Mickey Rourke not yet included
With the Royal Rumble having come and gone, the road to Wrestlemania officially began last week, and it began with Randy Orton as the Rumble winner. I only say Rumble winner because the fine print for the Rumble winner apparently means main-event of Wrestlemania along with the title match; that may sound redundant, but you should know by now that in pro wrestling there usually is a second meaning hidden behind most things. Both big shows are preparing their Mania lineups and the countdown is on.
P.C. Says: This year might be a Wrestlemania with a mix of the old and the new
With Mania in Houston and Steve Austin being inducted into the Hall, the question of a match with the Texas Rattlesnake is on everyone’s mind. Meltzer and others say he will wrestle and Orton is actually the top candidate right now (see, alternate meaning to the Rumble win). I know storylines mean dick when it comes to a retirement match, but from a storyline perspective, Jericho would actually be the best choice since Austin was the guest ref for Batista’s title win over Jericho back in October. However, the Mickey Rourke thing may tie Jericho up for Mania, plus with HBK/JBL likely still to be on for Mania, Edge/HHH practically penciled in as well as Hardy vs. Hardy, and Cena still being champion on RAW, the candidates are few and far between. Plus, with Orton’s superman heel push over the past year, he would be the perfect foil for Austin as it would be a more decipherable face/heel match, as opposed to Flair’s retirement match last year which was not only face/face, but nobody would’ve cared if it was face/heel anyway. With Austin, it should be face/heel because the Rattlesnake character was not about competition the same way Flair was, but getting in someone’s face and giving him a Stunner for his trouble, enter Orton. The main difference between the two retirement matches that Orton would bring is that with Orton, Austin’s retirement match becomes a match instead of a ceremony the way Flair’s did.
The HBK/JBL blowoff should happen at Mania and shouldn’t be cut short to free Shawn or JBL up for Mania as is a potential option for The E with No Way Out still some time away. The obvious reason would be the crowd it with this match being the proverbial battle for Texas in Texas, so that would get the crowd into it enough. Add the angle, which has gotten tremendous crowd heat despite a crappy premise for a top tier wrestler, and this would have a good shot to be the showstealer should JBL’s weight loss prove to mean something in a big match, and if HBK brings his A game with carrying kit included.
If The E is trying to recreate Bret/Owen with Matt/Jeff, fine, but don’t expect nearly the same results in the ring, on the mic may be a different story. Matt laid the groundwork for some very emotional mic battles in the next two months between these two giving this angle a great start and proving that he is still a much better heel than a face. This is an angle that is done with a brother duo in pretty much every promotion and it’s usually done the same way as life does bring about similar circumstances many times in this business and has done so again. Those circumstances being one self-destructive sibling and the other who cares for him. That part of Matt’s segment last week had the most truth attached to it as Jeff was a hindering force in Matt’s elevation through The E back before the Lita situation and Matt’s return after a good run in TNA. Is it still that way and is Matt getting a little too close to reality? No, and if Eddie Guerrero didn’t get too close to life with his mic work prior to his title win over Lesnar in ’04, than Matt’s not even going to tread those waters. Plus, the reality with these two is that Jeff has cleaned up his act for the most part, with the failed drug test being nothing but a memory, and his trailer burning down appears to be nothing more than a freak thing. My gut’s telling me that these two see this as being the best shot they’ve gotten and may ever get in this promotion and they want to make the most of it.
So did the IWC get their comeuppance with Matt’s heel turn at the Rumble? Yes and no. While Cage did not make his scheduled appearance, the IWC might have been why. It’s no secret that Cage was signed back by The E and the angle progression leading to the Edge/Jeff title match all but told people that Cage was coming back; hence the “We Want Christian†chants during the match. The fact that Vince made the eleventh hour call makes sense because the entertainment part of sports-entertainment clicked in Vince’s brain and one of the rules of a good show is that if the audience knows what’s going to happen before it happens, you’re not doing your job. However, this isn’t a T.V. show in the conventional sense, but the heel turn was shocking, was out of left field, and did achieve the desired effect. But I’m not salty about being wrong the Cage run-in because now that means that it could happen at Mania. Cage went to TNA—albeit with no bad feelings on either side—so his run-in welcome back probably will end up at No Way Out; Vince hasn’t yet proven that the “coming from the other company†lifetime resentment policy is out of his system despite nobody really being competition anymore. Still, Cage preserving Edge’s title and reforming E&C sounds a lot cooler if it would happen at Mania than if it happened right before.
The Reality is…there are two months to go and nothing I’ve just written about is set in stone, hence all my mentioning about how all this could be done with before Mania, etc. Vince has always been a little crazy about this show, but with good reason. This is the one show where that paranoia about the IWC spoiling angle endings and match finishes is warranted and should be avoided. This the Super Bowl of wrestling shows as even New Japan’s latest January 4 outing would only come in second next to Vince’s baby. There’s still Money in the Bank, which could feature just about anybody, and there is still the undercard filler, something we know next to nothing about because there haven’t been any slight of hand indications on T.V. recently, even though those who’ve been watching can and probably already have begun to make their predictions. I have not as predicting the big matches seems to give me the same odds of being wrong as if I would have if I were predicting the undercard. Nothing is for certain, no match is safe, nothing is for sure, and all bets are off. And speaking of Mickey Rourke, you’ll notice that I didn’t write much on that topic. The reason is that with Austin being almost penciled in to wrestle, I could care less if Rourke does get in the ring since it’s still so up in the air. Having said that, I wouldn’t mind seeing him in action with the reviews and accolades the movie has gotten, and since he took it a LOT more seriously than most wrestling movies have gotten out of its stars in the past. With Jericho, Rourke would be covered with one of the better guys at carrying people in the ring with him, and someone who could also lead him through those first few mic face-offs the two would have should Rourke give the green light to it. In the end, if this is Vince’s only shot at having a star at Mania this year, it shouldn’t be too heartbreaking if Mania goes without a Hollywood or celebrity presence this year.
This week’s “FUCK YOU!†goes to:
LARRY MERCHANT
Why did you have to shoot your mouth off like that Larry? January 24 was a big night for Golden Boy Promotions as they had the Affliction MMA show and the Mosley/Margarito boxing match. Both were entertaining and did well, but that apparently wasn’t good enough. Oscar De La Hoya was at the Affliction card instead of the Mosley/Margarito fight and under orders, Larry Merchant made note of that on the HBO broadcast also noting that “you couldn’t pay me $5 million to go to one of those†referring to an apparent amount of money “The Golden Boy†either received or put into the show. I’ve written many times in the past about how this MMA/Boxing bullshit needs to stop and this provides me with yet another example. And this saddens me because I like Larry and I like Jim Lampley, another strong anti-MMA proponent in the boxing world. But they need to just keep their mouths shut about the other sport. Boxing fans aren’t going to give a fuck that an MMA show is that night, if they’re watching or are there, you’ve won that battle, bashing another sport isn’t going to help anything. Have you noticed how UFC’s tongue-in-cheek bashing of boxing has stopped? The reason why is because they really don’t need to bash boxing anymore because their buy numbers have trumped boxing’s numbers minus De La Hoya’s last two PPV fights. Boxing is still down in the dumps and apparently their only outlet for their frustrations is to bash this young sport that is catching on basically for no reason, but to bash them. These guys may not like the sport, but what does it accomplish to continue to give these remarks? We already know that people in the boxing world aren’t going to be impressed or even like MMA. We got it. We don’t need to hear it after every big fight that lives up to the expectations. Can’t we just watch a great fight and not have the out-of-ring events overshadow it, something a bit ironic I’m aware with the pre-fight events of Mosley/Margarito.
