The Reality of Wrestling: The WWE Title(s)
By Phil Clark & J.D. Speich
The E decided to start off 2006 with a bang. At New Year’s Revolution PPV, John Cena predictably won the Elimination Chamber Match. What was not expected was that Edge cashed in his Money in the Bank title shot after the Chamber Match and beat Cena for the belt in less than two minutes. Later that week, injuries finally caught up with Batista as he was finally overruled by the higher-up’s and forced to vacate his title. Later that night, Kurt Angle jumped from RAW and won the belt in a battle royal. Both title changes took place in three days, both were shocking in their own way, and both added up to one thing: WWE T.V. is actually interesting again.
P.C. Says: Edge’s title change was good, but Angle’s was bad
First off, let me get this out in the open: I’m a HUGE Kurt Angle fan. I’ve been a huge backer of his for the last couple of years and truly believe he’s the best thing that the E has at this point. However, they could’ve done things differently that would’ve made the title change seem a little more special than it actually was.
The 1/13 (date aired) edition of SmackDown! should’ve been Dave’s night. He comes out, gives his speech about the belt, hands it over, walks off, gets his congrats, yadda, yadda, yadda. That would’ve gave Dave one more moment in the sun before he went under the knife, and in some way would’ve made the title seem like something truly special if a guy got so wrapped up in being champion. Instead, Dave is immediately overshadowed by the battle royal (not even that good of one) that crowns a new champion.
Instead of going right into crowning a new champ, they should’ve made this “situation” the talk of the company. Have Teddy Long keep the belt for a week or two with guys like Orton, Angle, Mark Henry, etc. bitching about they deserve the belt and what should be done with it. That would’ve also left more room open to explain Angle’s departure from RAW instead of a quickie explanation ON RAW! I personally think that they should’ve put the belt on the line at the Rumble. That way, you could still have Angle win the belt meaning that a SmackDown! guy wins the Rumble for the first time in three years. Also, with a title on the line, the Rumble match itself would take on a higher meaning than just creating a new #1 contender for Mania. In this scenario the Rumble match, like the 92 edition, would be the talk of the wrestling world (trust me, TNA or RoH don’t have anything as mind-blowing as that would be).
Edge’s title change was good because it did bring back the “shock title change.” I love long title reigns because it helps a title and title-holder gain validity, but when it comes to episodic television (something the E obviously cares about more than their PPV’s), shock title changes make for good T.V. Now if the title change happens on T.V., it’s better, but in this case, people did want to see Edge with the belt because of the shock value attached to that and who would want to pass up on live sex, I mean come on people! The ratings did prove that that little ploy worked as RAW saw their first 4.0 T.V. rating in a long while and the overrun went past 5.0!
Plus, with a heel champion, WWE has a shot to make some real money with their minor pay-per-views with an old staple that has never failed: the chase. When a heel is champion and in a feud with a face, the point is to push the feud as far as you can before giving the face the big blowoff win for the title. This is what is referred to as a chase in the wrestling business. The majority of the time, it works better than actually having the face as champion. Why? Because people love watching their favorite face wrestler battle valiantly week after week against the dastardly heel in hopes of overcoming the mismatched (they usually are) odds to get the big win. In this case you have Cena, who has been getting boos as of late because people are starting to realize how shitty of a wrestler he is (thank you Kurt Angle), and because his act can become really stale if he’s not in a position to be the underdog. If he’s not forced to climb the mountain again, his act is appreciated by the fans and both men can up their value if the feud is booked right.
J.D. Says: Both title changes were good, to a point
The past week in WWE has been an exciting one with both titles changing hands in a most unorthodox and unexpected way. On the Raw side: after retaining his title in the elimination chamber at New Year’s Revolution John Cena thought his night was over. WRONG, after the match ended Vince McMahon comes out and announces that Edge will deposit his money-in-the-bank title shot in a shocking turn of events. A helpless and worn out Cena ends up losing to Edge in about two minutes and Edge is crowned the new WWE Champion. My thought on the title change was that I loved it. The main reason I liked it so much was tat it was so unexpected. I never thought they were going to use the money-in-the-bank title shot the way they did. I also have to admit that, even though Edge had the shot, I never thought he was going to win the title. Since I am a huge Edge fan, I’m glad to see that he finally got to the top of the business. I also liked how this creative move made Edge look smart. Don’t get me wrong; this title change also helped John Cena. They needed to get the belt off of him because he was getting more boos than Shawn Michaels in Canada. The minute Cena lost the belt, he got the majority of his fans back and now you can finally tell who is the face and who is the heel in his feuds. The only problem I had with title win was that it panned out too much like Wrestlemania 9 with the fact that a man wins a title match, only to lose the belt in a matter of a few short minutes.
On the Smackdown side: Due to another injury, caused by THE WORLD’S SHITTIEST WRESTLER, Batista had no choice but to give up his title on Smackdown and as soon as he left the building the title was put on the line in a twenty man battle royal. The participants in the battle royal made it look like the battle royal was for the United States Championship, since there were only about five or six big names in the match, proving that Smackdown is very undermanned with talent. The shocker of the whole battle royal was that the number twenty entry was Kurt Angle from Raw. The match lasts for about 25 minutes until Kurt is finally able to take out Mark Henry. My thought on this title switch was that it was good for Kurt, but bad for the business. It was good because Kurt deserved to win one of the big titles since he has been over for the past two months and he’s the best wrestler they have right now. The title switch was bad for a number of good reasons.
Number one, Mark Henry, who can’t seem to get it through his head that he can’t wrestle, injured an already beat up Batista and didn’t even get yelled at for it. This pisses me off because some idiot just knocked off your best champion and doesn’t have to pay any dividends for it. Number two, this title switch was also terrible because it was so quickly done with no preparation and it made it look like they forced the title on Angle, and nothing should have to be forced on to that guy. Which brings me to number three, I can’t believe it took something like this to get Angle the top title once again. The fact that he didn’t already have WWE Championship makes me sick. The last thing I have to say about this title change was that you could tell that the WWE still isn’t preparing ahead of time for unexpected events. The WWE has never seemed to have a back up plan when the worst-case scenario comes along, this title switch being a case in point. The WWE should have known that Batista was going to go down sooner or later because he was fighting through an injury and was probably going to make it worse by fighting through it. The best thing to come out of this was that Angle is once again champion and the WWE has been more creative and unexpected in the last week than in the last two years.
The Reality is…our opinions aren’t really that different here because there really is only one way to look at these title changes. They were unpredictable; one handled well, the other not so well. It also showed how little SmackDown! actually means to the E that they have so few name wrestlers that they have to send a RAW guy to win their belt. For all of the “trying” that the creative team looks like they’re doing with these title changes, they’re just serving as short term stuff that will likely mean nothing even three months from now. Cena/HHH is virtually a lock for Mania, which means that unless Vince decides to roll the dice with another triple-threat from the RAW brand, Edge is going to be left out in the cold. Then again, the fact that Cena/HHH is almost in stone shows that Edge’s likelihood of walking out of the Rumble as champ is slim to none and I think slim may be packing his bags. With Angle, as good a wrestler as he is, he has never really been what the E has wanted in a champ (too much ACTUAL wrestling maybe) as all of his title reigns, and likely this one too, have been short and transitional to the guy that the E does want on top. His title losses have come to The Rock, Brock Lesnar twice, and when he comes back, you know Dave’s gonna get his belt back after getting carried to a good match from your Olympic Hero.
