a thought crossed my mind.
Maybe I won’t order Mania this year.
Not once in my seven years as a wrestling fan have I ever considered not ordering WrestleMania. Hell, I’ve rarely ever thought about not purchasing any other WWE pay-per-view, and as it happens I’ve not missed a single one in seven years. So to be considering not ordering the biggest show of the year tells you how bad the state of wrestling in the WWE has become. At the end of 2006, I thought we were headed to the new Attitude Era, a renaissance of the glory days of the past. But now, I feel we’re on a downward spiral. And maybe Voodoo Kin Mafia were right. Maybe TNA are the future.
Now I could write about how the E can improve and produce the greatest Mania of all time, but that’s not what I want to do. Instead I’m going to let you know how bad it could be, and then you can decide for yourselves. As it happens, I’m fairly certain I will order Mania, because that’s what I do, and I doubt anything could make me pass on the Grand Daddy Of ‘Em All. But I still think it’s going to be bad. Horrendously bad. WrestleMania IX bad. Now you’re paying attention.
Here’s what we could be in for:
WWE Championship Match: John Cena vs. The Great Khali
World Heavyweight Championship: Batista vs. The Undertaker
ECW Heavyweight Championship: Bobby Lashley vs. Test
Nothing says Showcase of the Immortals like The Great Khali main-eventing, right? With the exception of John Cena, all of these “main eventers” are big guys, the kind Vince McMahon gets a hard-on over. So yeah, prepare to order a Mr McMahon-cum-stained WrestleMania.
Now it’s your job to go the fan forums, get fantasy booking, and make sure someone important hears your ideas! Not that it’ll make a difference, but it gives us hope I suppose.
Royal Rumble Roulette Continues!
SmackDown!
Will one of the Superstars from WWE’s Blue Brand step-up and win the Royal Rumble for the second straight year? Let’s find out!
World Heavyweight Champion: Batista
Number 1 Contender: Mr Kennedy
Boogeyman: He’s either looking at a 3 minute squash victory over Gregory Helms, or he will eliminate Helms from the Rumble and then get thrown over from behind.
Brian Kendrick: One half of the tag team champions, Kendrik should get a few good spots in and perhaps the odd double-elimination with his partner Paul London
Chavo Guerrero: Could well be United States Champion by the time the Rumble rolls around, we will know by Friday night. Look for him and Benoit to have a confrontation in the Rumble and one to eliminate the other. Chavo may break into the final 10.
Chris Benoit: Benoit always has good showings in the Rumble. Will probably eliminate Guerrero and make it into the top 6. He will last at least half an hour.
Dave Taylor: Much like Kendrick, Taylor’s only chance of making an impact in the Rumble is a few double eliminations with partner William Regal. May be challenging for the tag titles.
Finlay: The Irishman makes his debut in the Royal Rumble. As one of the top two heels on SmackDown that are in the Rumble, look for Finlay to have a great showing, making a push for the final 4.
Funaki: BHAHAHAHAHAHA! He’ll be lucky to make it down the ramp without getting beaten up by some monster. That’s if he gets in at all.
Gregory Helms: He’s the Boogeyman, and he’s comin’ to get you, Helms!
Idol Stevens: Where has this guy even been in the last couple of months. Not a chance.
Jamie Noble: Shows on SmackDown about once a month, to job to some mid-carder. You tell me what his chances are.
Jimmy Wang Yang: Here’s my nomination for the ‘Skin The Cat’ spot. But his push has been stalled in favour of another go-nowhere push for Tatanka, so don’t look for Yang to have any sort of impact on the match.
Joey Mercury: I’m fairly sure he won’t enter the Rumble due to his current face injury, but could show up to help eliminate one or both of The Hardy Boyz.
KC James: See Stevens, Idol.
Kane: Always has a good showing in the Rumble. Expect him to eliminate about 5 or 6 people, last nearly half an hour, and yet he still has no hope of winning.
King Booker: The King has never won a Rumble, but has also never been on the level he’s at now. I see Booker forming an alliance with Finlay to eliminate a few guys and be a possible shot for the final four.
Mark Henry: He’ll have been out 6 months by the time the Rumble rolls around, so there’s a small chance he could be a surprise entry, which would be nice. But even if that’s the case, I don’t see him being a real threat as big guys never win the Rumble.
Matt Hardy: Popular mid-carders usually get a respectable showing in the Rumble. Look for him to be involved with MNM and his brother Jeff to further that angle along to Mania.
The Miz: Miz may get a few sneaky eliminations, but look for some big guy, front runner The Undertaker, to toss him over. HOO-RAH!
MVP: See Miz, The
Paul London: See Kendrick, Brian
Scotty II Hotty: See Funaki
Sylvan: Yeah, right.
Tatanka: He seems to be getting a push up to the mid card which could see a good showing in the Rumble match, but don’t expect anything he does to be groundbreaking, after all, he returned after about 10 years out this time last year, and we didn’t give a shit then either.
Undertaker: The rumoured favourite. Taker has come close, but has never won a Royal Rumble.
Vito: May get the comedy elimination by lifting up his dress, causing someone to run over the top rope like an idiotic pussy. Under the dress, he’s wearing the exact same tights as you!
William Regal: See Taylor, Dave.
Two down, one to go. I know I said I’d give you my prediction for the winner this week, but circumstances have changed over the last week or so, and as it happens, that prediction is now the #1 contender. But I promise I’ll let you know, when I know. Next week, we conclude the Royal Rumble Roulette by looking at the Raw Superstars. And bearing in mind a SmackDown guy won last year, and ECW is ECW, expect a Raw guy to take it home this year.
Half Time
Again, apologies to readers and my fellows staffers for the lack of links, but I’m really doing this at a rush. Anyway, check out all of these great columns.
Andy Clarke’s Shimmy
The Fink’s Payload (featuring an appearance from myself!)
JT and JP’s Hidden Highlights
Small’s Sunday News Report (I apologize for the lame jokes, Jeff, and thanks for the week off)
David, Sean, and Alex’s Triple Threat
MSD’s Sunday Morning Hangover
Linkous’ WWE vs. TNA
Feltham’s Quick Talkdown
Larry’s 3 R’s
Bayani’s Truth Be Told
False Finishes And Fan Cams
Reader Feedback
Rahmin didn’t like my Mania card.
Sucks. I understand that this “dream” and all. But some of these matches don’t make sense, and I will show you why…
Umaga vs. Carlito
Umaga just spent the last 6 months demolishing jobber after mid-card talent. Carlito is the perennial mid-card face, and has aborted push after push fail for him, cuz people don’t want him to be bigger than he is. They have already shown no faith by pairing him up with “Heat-sucker” Torrie Wilson- Last of the Attitude “divas”. Umaga also just went up with the champ and looks to have a rematch set up for the Rumble. Why would he lower himself and deal with Carlito? Makes no sense.
United States Championship Match: Chris Benoit © vs. Finlay
Very easy, but very dull and boring and is smacking at no creative thought on your part. Why would Finlay (who has had the US strap already ) fight Benoit? What does it prove? Benoit is one injury away from paralysis, just like his idol, Dynamite Kid. More than that Finlay is MORE OVER than Benoit!!! How am I as Finlay fight someone I am more over than, over a belt that is beneath him. You don’t see Benoit gunning for the World title do you? Why? No confidence in Benoit. They don’t have a lot in Finlay, but the fact remains they have MORE in Finlay than they do then Benoit. Once again, your match makes no sense.
Rated RKO vs. The Undertaker and Kane
This match, so far is your best one you “dream card” but it has piss-poor execution. You don’t need either to make a statement at the Rumble (it could be used but the Rumble is used for getting people over more so than establishing feuds. The winner usually starts the feud with the champ.) So with that being said, You can just have Edge/Orton come out and say “We ended DX, now it is time go through the brands and stop the BOD.” Or something like that. You have the history of Orton/Taker and kinda/sorta history with Edge/Kane from before the Matt Hardy situation. So it can work there. You don’t really have to drive the point home when it comes to Taker, cuz if he is not injured he is wrestling somebody at WM, its only a matter of who is going to take the loss. Although I would have Edge take an L here since he is undefeated as well as WM too. Someone needs to pick up the streak after (hopefully) Taker decides to hang it up. The match would suck and really be slow at times, but it could work. Cheers. You got one.
WWE Tag Team Championship TLC Match: Brian Kendrik and Paul London © vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. MNM vs. The World’s Greatest Tag Team
So you wanna make Jeff Hardy a double champ, hunh? The problem with this is that you don’t wanna have too many gimmick matches at WM. It kind of defeats the specialness of the matches, and you already going to be drained from the last match (mark wise) and going to be dead for the next match on your card. (See next match) First of all, The match will be a trainwreck. The match at Armegeddon was “good” cuz of Regal/Taylor grounding the match. This match, doesn’t have a ring general there so its going to be spot, spot spot, blown spot with Hardy in there. Plus You wanna keep Rated RKO strong for the BOD match so how do you get the titles off of them? So everybody again guns for the Smackdown titles, and you have the Hardyz, who are going to be on RAW cuz that is the “flagship show” [/sarcasm]. Anyways, the match wouldn’t be about anything, but a payday and an injury fest cuz of the Hardyz. Mainly Jeff.
ECW Championship Match: Rob Van Dam © vs. CM Punk
What makes you think that CM Punk/RVD wouldn’t suck as well? Call me negative but RVD is done. Has been done since 02. His wrestling is sloppy. Very inattentive. Punk is nothing but a KENTA (I hope you heard of him) impersonator. Albeit a very good one. Nobody would boo RVD especially at WM cuz he is an IWC darling, same as Punk, therefore this match wouldn’t happen. Since this your “dream card” I will satisfy you. The match wouldn’t blow, but it wouldn’t be very good either. Keeping them apart would be the best bet because that really is the ONLY match in WWECW that can draw, and blowing it at WM wouldn’t help or hurt the buyrate cuz everyone gets WM as is. It would definitely help ONS 3 though.
No Holds Barred Match: Vince McMahon vs. Mick Foley
WHY? WHY? WHY? Foley is mark for himself. Vince is as well. It only seems that Vince programs himself with people that can either A. carry him to a good match, or B. be so biggethan the WWE that it won’t matter in the first place. This match would take up 20 minutes of stuntman bumps and bleeding and does nothing for the business. 20 minutes that can be used for some other matches. All it is doing also is getting Vince and Mick a huge payoff for the match (cuz you know, they both need the money…)
WWE Championship Triple Threat Match: John Cena © vs. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels
Awwww…. Poor Triple H, hurt his quad so he can’t wrestle at WM. What a shame. Anyways, no need to have a face/face match for WM. It doesn’t work. People would boo the crap out of Cena. They would rectify that for the DVD (as they usually do) and Jim Ross would try hopelessly to put over Cena as some superman babyface. No thanks, I’ll watch porn in the meantime. What story does HBK tell in this match? Does he bleed for 20 minutes, make his comeback and lose? Does Cena get his ass whipped for 20 minutes and lose? Who wins? HBK doesn’t get pinned at WM. Period. This match would suck. Next.
World Heavyweight Championship Match: Batista © vs. Mr. Kennedy (Rumble winner)
And this is your main event I suppose? Kennedy would certainly out-class Big Dave all the way in promos leading to the event, so therefore Ken would not be getting any mic time. So that leaves cheap heel tactics. Plus he isn’t even looked at on Dave’s level so why should I care? Cuz he won the Rumble? Not going to happen. Plus, has Kennedy main evented? He hasn’t broke through the glass ceiling yet no matter how much JBL puts him over on SD. This has bad idea written all over it.
That’s you WM card, and it blows. The undercard makes no sense. Your main events are horrid. I got one question for you.
How do you like you Kool-Aid? Man-Ass flavored?
Now this email pissed me off a little. Not because it criticised my card, but because some of the thoughts were immature, impolite and just not thought through at all. I replied with a long, detailed explaination of some of his criticisms and defended my card, and I asked him to come up with something better, but alas, I got no reply. I really hope he enjoys Test vs. Lashley, Cena vs. Khali, and Taker vs. Batista.
Samer from Lebanon returned this week;
The screwjob u chose for this week really gave me flashes of some very nice memories.. that would be none other of eddie guerrero… During this feud with JBL i remember the insane amount of blood he lost during their match at judgement day, and most notably was the frog splash from the top of the cage at SmackDown… just thought I’d show some Eddie love.
On to Triple H.. could this be any more fucked up? The injury came at the worst time imaginable, DX was in a hot feud with Rated RKO, and it would have really helped making edge and Orton look more credible, since their feud was clearly not over… Now he will miss royal rumble and most importantly WrestleMania… Not only this, but we lost DX.. I don’t care what people say about them doing the same things over and over again, DX was the hottest thing on Raw. No matter how much raw would suck there were to things going on at the show that were worth checking out for most fans: Cena (though I don’t really like him) and DX.. every company needs star power, and this is what the WWE has (at least on Raw anyway..). Now it really leaves HBK with nothing to do, and I can’t see how his program with edge and Orton can continue… It is known that at this point the WWE might have planned everything in advance until WrestleMania, and hunter’s injury screws everything up… Raw lacks maineventers now, big time.. I mean Cena won’t be feuding with Khali and Umaga comes WrestleMania..
it’s really ironic how much people bitch about HHH but now that he’s injured people are starting to realize the gap he is going to make.. He’s been out for 2 days and u could already tell that WWE is in trouble… Notably Raw… On that note I’m totally enjoying SmackDown.. it’s what it needs to be, simple and straight to the point.. U have some good wrestling (and more wrestling if u compare it to raw) with very talented veterans Benoit, booker, Finlay, regal, take, Kane.. and some Younger talents who are really exciting too and get crowd response.. Matt hardy, London and Kendrick, Kennedy…
I am really looking forward to the royal rumble, cuz the rumble is always fun, no matter what… and this year it’s really tough to predict who might win, McMahon’s darling hold the titles (Cena, Batista, Lashley…) which means none of these will be winning it, and that leaves us with some interesting picks like edge, Orton (PLZ GOD NO!!!), and Kennedy, I hope urn prediction is right and Kennedy ends up winning it.
Now onto the WrestleMania cards.. I was not surprised that the 2nd card won, and quite frankly it’s an ideal card, well except that now the main event can’t take place…
And like u mentioned it’s a really awesome chance for Edge and Orton to feud with take and Kane, now that Hunter’s gone, their feud with DX is on the verge of being over, they need a high profile feud… It’s just that by having them lose at WrestleMania, well then that wouldn’t really help putting them over. But I mean u could have them lose at WrestleMania, and then have a rematch in some kind of tag team hell in a cell match which they’ll end up somehow winning, and that would be HUGE! however with the game out of WrestleMania, I can predict an Edge vs. Cena main event… Do they have another choice? HBK? I don’t think so… Orton? PLZ! which leaves edge, who’s undefeated at mania, and it would be cool if he beats Cena for the title. (I would prefer the brothers of destruction storyline u suggested though)…
And finally here’s my solution to the replacement of HHH… KHALI CAN’T REPLACE HUNTER! WTF? is it me or smth is really funny when u read: “the reason why Khali was moved to raw was to replace triple h who was injured last night”!!?! I mean Vince wanting KHALI to be in the ECW title scene is bad enough but wanting him to be a main eventer on Raw? Are we supposed to buy Khali as a major figure on the company’s flagship show? wasn’t this the same guy that vince didn’t want to let him wrestle at SummerSlam because he sucked? oh and his opponent btw was the undertaker! Fans will always care when the undertaker is involved but Khali sucks to a point where even seeing Taker in action isn’t worth it! So what was my initial point? oh yes… the solution to HHH’s injury is the end of the brand extension… u can’t bring in someone from SmackDown cuz it would hurt SmackDown.. there’s nobody in ECW to bring (yes not even KHALI), so the answer is: screw the brand extension! end it! and ull have Batista, Cena, HBK, edge, Orton, benoit, booked, Taker… all on the same fucking shows! and u wouldn’t care about star power because u have it! It’s funny that one wrestler’s injury can turn a whole company on its head but that’s what’s happening here…
So anyway take care, and keep up the good work..
Thanks again for the feedback Samer. As I said, I have little time today so I won’t write any reply to this here, but I did send one to Samer personally. Glad to know we’re not all so negative.
Taking It Home
Well I did say it’d be short.
Next week, we return to the usual format with another screwjob. Plus, the end of the Royal Rumble Roulette and much more. Until then, have a good week. And Christian Cage is the man!
