The WWF has an unmistakable buzz coming off of the Ric Flair debut on Raw last week, and has a weekly challenge to maintain the buzz, and create something new off of it.
Last Monday’s housecleaning of Shane, Stephanie and Heyman were symbolic as much as they fit the storyline. The message was clear: Vince McMahon is trying to show fans that the Alliance and its mistakes are behind him, and it will be a new era in the WWF.
Adding wrestling legend Ric Flair to the mix was a great start. Then, creating a unique mini tournament for the December PPV to unify the WWF and “World” titles was another way to add intrigue to the promotion. If they were going to just do Austin vs. The Rock, then they would promote it as such. Instead, it’s obvious that either the Rock, or Austin, or possibly both will lose before the finals at Vengeance.
The WWF has often used tournaments to solidify the top star status of a main event wrestler. In fact both The Rock and Steve Austin’s careers took off after impressive tournament showings, Austin at the King of the Ring ’96 and the Rock at Survivor Series ’98.
For the WWF to truly show fans that they are ushering in a new era of sports entertainment, and the tired, predictable shows of the post-Wrestlemania 18 WWF are a thing of the past, either Kurt Angle or Chris Jericho needs to win the unified title at Vengeance.
Kurt Angle’s babyface run was largely a failure, even with the added patriotic boost the September 11th tragedy provided. It would certainly cement his heel turn and make him very credible in the eyes of fans if he went through both the Rock and Austin to win the World title. However, Angle is already seen as a top star, and one whose brief runs as WCW and WWF champions were nothing special.
Instead, the WWF would be best suited to give Chris Jericho the final push the mega stardom by having him defeat The Rock and then Steve Austin en route to being the first ever unified WWF and WCW champion.
Jericho could defeat the Rock by using some sort of devious cheating method, and then could go over Austin with the help of a returning Triple H. A Royal Rumble double main event of Jericho vs. Rock for the title, and Austin vs. Triple H, in addition to the Rumble match itself would make for some super in-ring action and compelling storyline development.
The WWF has been gunshy in giving Jericho the final push to the top tier over the past year or so. Just prior to King of the Ring 2001, the WWF pulled the plug on the push for Jericho and Chris Benoit to be top title contenders. And just a few weeks ago, they jobbed Jericho to the Rock for the WCW World Title.
Traditional wrestling booking has a wrestler job out for a while before a major turn, and hopefully Jericho’s loss to the Rock for the WCW Title was only a set up for his heel turn that would ultimately lead to his ascension to the industry’s top plateau.
Chris Jericho as the promotion’s top champion would be the WWF’s best path for the near future. It would give the fans a new star at the top, and prove that 2001’s stale storylines would be eclipsed by fresh and new stars and angles in 2002. In addition, having a cowardly heel champion, with two (or even three if the Undertaker is pushed again) legitimate fan favorite World Title contenders chasing after Jericho would give fans incentive to watch each show, hoping that each edition of Raw, Smackdown or a house show would be the time that Jericho would finally succumb to his popular rival.
The WWF has to show estranged fans that things have changed, and once again ANYTHING can happen in the WWF. Jericho as unified champ after Vengeance would be a fantastic start.
