Welcome to your Weekly Wednesday Wrestling Stop, The O’Really Report! Last week I took a week off at Lincoln, Nebraska at the International Thespian Festival. During my stay I saw several fantastic plays (such as Jekyll and Hyde, Avenue Q, and The Drowsy Chaperone) and competed with our One-Act and Group Acting pieces. In our down time, we either chilled in our dorms, walked along the streets of Lincoln with its amazing weather, or played basketball with the Aussies and the Canadians. The night life consisted of crazy dances, but enough about my trip. This is a wrestling column after all. Last week we had the 2nd 3-Hour show in a row and although it was an interesting show the only ground-breaking news coming from it is Punk is fighting Cena at the next PPV and is threatening to leave the ‘E with the gold.
This week however I’m not just dwelling on certain issues in the WWE (as there are none compelling enough to reflect upon minus the CM Punk Promo of the Year), but I’m discussing one of the oldest tricks in the books… the #1 Contendership.
In the world of wrestling what is the easiest feud to book? Naturally the heavyweight title matches as they are solely ‘I Want The Title – I Am The Champ You Can’t Have It’ type of storylines in which more compelling storylines can delve off of. However the second to easiest storyline, in my opinion, is hardly ever used. Why would it be hard to start a storyline off of two guys who just really want to scale the ladder to move towards a title shot? It would be so easy and it would give the two men in contention a reason in which to be fighting other than ‘we have nothing for you.’ Let’s look at an example. The last PPV we saw John Cena defend his title against R-Truth successfully, but lower on the card was a stellar match-up between CM Punk and Rey Mysterio. What was the purpose of that feud? Basically it was just a rubber match that’s feud started last year when CM Punk was on SmackDown attacking Rey Mysterio for wearing a mask. Now, almost a year removed, the feud was reignited just for the simple fact of having nothing for these two to do. It could very easily had been decided that these two were fighting for the #1 Contendership and then the match would have had a reason and the necessity of the rubber match would be present. What we got instead was Punk winning and telling the WWE audience that he deserved to be the #1 Contender which had the same effect except he just had two wins over Rey and John Cena to go by instead of a match contract verifying his #1 Contendership.
It’s times like these I wish we had a ladder of sorts to go by. Imagine if WWE posted the #1 Contenders ladder on WWE.com and the wins and losses counted on how the men moved up and down the ladder. It would make every single match matter and would give the lower talent something to fight for. Seriously what are Jack Swagger and Evan Bourne even fighting for? Relevancy? Because neither are even relevant with a fight over Bourne giving Swagger a cheapshot after a match. They could have one of these ladders for each of the titles: I-C, US, World Heavyweight, WWE Heavyweight, Tag Team, and Divas. Every match would have relevancy and give heels a whole new reason to cheat: to keep their spot on the totem pole.
Well that’s about all I have this week as it has been a pretty busy last ten days for me and I’m wiped, but next week will (hopefully) be another Combo Column with a fellow writer in which you and I have come to love.
Also next week I will be taking over the Live Coverage of Raw from Paul Marshall so wish me luck!
My question of the week this week is what do you think the WWE should do to make matches relevant and to create tension in winning and losing?
Thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments/concerns/insults/etc in the comment section belowww…
And quite frankly my dear… that’s a wrap.
