Can They Be Champ? 04.13.08: The WWE Title: From Now Til SummerSlam

Truthfully, the match I’m really looking forward to at Backlash is Michaels vs. Batista. It’s had such a great, emotional build. I know Batista gets a lot of crap sometimes, but if you put him in there with the right opponent, good things can happen. A lot of people have had their best matches against HBK. It could happen again if Batista is motivated. Also, I love how even after Flair leaves his retirement angle is still awesome.

Lockdown is tonight. It may have been prudent for me to write something about it in this column. Well, while I have been making a stronger effort to keep up with Impact lately, I don’t think I’m going to be shelling out the cash for the PPV tonight. It looks like it might be a fun card, but I have a hard time getting the expensive WWE PPVs monthly as it is.

I don’t really feel comfortable talking about PPVs I know I probably won’t be able to watch. That’s why I didn’t participate in the Roundtable for it.

Today I will be predicting how things will go down for the WWE Championship scene from now until Summerslam. That means I’ll be taking you through six PPVs, including Backlash and Summerslam. I’ll get started on that after the Podcast break.

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First off, I want to be clear that this isn’t fantasy booking. I’m writing what I think will happen, not what I want to happen.

So, from now until Summerslam. Obviously, let’s start with Backlash. We have Orton vs. HHH vs. JBL vs. Cena. First off, let’s talk about JBL. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him win the WWE Championship anytime soon. He still gets a lot of crowd heat, so he still plays the part of a heel well. But would giving him the title again really increase his heat? He already reminds us every chance that he gets that he was the longest running WWE Champion in Smackdown history. He still is running from the fumes of that title reign. Why bother giving him another one? Also, after having a heel champion like Orton for so long, why have him drop the belt to another heel?

Cena is a guy who can win the championship again at anytime. Well, it has been a long time since he’s been the WWE Champion. Probably the longest amount of time ever since he first became the WWE Champion at WrestleMania 21. It is possible that the WWE may back off on Cena dominated title scenes, as long as he can remain as over as he is. With Cena’s strong appeal to kids, it shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t think Cena is going to be the guy to take the belt off of Orton. That would only lead to another Cena vs. Orton feud, and that has been played to hell lately.

HHH probably has the best chance to win at Backlash. Still, Backlash is Backlash. We usually don’t see a world title change hands there. Yes, I know it has happened, but not since the WWE has adopted this “make it a triple threat/fatal four way” philosophy for Backlash. If you were going to have a title change in a match that is so similar to the WrestleMania match, why wouldn’t you have the title change hands at WrestleMania? Some would argue that giving Orton the surprise win there gives more credibility. Does it really, especially after they made such a point to remind us that he only won because he took advantage of HHH’s pedigree?

I think Orton will retain at Backlash. I think that’s about as safe a prediction as I’ll make in this column. We’ll probably see the reverse scenario of what happened at WrestleMania, with Cena FUing HHH, but Orton stealing the pin. This will set up a Cena/HHH feud for Judgment Day. It’s a match people want to see, and they don’t need the title involved for it to big. So much so that the WWE Championship match will be scaled back, meaning that we’ll see Orton beat somewhat a bit below the caliber of HHH or Cena. Maybe we’ll see that Orton/JBL one on one match here. Whoever Orton faces (and beats), it will probably be a one time thing.

Meanwhile, HHH will beat Cena at their Judgment Day match, setting him up for the #1 contender. This will finally give Triple H his one on one championship match against Orton that he’s complained about not getting for so long. The match will be at One Night Stand.

This time, HHH will finally win his 12th world title. Naturally, the rematch will be booked for Night of Champions. By the way, if it’s true, I’m glad to see the name change. So many WWE PPVs have generic aggressive names. Backlash, Vengeance, No Mercy, Unforgiven, it’s all the same thing. Also, Judgment Day and Armageddon practically mean the same thing.

Anyways, I’m sure the rematch will have some sort of gimmick applied to it. Falls Count Anywhere, Last Man Standing (a rematch of their second No Mercy match), Hell in a Cell even. Whatever it is, HHH will win again, defending his WWE title.

The Great American Bash will be next. Here, we’ll see another HHH/Cena match, this time for the world title. There may be a gimmick applied here, but it could just as easily be a simple one fall match. We’ll see another HHH title defense here. I know, I have Cena losing quite a bit here. I’m sure the Cena haters are going to get a kick out of that.

Well, that finally brings us to SummerSlam. I think two things can happen here. We could see another match against Cena, this time with a gimmick applied. Cena would have a good chance of winning that match. However, I think during this whole period Shawn Michaels will be on quite a roll, all starting with his retiring Ric Flair. This could put HBK in title contention, and we could see another HHH/HBK feud, though this time with both of them relatively playing the parts of faces. I know this feud has been done to death before, it’s been quite some time now. Considering the WWE’s philosophy of “if it didn’t happen six months ago, it never happened”, I don’t think they’d be too hesitant to start this feud up again. With HBK on one of the larger roles in his career in some time, he will finally win the WWE Championship again at SummerSlam.

Alright, that takes us all the way through SummerSlam. What do you guys think? Am I on the right track? Am I way off? What the hell am I thinking predicting that Shawn Michaels will win a world title again? Be sure to leave comments telling me what you agree with and what you don’t agree with. I’d love to post some of them in the next column.

Anyways, that’s it for this week. I’ll probably be giving the World Heavyweight Championship the same treatment next week. I’ll see you all then.