Undertaker and Edge were said to be noticeably upset backstage with the reactions from their respective matches last night. For those who missed it, Edge was loudly booed in his hometown of Toronto while the fans chanted “Spanish Tables” and did the wave during Taker’s match with JBL.
The word on Edge was that he was stunned and did not expect the reaction that he received. Taker was said to be pretty ticked off at the fan reaction to his match. Others in the company tried to explain that the fan’s treatment of the Dead Man was inevitable considering how the lack of story behind the JBL/Taker match and the fact that JBL still has no credibility as a champion (with Eddie Guerrero being the only one to put him over). There is a feeling among a number of people in the company that Taker’s lack of interaction with the champ made the match, and JBL himself, seem unimportant to the fans and that is what led to such an embarassing effort.
Speaking of Taker, originally, there was a lot of talk that Jon Heidenreich would get involved with Undertaker’s match at the PPV and would be the one to cost him the win. The new story is that they want to squeeze a rematch between JBL/Taker and that left Heidenreich out of the plans. There are a number of people who think that Taker played off of his power to avoid a feud with the green Heidenreich due to the fact that he knew it would make for bad matches, but that is just a theory at this point.
Speaking of Taker’s stroke backstage, there was also talk backstage that Undertaker and Kurt Angle, who are both clearly the power players in the Smackdown locker room (some people even call them the Triple H’s of Smackdown) want to build up their characters for an eventual program where they work against each other as the clear top two stars of the Smackdown. This would probably be for the title. They clearly seem to want to position themselves as the top two men on the current roster, including the current champion. Sources close to the situation have said that Angle lobbied to get his win yesterday over Guerrero and would also like to have the WWE Title when he eventually faces off with the Taker. Angle is also said to be pitching for a TV match between he and Guerrero that will then lead to an angle where Luther Reigns is put in a program with Guerrero, and is pushed as a monster. This would leave Angle to feud with whoever (Taker).
Credit: Dave Scherer, PWInsider.com
