The Reality of Wrestling: HHH’s Quad Injury

The Reality of Wrestling: HHH’s Quad Injury
By Phil Clark

Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?

The one noteworthy part of The E’s last PPV, New Year’s Revolution, was HHH suffering another quad tear, this time in his left leg. In almost karmic fashion, the injury took place almost to the day of the five-year anniversary of HHH’s MSG return from his last quad injury. HHH had surgery soon after and was announced to be sidelined for at least 4-6 months. This, however, was another in a long line of injuries that came at the worst possible time for The E with the build for Wrestlemania beginning at that event.

P.C. Says: HHH’s career has been shortened; RAW should go with Cena/HBK at Mania

When I say that HHH’s career has been shortened, let me say that he is not on borrowed time the same way that Kurt Angle is. In HHH’s case, he hasn’t suffered any major injuries above the waist and that will likely buy him more time than Angle, but his history of leg related injuries now has come to a head. With this injury, one would really have to question whether HHH should be invited back into the main-event circle when he returns or whether his time in the upper echelon of The E has come to an end.

Now I’m aware that The Game will probably main-event PPV’s until he retires, but with quad tears to both legs, whatever ability HHH hasn’t been using since returning from his last quad injury in 2002. Common knowledge is that a wrestler has to have good, strong legs considering everything involved with a wrestling match. When he came back from his last quad injury, at least HHH’s other leg was virtually unharmed and with the extra bulk he’d packed on, he was at least able to rely on his brawling ability to get by. However, the athleticism that made HHH arguably the best wrestler on the planet in 2000 was gone after the first quad tear and most people saw this very clearly upon his return. However, with the right opponent and a great performance, The Game could still entertain and put on good-great matches. Now, his chances just got a bit slimmer and I will predict at this point that The Game will probably not be able to put on a classic performance again once he comes back; it may even take a superhuman effort on the part of his opponent to get that kind of match out of HHH.

As far as The Rumble goes, this injury really couldn’t have come at a worse time. The most likely scenario on the RAW side of things was HHH winning The Rumble leading to the big rematch with Cena at Wrestlemania. Obviously that plan has been scrapped, but I do believe that HBK/Cena would be the next best thing and would be a better match than last year’s main-event. Not only that, but should they run with this one, having HHH at ringside would be a nice touch that worked in ROH just a month ago when Homicide finally won their world title with CM Punk and Low-Ki (two former ROH wrestlers) at ringside cheering him on. That emotional factor is something that Wrestlemania has been about and would be good in the main-event spot.

With Batista/Taker almost set in stone for Mania, I would have to pick Taker to get his first Rumble win this year. This would be good for a number of reasons. First, RAW has occupied the main-event slot at Mania for the past three and if SmackDown! could use something it would be their big match main-event the biggest show of the year. Not only that, but nothing RAW could do (other than HBK/Cena) would have the drawing power of a Batista/Taker title match with Taker’s unbeaten streak on the line. As of now—based on what has been rumored—RAW is down to two choices for opponents for Cena at Mania: HBK or Orton. Considering the fact that the Orton/Cena match hasn’t happened yet, it would make sense for a dream match like that to take place at Mania, but these two aren’t exactly the stars they were supposed to be back in 2004 when this match would’ve been HUGE. I would go with HBK in this case because he’s been to the big match on the big show (not The Big Show) before and besides—in the case of Orton/Cena—there’s always SummerSlam.

The Reality is we really don’t know what the f*ck is going to happen. None of the possible matches I just talked about have been confirmed from any source; Taker/Batista is almost 100% however. It really doesn’t matter what The E does as the name is enough to sell Wrestlemania to any wrestling fan and a large number of non-wrestling fans as five of the last six Wrestlemanias have had over 700,000 buys with X-7 scoring over 1 million and 21 and 22 coming close to that magic number. The event itself is the Super Bowl of wrestling and is the one event in North American wrestling that is a household word within the country. For Vince to be able to do whatever and still come out smelling of roses at least once a year must be incredibly satisfying. No other promotion on the planet can boast the kind of numbers every year that Mania does. That says it all.

This week’s “FUCK YOU!” goes to:

PEOPLE BITCHING ABOUT C.M. PUNK LOSING TO HOLLY
For some reason this caused a big stir amongst Internet fans and fans of Punk. People, IT’S ONE FUCKING LOSS! Trust me, Joe losing to Angle again is a bigger story than this. It’s no secret that Punk was supposed to be Heyman’s big project with ECW, but his downfall caused Punk to get in the doghouse from just being associated with him. And don’t get all huffy about the fact that it was a clean loss, thank god there’s at least a couple of clean endings to matches these days. Listen, Punk got one of the bigger pops at Survivor Series, was a survivor on a team that had it been anyone else would’ve been the only member eliminated, and had an unbeaten streak to start his run in ECW; all this after refusing to be in The Spirit Squad. Trust me, Punk will be just fine. All of the facts I just mentioned show that they have plans for him. The fact that Arn and Finlay don’t like him right now shows that there are at least a couple of people remaining who care about not giving the new guy too much too quick. There is a process—it used to be mandatory—in wrestling where a person would gradually move up the card thus increasing his chances of being a sensation when he got to the main-event. The only reason that Punk was eliminated first from The Chamber in December was to protect Lashley. Besides, with Monty Brown arriving in ECW, we may see Punk on RAW or SmackDown! before or right after Mania. Just think about the possibility of Benoit/Punk and you’ll be fine?