Welcome to the only column that hasn’t been labeled a “work”, unlike the injuries of Randy Orton, John Cena, and Mr. Kennedy. Vince McMahon can get himself blown up on national TV and have some sign fall on top of him and we’d not care because we know it’s fake, but when injury happens in real life, some of the fans must always interject such injury with the phrase “it’s a work”. I know by the end of the report, you won’t change your mind. That’s alright though – I’m not some renowned doctor who gets paid a million dollars to write into the American Journal of Medicine that “children are more likely to get ADHD when they aren’t allowed to spend their energy by getting involved in outside activity.” Yeah, I made that one up.
Last Time on TMR
Last time, I provided a quick TNA recap, praised the new ECW announce team, bashed Hogan, and talked about Summerslam. It could had been worse…I could had talked how Vince Russo is better than you, but when I tried to come up with supporting reasons for that argument, I remembered that I didn’t watch wrestling until 2000, so I wouldn’t know how bad he was in the 90’s.
The Injured List
Randy Orton
This one is one of the most talked about, although John Cena is a close second. Everyone knows that Randy was injured at One Night Stand after landing on his collarbone wrong. The injury was a sort of a blessing in disguise for him because his wife was expecting their first child.
Just as the media went their rounds talking about Orton possibly returning at Summerslam to screw Cena out of beating Batista, or to join up with Simply Priceless, or to do something – there’s many theories out there, but anyways…Randy was involved in a motorcycle accident. From the accident report on WWE.com and on Orton’s fan forum, it was reported that Orton was going 30 miles per hour and he got blinded by an idiot bright light driver, causing him to go off the road and landed some 300 feet away.
One could buy that Orton landed 300 feet away if he rolled off a hill and one could also buy that he rebroke his collarbone because he got hurt on the initial impact, wherever that was. Just rolling downhill for 300 feet approximately wouldn’t do too much, except rough your body up, if it wasn’t grassy all the way down.
However, no one buys this injury because there was no coverage of the accident, besides what appeared around the IWC. There was nothing about it in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or nothing on the local news stations. If it happened in St. Louis, one would imagine that someone of Orton’s celebrity status in the city, there’d be some kind of discussion about it.
So what does this mean? Well, WWE could have easily fabricated the story because there could had been a small possibility that Orton wasn’t ready. Randy had posted publicly that he’d be back around Summerslam and perhaps the injury wasn’t 100% healed. Not wanting to look like an asshole, especially after calling Dave Metzler one about his story on Orton’s injury being serious – this new story would have easily gave another reason to explain why Orton was out longer. It’s just sad that most of his fans would easily search to find out if the story was true or not.
For now, Randy Orton is at home most likely laughing at all the news about him that gets posted. When he returns, we all know that he will be a force to be reckoned with.
John Cena
This one has many fans and haters torn. John Cena suffered a neck injury and was pulled from all of WWE’s events indefinitely. The next day, Cena went under the knife and was seen at the SmackDown tapings later that evening. Everyone is saying that he’s either an idiot for undergoing the “quick fix” operation, that he’s Superman, that he has wellness problems, and some of the 99 other excuses making their rounds on the internet.
It’s no secret I read other wrestling websites. It’s also no secret when I read some of their news reports and columns that the comment box is filled wih half-minded people that say that they are happy to see him injured…or that he’s failed a Wellness test, but Vince doesn’t want his name to be reported because it’s a CNN nightmare waiting to happen.
My favorite one of the bunch is that this is a work. There is a simple answer. If it’s a work, then how come we got this picture of Cena?
That’s a small band-aid, but it’s proof enough that this is not a work.
You can see more pictures at this link.
Three months out for this kind of surgery can be believable because of that small band-aid that he has on his neck. It wasn’t like when Kurt Angle went in so many times to get his neck fixed. Cena caught it early and he took care of the problem quicker than anyone else that had these kind of surgeries have done. Dr. Maroon has a great track record, having done three NFL players and not a single one of them are retired yet. I’d say Cena made the right choice.
Mr. Kennedy
This guy can’t get a break. Ken Kennedy has been injury prone since he was pushed into the upper midcard. I can’t recall all the injuries he had, but this current one, a torn labrum and a damaged rotator cuff, has him sidelined for up to six months. Mr. Kennedy was to have received the current CM Punk push from last year, but he had similar arm related injuries. However, I wouldn’t count Mr. Kennedy out of the picture just yet. He’s going to surprise somebody when he returns. Just watch.
It’s because of these three untimely injuries that the WWE Creative Team has to rewrite all the storylines that were planned for them. Some can say that this is why CM Punk is still our World Heavyweight Champion. A lot of us gave him a month – that he would had lost it at the Great American Bash to Batista. It’s past Summerslam and he is still your top champion.
Forget The Eliminator…It’s the Scrambler!
And surprisingly, Mike Adamle can’t be credited with creating this new concept. Shane & Stephanie McMahon pitched the idea and it was made. It’s called the Championship Scramble and the rules are highlighted below:
Two people chosen at random begin the match.
Every five minutes, another random person enters the match.
The title changes hands on every pinfall or submission.
The person holding the title will be classified as an interim champion, meaning that they won’t be recogninzed in the title history as a champion.
At the end of 20 minutes, whoever has possession of the championship will be the official champion.
Not only that, but we get it three times at WWE Unforgiven!
RAW: CM Punk v. JBL v. Kane v. Batista v. Rey Mysterio
SmackDown: Triple H v. THE Brian Kendrick v. Jeff Hardy v. MVP v. Shelton Benjamin
ECW: Mark Henry v. Matt Hardy v. The Miz v. Finlay v. Chavo Guerrero
That is one third of the show right there, however one must ask why is the show titled Unforgiven when it’s just a show where no one knows who will be the champion. The dual Elimination chambers at No Way Out gave that event a distinct name. Something like the Scramble would had been better suited for possibly No Mercy, not Unforgiven. Thank God we have Jericho v. Michaels in an Unsanctioned Match to keep the Unforgiven theme going. And unless Undertaker is going to face Curt Hawkins & Zach Ryder in a Handicap Match, I wonder how he’s going to steal La Familia’s souls. Hopefully this doesn’t mean we get another month of Edge v. Undertaker. Their match at Summerslam should have been the end of the feud. Who can Vickie throw at Taker? Vladimar Koslov? PLEASE DO SO!
To end this with a joke, it’d be easy to credit Mike Adamle for the Scramble concept. While he worked for American Gladiators, it all came down to the Eliminator, where the best would move on. Now he’s GM of RAW and the main event for Unforgiven is a Championship Scramble. The rules are almost the same. The best will become the champion. All hail the Scrambler!
From Around the Pulse
Big Andy Mac has an exclusive interview with ROH’s Larry Sweeney that can’t be found anywhere else.
John Wiswell talks about how there no such thing as “The Best in the World”.
Scott Keith tries to enjoy RAW for one week. Trust me, it’s an interesting read. After you read that, read my report and decide whether I’m on drugs or not.
Mark Allen is one of the first to welcome Gail Kim back to the WWE.
Pulse Glazer talks about current and former ROH stars and how they’ve progressed in other wrestling companies.
Eric S. came out of hiding last week and while it’s old news, I’m still giving it to you because you all deserve some good reading material, besides my column.
Wrap Up
Well, I would encourage you to come back to the Pulse for your TNA iMPACT! Coverage later tonight, but the last time I pimped future columns, they never surfaced. No fault to them, I’m sure they had better things to do. Anyhow, keep it to the Pulse for all your entertainment needs. As it stands right now, you might have a fill-in for WWE RAW this upcoming Monday night, but if all else fails, I’ll have a late report. Have a great upcoming Labor Day weekend and see you all around!
