Looking Ahead, News, Opinions, Etc., 31.10.06

Columns

Looking Ahead, News, Opinions, Etc; – 31st October 2006

Hi all, I’m back again but with double the dose. Eric is away moving house (again) so I’ve merged his column into mine and for ONE NIGHT ONLY, WE PRESENT TO YOU, THE ADORING PUBLIC…

LOOKING AHEAD, NEWS, OPINIONS, ETC

TA-DAHHHHHHHHH!

What?


RAW

Next PPV – Cyber Sunday; 05/11/06

The Announced Card

Champion of Champions Match
John Cena vs. King Booker vs. Big Show
Fan’s Choose which World Title will be on the line; WWE, World Heavyweight, ECW

My gut is telling me that either something big will happen (like Cena winning the match and holding both WWE World Titles, for instance) or that it’ll be a run-of-the-mill match where nothing really happens and ends with a No Contest or some other crappy result.

It will probably be the latter, but one can hope.

Special Guest Referee Match
DX vs. Orton & Edge
Fan’s Choose who the Special Guest Referee will be; Jonathan Coachman, Eric Bischoff, Vince McMahon

I know other people have commented on it, but yeah, having Orton vs. HHH for the 3rd straight week seems to be killing the supposed Orton-HHH feud dead in the water. Unless it leads into a HHH-Edge feud and an Orton-HBK feud. Haven’t we had the latter before? I don’t know… my memory isn’t what it used to be.

Anyhoo, Coach should replace Lawler in the booth, Bischoff should come back fulltime and either manage somebody or become the GM for SmackDown. Vince is boring and stale. What this has to do with anything I’ve no idea, but it’s all true.

Open Challenge
Umaga vs. ?
Fan’s Vote for either Chris Benoit, Kane or Sandman

The hand seems to be forced towards Kane, but I’d like people to surprise Vince & Co. somewhat and pick Sandman or hell, even Benoit. You wana f*ck with Vince, then vote for Benoit. He’ll be backed into a corner, as he won’t know who to put over. US Champ Benoit or Undefeated Umaga. Personally, I’d like to see Umaga win the US title for a short while, before loosing it back (but not getting pinned) to a SmackDown guy at Survivor Series in some type of inter-brand match.

It’s give the US title a bit of a buzz about it, along with some recognition again, and lead to some interesting TV for a month or so. Plus it keeps Umaga out of the way until his eagerly awaited feud with John Cena is upon us. And no, I’m not kidding about the “eagerly awaited feud” part I just wrote. Honestly, I’m looking forward to it, just to see what they can do with the two of them. Pus it’s fresh meat in the title scene. Who cares if the “wrestling” won’t be up to scratch? The verbal sparring between Cena and Armando will surely be GOLD.

Intercontinental Championship
Jeff Hardy vs. ?
Fan’s Vote for either Carlito, Shelton Benjamin or Johnny Nitro

I’m really not fussed about this match at all. Thus, I’m not going to bother making something up for this. All I’ll say is… vote Shelton!

Tag Team Match
The Spirit Squad vs. Ric Flair & ?
Fan’s Vote for either Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper or Sgt. Slaughter

I’m sure whoever ends up winning the match, afterwards the Spirit Squad will gang up and start beating down Flair and Whoever and then we’ll get the “Legend Save Spot” where the other two guys not chosen hobble down and save them.

Either that, or we’ll get a complete Spirit Squad Split. One will be pushed into the IC title scene (Kenny I imagine), two guys will form a tag team, another will be fired and end up on Smackdown, and the other will probably hang about jobbing left, right and centre.

WWE Women’s Title Match
Mickie James vs. Lita
Fans choose stipulation: Diva Lumberjacks, Submission or No DQ

Pretty sure that we’ll be lumbered with “Diva Lumberjacks”, but a Submission or No-DQ match would be awesome. It’s not everyday we see Women competing in stipulation matches, so why not take advantage of it I say?

VOTE FOR NO-DQ!

Four-Way Tag Match
Cade & Murdoch vs. Cryme Tyme vs. Haas & Viscera vs. The Highlanders
Fans choose type of match: Fatal Four Way, Tag Team Turmoil or Texas Tornado

Well f*ck me, maybe the WWE DO realise they have a tag-division on Raw? Question – Why the hell aren’t Rob Conway and Val Venis thrown together and give us ANOTHER tag-team? That’d be about 6 tag teams in total, a perfect amount.

I’m rooting for Texas Tornado, as if it’s going to be a cluster f*ck, they might as well invoke the best match for the job.


THE NEWS SECTION

WWE/ECW News

“There will be no more ECW house shows after November, with the brand touring alongside Smackdown instead. The thought process internally is that when they relaunched the ECW brand in June, they sent it out on the road with live events before it was truly prepared to do so, so they are taking a step backwards.”

Well I did wonder how long they can continue doing the ECW house shows, but honestly if they didn’t do ECW house shows up until now, do they really think that they’d get the hardcore fan base, that made ECW so special in the first place, to the shows? I don’t.

The main event of the ECW December to Dismember PPV has been changed with ECW World champion Big Show now defending the title against Rob Van Dam and four other competitors to be announced in an Extreme Elimination Chamber bout.

‘With Good must come bad”, a wise man once said… apparently. This is the good to the bad of the first newsbit above. As soon as I heard about this match it knocked my expectations and hopes up a hell of a lot for the PPV, as honestly I feared that it’d be a crappy PPV with no good matches to bump up the buyrate for (which is what ultimately Vince wants).

It should be good.

Last night Daivari and Great Khali were moved from Smackdown to ECW, with Daivari wrestling Shannon Moore with Khali in his corner. Khali has been recovering from injuries to both knees.

Hmm… not too sure where I stand on this one. It’s a great idea to have Khali in the corner of Daivari while he rest’s up his knees, but on the other hand ECW have an already over-crowded roster and personally I’d rather see Daivari compete for the Cruiserweight title. Imagine a cruiserweight champ Daivari being protected by Khali for a few months. It’s not something that is seen every day, so why not go for it?

According to Dave Meltzer at WrestlingObserver.com, Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay are also going to ECW. Heyman has always been high on Terkay and his shootfighting and amateur wrestling background, and before he debuted on SD, there was talk that a Terkay/Angle program would run based on their past (as the story goes, Terkay’s one amateur wrestling loss was to Kurt).

Terkay would be great in EC-DUB, but again, the roster is already over-crowded and adding another 2 guys who have a chance to shine on SmackDown is pretty pointless. Besides, the WWE best think of some damn good excuses for the reasons 4 guys are jumping to ECW, otherwise you might as well kiss the “brand exclusive” contracts goodbye.

WrestleMag.com reports that Cyber Sunday will be shown in the UK at 1AM on SkySports1 this Monday. The PPV was not included in WWE’s existing PPV deal

Good old Wrestlemag. Great news for UK fans (like myself) as it’s a freebie. Awesome.

Big Show is rumoured to be leaving the WWE in February of next year

Personally, I think that he’ll end up in TNA if he decides to leave. His knees/back are fooked, so I can see him spending 6-8 months out sitting at home and resting up, then he’ll make his return with TNA towards the end of next year.

1PW NEWS

Iceman vs. Martin Stone in a Falls Count Anywhere match at ‘1PW Fight Club 4’

Sounds like a great match. Iceman is a great brawler and Martin Stone is a good up and comer in 1PW. Both men are as tough as old boots, so it should be a brutal bout.

Jody Fleisch added to Pac vs. Jonny Storm match, now a Triple Threat Match

With the “attitude”, shall we say, that Jody displayed at the 1PW Anniversary show after loosing the tag titles to Team SHAG (Burridge & Cabana), this is an interesting development to say the least.

Will this lead to Jody and Jonny splitting up and feuding? Time will tell, but it’s a good possibility.


The Last Bit…

Dammit, it’s Halloween. That means annoying little fookers come knocking at your door wanting sweets for wearing a black bin liner and a pointy hat, or for having some bandage wrapped around their arm.

Sod that. I’ll be upstairs in the office/study/games room, with the downstairs lights turned off, playing on my PS2 and eating Pizza.

And possibly armed with water bombs.

Stay Creepy…

Danny Wallace.