Welcome to Pulse Wrestling Tuesday, and it’s another news-packed week on the Road to Wrestlemania.
The ease of having a Tuesday morning slot is the built in Raw discussion, so let’s just jump right in.
Raw
WWE seemed to realize that something needed to be said about Super Shane’s beatdown on Legacy last week, and Randy Orton came out to explain things in the Raw opening interview segment. Apparently he and Legacy purposely didn’t fight back when Shane attacked, fearing the rest of the Raw lockerroom coming down to back up Shane. Somewhat flimsy, but at least it was addressed. The storyline progressed with segments throughout the show all designed to rebuild Orton and Legacy as monster heels. The key segment was an ambush attack on Steph and Shane, and after teasing a punt on Shane, Orton went to punt Steph.
Another segment in the Legacy storyline was Rhodes and Dibiase beating down Cryme Tyme. It occurred to me during the match that both JTG and Shad are underrated as workers. They both move fluidly, do a solid job selling, and have in-ring charisma and might have potential for more. Particarly Shad, who is larger and less mobile than JTG, but moves quickly for his size.
It’s interesting that WWE went ahead with the Mickey Rourke storyline, but are seemingly making it broader by including Ric Flair. Chris Jericho came out to cut a promo, and started on Rourke, but moved quickly to a pretty scathing shoot-style promo on Ric Flair. Later in the show it was announced that Flair would be on Raw next week to respond to Jericho. If Rourke is going to appear at Wrestlemania, it might now be in the corner of someone facing Jericho. With Jericho making a blanket statement that legends needed to be removed, it might indicate that Austin could be wrestling Jericho.
The main event was John Cena vs. Chris Jericho, with Cena winning 100% clean and ending the show celebrating the non-title win. Early in the show, Jericho was shown backstage walking and Cole announced the match vs. Cena. Then after Jericho’s promo on Flair and legends, Cena appeared on the big screen to set up the match based on revenge for legends everywhere. It was funny to see WWE announce a match then retrofit a storyline on it in such a brazen fashion. The match itself was pretty solid, although Cena clunked up the finish when he rolled through a Walls of Jericho into the STF for the tapout.
In another backstage segment, Kane and Stephanie had an exchange where Kane confirmed that he called the Undertaker and got him to agree to a match against Randy Orton last week. In conferring with PK, we decided that Kane and Taker are in fact on good storyline terms, with them teaming on Smackdown before Kane won the ECW title at Wrestlemania 24 and they just drifted onto different storylines and brands. However, why couldn’t Stephanie just make that call? Did she have to call Vickie for permission? Or taker himself? At least it made sense out of Kane, at the time the only guy not in the Title Match on PPV, getting the pin on Rey Rey in a tag match on the show.
This week’s ECW promo for tonight’s show was a new generic spot for the duo of DJ Gabriel and Alicia Fox. Nice character spot for them, and interesting choice because they haven’t been much of a focus in ECW to this point, but with Matt Hardy gone and Morrison and Miz in and out, they need some new focal points. This new commercial is indication that they are gaining confidence in Gabriel and Fox, despite their Alex Wright gimmick, and they are in line for a push on ECW.
To end the show, Cole plugged next week’s appearance of Ric Flair as well as the Undertaker, who’s combined age is 102.
Passing The McMahon Torch
The current Legacy/McMahons storyline has been a dud so far mostly because the McMahons (specifically Steph) are miscast as megafaces. With the storyline progressing in a manner that suggests WWE is going to continue promoting the McMahon kids as babyfaces, there has been speculation that it will eventually lead to Steph calling on Steve Austin to honor the family on her behalf and take on Randy Orton at Wrestlemania.
There are obviously a few huge flaws in this storyline, most notably that Austin would seem hard-pressed as a character to want to beat up someone who has made a habit of beating up McMahons. Why wouldn’t be support Orton? Wouldn’t that make Austin a heel?
Another flaw is that the current audience views Austin as a legend and not an active wrestler. The key challenge in this situation is getting Stephanie over as a face, and just having Austin support her (which he’d really have to do reluctantly to make it flow in the storyline) wouldn’t be enough to convert the WWE Universe.
However, John Cena could fill that slot. It fills up a lot of the holes in the build to a possible Orton/Austin match – Orton would be in the main event title match as per his Rumble win, and with Cena’s pro-home team WWE character, it would make more sense that he’d defend the McMahon’s honor. Plus, if the long term goal is to make Stephanie the McMahon face of the promotion, associating her with Cena is a good booking choice.
Another storyline possibility is to have Triple H win the Smackdown Elimination chamber, and then do an on-air reveal of his marriage with Steph. This would re-create the Helmsley-McMahon regime, but on the face side, and set up a match between Rand Orton and Triple H for the Smackdown Title and McMahon honor wrapped up into one. That could move Edge into a possible match with Christian and the Hardys at Wrestlemania 25, perhaps Edge/Matt vs. Jeff/Christian in a gimmick match.
TNA Ratings
In a TNA Ratings breakdown on PW Torch, the average was a 1.18, but the hours differed quite a bit. The first hour of the show averaged a 1.22 rating, including a peak of 1.27 for the third quarter. The second hour went down to a 1.11, ending with only a 1.04 for the final segment.
There is one of two ways you can look at those ratings. On one hand, a heavy dosage of the Main Event Mafia – the top paid and older “stars†– caused the increase, leading to the conclusion that those are the main draws in TNA. Interestingly not included were either Jeff Jarrett or Mick Foley, who were explicated called out by Kurt Angle as not having been at the Impact Zone. This is what I believe TNA management will take away from the show.
On the other hand, it’s possible that TNA fans who flip on for a few minutes each week and then flip off actually stuck on the show for the hour and fifteen minutes or so of the MEM takeover. The different format, announcers and pacing hooked the viewers to see what might be going on that could shake things up.
No Way Out Card
After Raw last night, most of the WWE No Way Out PPV card has come together.
Raw Title Elimination Chamber
John Cena (c) vs. Chris Jericho vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Kane vs. Mike Knox
Smackdown Title Elimination Chamber
Edge (c) vs. Triple H vs. Undertaker vs. Big Show vs. ??? vs. ???
Large Payoff vs. Career Copyright Ownerhip
JBL vs. Shawn Michaels
No Holds Barred
Randy Orton vs. Super Shane O Mac
I wonder how many people would have gambled on any of these matches even last week. It’s surprising that the JBL/HBK blowoff is being done at No Way Out, but it seems to indicate that they will have HBK win then go on for a better match with the Undertaker, who seemed somewhat out of the main event loop until Raw.
Wrestlemania 25
With No Way Out’s card shaping up, it stands to reason that some previously expected Wrestlemania matches will be shaken up. Before Smackdown tapings, here’s how Wrestlemania is looking:
Raw Title
John Cena (c) vs. Randy Orton
Smackdown Title
Edge (c) vs. Triple H
Brother vs. Brother
Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy
Streak vs. Mr. Wrestlemania
The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels
Chris Jericho vs. Steve Austin w/Ric Flair
Money in the Bank Ladder Match
CM Punk vs. John Morrison vs. Miz vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. R Truth vs.
ECW Title Match
Jack Swagger (c) vs. TBD
Compared with most of the previous Wrestlemania 25 cards-in-progress, this one has some promise. It has a solid lineup of one on one matches with unique selling points, and room for additional matches. I went ahead and included the Jericho/Austin match because it was long rumored that Jericho was on the list of those Austin thought he could have a solid match with.
The Money in the Bank ladder match participants are educated guesses.
Around the Pulse
We have moved into the top 5 with the Top 100 Wrestlers of the Modern Era with controversy. With the list finalized in Spring 2007, we went ahead with the original list, and here is Scott Keith’s Take on the subject.
For full details on Raw, check out Paul Marshall’s Raw Report
PK checks in with the February TNA Rankings
Yesterday we had a couple great columns up, with This Week in E – The Wrestler To Wrestle at WrestleMania? and Alternate Reality by Vin Tastic – A Royal experiment
In Closing
WWE is keeping things interesting on the Road to Wrestlemania 25, either with constantly changing focuses or intricate storytelling that’s finally coming together. Or a combination of both.
This weekend is TNA’s next PPV, with the 100000:1 match of the Dudleyz in a world title four way match with Kurt Angle and Sting as well as a bunch of other stuff. I was looking over my personal 2008 awards and my five favorite TNA wrestlers – Joe, Styles, Christian, Shelley and Sabin – appear to all be off the card. Yikes.
Throw some comments on the bottom or email me with some suggestions, as clearly the format is a bit of a work in progress so far.
