Welcome one and all to another “No Chance†Column. I’m Joel Leonard and it’s “Over the Limit†time, so lets see how well WWE did with their latest PPV
In my last column, I made a reference to the upcoming Over the Limit PPV. The only thing was, instead of calling it Over the Limit, I accidentally referred to the PPV as Extreme Rules. As embarrassed as I am at the error, after watching Over the Limit on Sunday, I have to say that my mistake may have been more accurate than I originally thought. Watching Over the Limit this week, it occurred to me that it seems as though I’ve seen this PPV before. Randy Orton vs. Christian for the belt? Seen that match. John Cena vs. Miz with a random third party? Seen that match twice now, once at Extreme Rules and once at WrestleMania. Cole and Lawler? Seen that match sixteen times now, ok twice but it still feels like its been going on far too long. I’m not saying that I want new matches that I’ve never seen before. A good feud requires two wrestlers to fight each other several times, but when a feud goes stale, something needs to be done. You can’t keep pressing onward as if nothing is wrong.
But lets start with the good. After all, the good parts make the others easier to stand. While there’s been a lot of backlash about Randy Orton taking the title away from Christian so quickly, it’s worth mentioning that the two of them had a great match, that was followed up by what might have been an even better one this past Sunday. It is rare that we get to see a match between two faces so I’m pleased that any heel turn that Christian may have in store was delayed for a bit. This match was easily the highlight of the night, and I could watch these two have half a dozen more matches if they can continue with this level of quality.
Still, One good match does not a PPV make. And with A Christian/Orton match, also came another dreaded match between The announcer’s table. In a desperate attempt to say positive, I will say I was impressed with Cole getting thrown into the Cole Mine. And the match was mercifully short. But, the short match gave way to aftermath that seemed to take forever. As we watched person after person come out and abuse Cole in the ring, I ended up almost feeling bad for him instead of any sort of satisfaction that he had finally been beaten.
Now, lets take a moment to explore the difference between idea and execution. Just because you have a good idea, doesn’t mean that you automatically have a great match about to happen. If your not careful, even the best of ideas can lead to an awful match. Case in point, the match between Cena and Miz on Sunday. While I wasn’t crazy with another “I Quit†match, I did like Miz blatantly taking advantage of the rules, and calling Alex Riley into the match. I was even ok with Miz saying “I Quit†so quickly after things turned against him. I can believe that Miz is the type of guy who would quickly give up after his main plan and ace in the hole. (the tape recorder) However, the extended beating that Cena had to endure throughout the entire match was not only, not entertaining to watch, but downright uncomfortable. The match went on far to long to really be watchable, turning what could have been an interesting match into what may have been the worst match of the night.
So what happens now? Where do we go from here? While I like the fact that Randy Orton and Christian are able to have this feud while both remaining face, It seems that an eventual heel turn is inevitable. Christian gave Orton a rather nasty push after losing the match and while he still shook hands at the end, it seems that it’s only a matter of time.
As for Miz and Cena, it seems that, thanks to the Raw GM, their feud is completely over (as it really should be after an “I Quit†match) but it looks like Miz already has a new feud to turn to with Alex Riley. So far, Riley has failed to impress, but his attack on the Miz on Monday was interesting enough that I want to see where the feud goes. What I would be really interested in, is Miz starting a feud with the referee who has denied him a win in two matches now.
As for Cole and Lawler, it almost looks as though we’re going to pretend that the past months never happened. Cole apologized for everything, and for the most part actually seemed to be genuine about it. In fact, during their Monday confrontation, Jerry Lawler seemed to be showing more heelish tendencies than Cole, as he continued to rub in his victory from the previous night, showing a picture of the win on the jumbo screen. While I really expected Cole to retire from announcing after ‘Over the Limit†I’m fine with him returning to the table as long as the heel persona is dropped.
Unrelated thought of the day: So, does R-Truth have a son now? Is it an actual person? Or do you think he has totally lost it and the fictional little Jimmy is now R-Truth’s invisible child? Or is Truth’s new bit that he’s going to yell a random request at the end of each promo? I could get behind that.
