The Reality of Wrestling: Scramble Madness

I know, I didn’t see it coming either

This past Sunday’s E pay-per-view, Unforgiven, saw the Championship Scramble concept for all three brands’ title matches. The concept was a new one and was a bit more complex than most concept matches in wrestling get, but what they didn’t offer in simplicity, they did offer in their broadness for execution as each of the three were distinctly different from the others. Matt Hardy finally won the ECW title after a few months chasing it, HHH kept the WWE (SmackDown!) championship, and Chris Jericho—yes you read that correctly—won the World (RAW) title after being beaten to a pulp by Shawn Michaels and after C.M. Punk was unable to compete in the scramble after being attacked in the back by Cody Rhodes, Ted Dibiase Jr. and Manu—RAW’s version of Umaga I’m guessing—and punted in the head by Randy Orton. Needless to say, the show on Monday Nights once again grabbed the headlines from a pay-per-view.

P.C. Says: The Championship Scramble matches ranged from being a good idea to being just plain weird

The Championship Scramble concept was definitely something new and I will tip my hat to The E for trying something new. That being said, it really wasn’t necessary and shouldn’t have been necessary to have all three brands’ titles on the line in this kind of match. I’m aware that they wanted to go all out with this new concept and what’s more all out than having all three brands’ titles on the line in this kind of match. I’ll also concede that the concept was an overall success as the matches did offer something different in a title match environment. However, there are mitigating circumstances that could’ve prevented at least two of these scrambles from even being needed let alone happening.

The ECW scramble accomplished the main goal of ECW since the draft before the summer: get the ECW title around Matt Hardy’s waist. My one question is still “why didn’t this happen a month ago at Summerslam?” I mean seriously, a DQ finish a minute into a world title match; that will remain one of the biggest booking blunders The E has had in recent time and undoubtedly one of the weirder ones (along with Hardy’s Summerslam match with Edge back in ’05). Still, the belt is around Hardy’s waist and now ECW as a brand can move forward with a champion that the crowd is behind and has a better ability to put on matches worthy of being for a world title than any champ ECW has had minus a certain now former RAW world champ.

Next up, the SmackDown! scramble that saw HHH retain his title. This was the simplest one to book, the simplest to execute, and turned out to be the best reviewed of the scramble matches. This was not hard to foresee as SmackDown!’s scramble did have the best grouping of talent and the most potential for goodness as ECW’s was a mix of the worthless, old, and unproven and RAW’s had three plodding big men, a little guy who can’t really do much with that many men a foot and a half taller than him, and Chris Jericho. Plus, with Umaga and Kennedy out, this did allow Shelton Benjamin and Brian Kendrick their first taste of the main-event and hopefully (at least in Shelton’s case) it won’t be their last. Neither were expected to win and in the case of Kendrick it was even booked that way, but more effective booking for the two newbies to the main-event scene could’ve pushed this one over the top. Nevertheless, I do think that Shelton and Kendrick and even Hardy (once Umaga and Kennedy come back and Show gets put back in the title picture (he will)) will benefit more by lighting up the mid-card in a three-way feud over the U.S. title sprinkling MVP in when necessary. The fact that they—Benjamin and Kendrick—were even in the scramble at least means that they aren’t just “a bunch of undercard wrestlers,” but they are the top tier of the mid-card.

And now, we come to the RAW scramble. Wow. First off, that’s a perfect first comment to the happenings of that match as they get the belt off of Punk without having him even job—pretty creative considering The E doesn’t mind jobbing out smaller guys—and then Jericho pulls the shocker of the year after getting destroyed by HBK earlier in the evening. My main complaint was that this card as a whole could’ve been a lot more and would’ve had card of the year potential (on paper at least) without the RAW scramble. Without the scramble The E could’ve had the blowoff to the Kane/Mysterio “feud” right then and there and at least given some spotlight to a feud that may be forgotten or may be played out too far as I doubt too many people give a flying you-know-what about this feud because of how stupid the “Is he alive or is he dead?” premise has become when James Mitchell was taken out of the picture. I’d more rather see Kane jump to SmackDown! to help Taker with Show and Vickie (“You have your Family and I have mine”); I know it doesn’t make much sense, but neither does feuding with Mysterio, and historically with Kane, sense hasn’t really been a factor in his character’s story. You could’ve also had Batista/JBL potentially for #1 contendership, or just because they’re two big guys who brawl—has The E ever needed more of a reason to put two big guys in the ring against each other? And you could’ve had what may happen in October: Punk/Jericho. Yes, Michaels/Jericho stole the show Sunday (big surprise right?), but it would’ve stole the show in October just as much and would’ve allowed for Punk to get his win back against Jericho, who’d beaten him in his hometown in a non-title match (two great reasons for them to have a PPV title match). Let me throw this scenario at you: Punk/Jericho is made after Jericho beats Punk in Chicago and for the weeks leading up to the match Jericho is on T.V. bragging over and over again about ending HBK’s career, punching his wife, and about how he’s going to add a world title to his list of accomplishments. The match comes and is great, but Jericho having been unable to beat Punk after several heel tactics, Cade having been taken out by a GTS by Punk, goes for a T.V. camera, but it’s Michaels disguised as a cameraman! Jericho is shocked, and we get the reversal sequence ending with a GTS. Punk gets the clean win and we get the same great month of buildup leading to Jericho/HBK ending the show in October with a potentially more heated build considering Michaels would’ve cost Jericho the title, something of equal value to Jericho as Michaels’ wife is to him.

The show itself was one of the better efforts of a non-big four PPV from The E this year and most definitely shook things up with a shock title change, an overdue title change, and an almost clean slate on SmackDown! With a big four PPV coming up, things have gotten very interesting in Vince’s world; and that’s McMahon, not that other one.

The Reality is…Jericho, HHH, and Hardy are the champs. Not only are those three the champs, but also the possibilities are endless on all three shows for what will be done in the coming months. Jericho/Punk is the most viable option on RAW, but an Orton/Punk feud seems natural as well. Plus, on RAW you have JBL, Batista, Rey Mysterio, and John Cena (when he comes back) as viable challengers. On SmackDown! everyone in the scramble minus Kendrick is a viable title contender, but if Kendrick is allowed to continue getting air time and ring time, the U.S. title division just got better as well. And a choice has to be made in ECW with Hardy as champion: base the brand around the new breed—Hardy, Morrison, Miz, Bourne (Striker)—or continue going in a perpetual loop with no real direction. And while the rumored rehash of the Millionaires Angle in TNA has the potential to firmly and definitively establish the right people (Joe, Styles, Machine Guns, Lethal) as the aces of the promotion, at this moment The E may be must see T.V.; at least for the next month.