The Way I C It 09.10.07: Did They Escape?

Orton, Batista and Kennedy – Did they avoid the noose?

In the fallout of the Signature pharmacy debacle, many wrestling pundits are of the opinion that these three ultra stars have escaped punishment, or at least suspension, despite being named in the unmasking. Their reasoning? Orton’s suspension earlier in the year is going to be considered as his punishment for this infraction, with the inference being that they caught him. Removing Kennedy from the main event storylines is what they consider to be HIS punishment. Some are saying he served his suspension when injured. Batista was not named in all reports and has been very vocal in his rebuttal.

Yeah, not buying that.

I mean, sure it’s possible, but there’s another scenario. WWE have confirmed the suspension of 11 members of the roster. From results over the past couple of shows, we can surmise that Chavo Guerrero, John Morrison, Umaga, William Regal and possibly Charlie Haas are among those names. Booker, Funaki, Masters, and Santino Marella have not been seen on TV since. That’s only 9. Eugene and Mike “Nova/Simon Dean” Bucci (who should know better since Nova invented the drug test) were both released, so they were not among the suspensions. Eddie and Benoit are both dead, as is Adams, who hasn’t been active in some time. Edge and Helms are out injured, so although it’s POSSIBLE they’ve been suspended, it’s unlikely. We’re still 2 short.

The key here is that there is no law stating that any suspensions that are forthcoming need to be handed out right away. With some wrestlers, they had a safety valve waiting so they could be taken off TV without disrupting a storyline (CM Punk holding the title shot). Some were not doing anything anyway (Haas, Masters). These 3 are in the middle of big stories and could not be pulled without major leaps of faith in writing. What? Yes, I know it never stopped them before. Humor me.

Let’s start with Orton. I believe he has the most viable means of escaping punishment, or further punishment, as he was legit suspended earlier this year, the time frame would fit, and it makes WWE’s Wellness policy look much less of a failure. He’s involved in a main event program with John Cena, one that has actually been built fairly well, and he has been made to look like a credible threat. After doing that, the only way they could have taken him out of the story would have been for Cena to snap on him after the dad-kicking incident, injuring him. Except they used that angle with Umaga, and later Chavo. Far better to have the injury occur in the match, thereby blowing off the feud for now, freeing Cena to feud with a returning HBK, and probably HHH once his burial of program with Carlito is done. That should easily fill the 60 days that Orton would be suspended, at which point he can feud with a (probably title-less) Cena once again.

Kennedy, on the other hand, is a bit more cut-and-dry. He could easily have been written out of the storyline last Monday when he was told flat out “It’s not you!” (end dated British Lottery reference). We’ll know more by tonight (tomorrow as I write this), as if he is not on Raw, it’s likely he’s suspended. My thought, though, is that they will hold on until the son is revealed, and he’ll fight the son at Unforgiven (meaning that Meehan’s excellent hypothesis is likely wrong…) and disappear from there. He’s just come back from an injury, so putting him out with another (kayfabe) one is probably the wrong move. A kayfabe suspension by the boss could work, and would turn him face on returning, enabling a feud with the heel son. Allegedly they’ve been high on turning Kennedy face for a while, so this might work in their favor.

Finally, we move on to Batista. He’s certainly the most visibly cut of the 3, and also, on the face of it, the one who appears to be being protected the most. After all, he was just inserted into the Unforgiven title match, something like the 6th PPV in a row that he’s had a title shot. But what better way to write him off? A match with one guy who can legit bust you up, and one guy you’re afraid to hit because he’s your buddy. So many ways they can go!
Costs Rey the title and is overcome with guilt
Gets beaten to a pulp by Khali
Loses when he can’t hurt Rey, and goes off shaking his head
Gets rolled up by Rey when he has Khali down and feels humiliated
Loses to Rey, goes nuts and Batista Bombs him through the stage, gets kayfabe suspended by Teddy Long-Marshall

Any of those would wash as a reason for taking time off. And when he came back, a heel turn would be easily accomplished, although probably a bad idea given the dearth of high-end faces on the blue brand.

So it does appear viable that these 3 could yet be taken off TV for a while. It would be VERY bad for business if the WWE were seen to be protecting anyone over this, but they cannot be attacked for making sure their product was looked after before meting out sentences. Unfortunately, their promise to name names from now on is a bad sign that they do indeed plan to protect certain people at this point. We have no way of knowing for sure who the 11 are, so all we can do is postulate, which leads to rumors and negative impressions.

The scariest part of all of this, is that this is one online pharmacy. Who knows how many others have clients in WWE? This is going to make Congress dig even deeper and the results will not be pleasant. Although many of the drugs allegedly purchased are not illegal, getting them without prescription is not exactly kosher.

Kennedy was very visible post-Benoit with his statements on steroids, coming right out and saying he has not done them. Batista is apparently thinking about legal action (good luck, people suing the Sun is a regular occurrence in the UK and rarely works). This just makes it all worse. Batista needs to be told to button it ASAP, as anyone with eyes can tell he’s not clean. Kennedy is going to be given a very rough time if the media remembers his remarks. And someone will.

The Way I C Other Wrestling Stuff

As I wrote this article, I had half an ear on the No Surrender PPV shill show on the Fight Network. For a while, when TNA was putting on great shows regularly and WWE was horrible, I wondered if Vince was intentionally letting TNA catch up so that he could have some competition. Recently, with the addition of Russo and any WWE-jects they can get, TNA have reversed the roles. The entire shill show was spent on Angle, and maybe 2 minutes of that was about the freaking World Title match!!! Way to push your most prestigious belt there boys. A ton of hype around Pacman Jones, who if he sees action might be in the ring for 2 minutes, in all likelihood to pin Sting and completely bury all credibility left in him. It’s like David Arquette, WCW Heavyweight Champion all over again. The 3 title matches are all but obvious: Joe costs Angle the X-Division belt, Sting gets pinned for the Tag belts, and Ricky Banderas costs Abyss his match, which really should have been done on Impact!, and not for the World strap. The gauntlet has 0 build and will generate the same number of buys. There are 2 matches I want to see: Machismo-Angle because Jay Lethal can flat out go, and Christian-Joe just to see how they screw Joe this time.

I’ll write more on this another time, but I recently saw my first CHIKARA action, since the recent work of Quackenbush, Hallowicked, Jigsaw and Chris Hero left me wanting more. Watching people wrestle on a mat that is maybe a foot off the ground is….different. Never having seen any lucha before, some of the stuff was a bit eye opening, some came off a bit hokey.

I watched the Legacy of the AWA on WWE 24/7 this weekend. It was very sad to see all the people on there who are no longer with us: Hennig, Sherri, Kerry von Erich, Hawk…but I also had some nice memories of watching the shows on ESPN, with the Freebirds coming out to Badd Street, the Minnesota Wrecking Crew getting their sick, sick finisher banned, over the top rope being a DQ…happy times. As I was very young at the time most of those things went down, I had no idea of how badly Vince screwed Verne on the Hogan situation and others. What I liked was the way the feature did not go out of its way to make Vince and Company look blameless. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he came off looking like a cold man with questionable ethics. That may be his TV character, but these psuedo-documentaries normally break kayfabe. Paying Hogan not to show up for Verne, convincing talent to renege on dates with the AWA…such a contrast to now, when he gladly allows people like Sydal, Cabana and Punk to finish up where they were first.

That’s about all I have for you this week, folks. I have some topics planned to cover soon, plus I will incorporate feedback if I am lucky enough to receive any. Above all, I want to share my passion for wrestling with you all, as you must feel the same way to be here reading. Please stop by and support the other new writers, and of course the old ones. I’m off to enjoy some more 30 Seconds From Mars, who I discovered while watching RoH. Is there no end to wrestling’s influence?!