Welcome to your Weekly Wednesday Wrestling Stop for all things WWE, The O’Really Report. This week I am joined by none other than the founder of No Chance, Joel Leonard!
Hi there.
Good to have you Joel. This week we’ll discuss a number of topics, but first off is the mystery of ‘Who sent the text?’ Joel, what are your thoughts?
Oh the dreaded text. Well guess number 1 would be Stephanie McMahon because I couldn’t see any other reason for her to appear on television again if not for text sending. But with Punk calling attention to the theory on the episode of Raw I don’t know if that’s the direction they plan on going in.
So my guess would be the GM since right now that seems the most non-committal.
It could go many directions and WWE is being cautious with how they are going about it. I still think Johnny Ace is in cahoots with Stephanie. The GM I feel is going to be revealed soon to give someone some heat. Shawn Michaels would be a good selection in that role, but it could easily be Nash, Stephanie, or Ace. Johnny Ace did send Triple H on a foul’s mission to find the hospital that Nash was in when Nash was actually still in the building.
Yea, this was the first time we really saw that Johnny Ace might not be on the level with Triple H. Don’t know how they plan to work that but it seems that Triple H is going to have to confront Johnny Ace about it next week. After All at some point over the week Triple H will have to watch the end of Raw and see that Nash was there all along.
Well I’m sure he figured out something was going on when he got to the hospital to find Nash wasn’t there.
SummerSlam
Anyways on to our next topic, what were your thoughts on SummerSlam? Thumbs up, thumbs in the middle, or thumbs down?
I’m going to go ahead and give SummerSlam a full thumbs Up. I think there was a somewhat unattainable goal of trying to match the quality level of MiTB but on its own merit it was still one of the better PPVs of the year so far. I think Christian and Orton had a worthy “feud-ending” match after having put on so many good matches over the past months and save for the “leg-on-the-rope” ending which I’m still a bit steamed about, the bulk of Cena and Punk was another solid match.
Was it a worthwhile PPV for you?
I also give it a thumbs up. The DB/Wade match was solid enough for me, the Orton/Christian match was MOTN for me and I loved the ending, Cena/Punk was a good match (although not better than MITB). The Sheamus/Henry match actually was better than I expected as have been all of Henry’s matches as of late. The leg-on-the-rope didn’t bother me as much. I know they aren’t done with the feud so them holding off on the overall outcome is fine for now. What did you think about the Divas bout?
I was quite surprised by the quality of the diva’s match that took place at SummerSlam. I suspect that in much the same way that Punk forces Cena to be at his best when they are in the ring together, Beth Phoenix has the same ability to bring out the very best of those in the ring with her. SummerSlam was probably one of the top matches in Kelly Kelly’s career at this point.
I’d go out on a limb and say it WAS the best match of her career just because I can’t think of another match she was in that I thought was even memorable.
The Six Man Tag Addition
What did you think about the additional 6-Man Tag match?
That, on the other hand, was probably my least favorite part of SummerSlam. It just felt like it was there to put a whole bunch of names on the card in one match and as a result it was almost impossible to get invested in the match at all on my part. It was instead just waiting for this random match to be done so that we could get to the matches that I had been waiting to see for the past three weeks.
To add insult to the whole thing, the Morrison and Truth match on Raw felt like it could have been right at home on a PPV and could have taken the place of the 6-Man Tag match.
That was my exact argument on the Pulse radio last week! I thought it was dumb that Morrison and Truth could have a great main event match on Raw and not use all the beef they had against each other and culminate it in a PPV match. Isn’t that the point of a PPV to settle differences and earn titles? They could still have had the 6-Man tag match and replaced those two with Dolph and Riley.
I agree, Morrison and Truth should have had a much more successful feud then the one they ended up having. After all it was this feud that started R-Truth’s whole R-Crazy character. But instead of getting a PPV climactic battle the way a good feud should, it seems that they have more or less fizzled out and gone their separate ways at this point.
There were so many opportunities to fit them in too! They had about 8 or 9 commercial breaks. Commercial breaks? On a PPV?! Garbage. Plus Cee Lo played and that was unnecessary, but I understand the reasoning. It makes them more than just a wrestling company or blah, blah, blah. I didn’t pay $50 to watch Cee Lo sing.
It always irks me when time is taken out of a PPV for somebody to sing a song. There has never been a moment where I was watching a PPV and thought “man this would really be worth the money if we dropped this whole wrestling concept for 15 minutes so some divas can dance to the latest hit with <enter popular singer here>”
As for commercials I can live with one or two in a PPV. After all usually it’s better to watch a commercial for the next PPV than to watch people clean up the debris from a No Holds Barred match but you’re right, SummerSlam seemed to hold an excess of commercials.
(on second thought we usually have to watch that same PPV commercial every episode of Raw and Smackdown so maybe it’s not that good of an idea to have it on the previous PPV as well)
I’m okay with the WWE just broadcasting the next show like they did at the end of SummerSlam. They just had a small pop-up that instructed you to purchase Night of Champions giving all the details. I agree about the musical artists playing. It’s okay if they want to play a theme ala P.O.D. or Motorhead. That’s alright, but don’t take up time when we could be having a match. Entrances are going to happen anyways so dynamics to them are welcome.
I can live with that. I don’t think we have to worry about WWE not telling us when the next PPV is enough times so maybe taking up time during the PPV i paid 50 bucks for is a tad unnecessary.
Next Worthy Champion
That’s a valid assertion, but the next question I have is who do you think has potential to be the next successful world champion? (successful as in Miz not Swagger or Dolph)
If were going with potential then I’m actually going to go ahead and say Mark Henry. Three months ago I would have laughed at the very thought of that, but like you said before, the guy keeps having surprisingly competent matches. I think if WWE wants to keep this guy on a hot streak then he would have to win at NofC because a well-placed beat down from Orton would be enough to send Henry back to the mid-card purgatory.
Again this is just potential. I think Henry has just as much potential to be a truly terrible champion if the first few weeks of him having the title aren’t booked just right. (And this is still assuming that WWE will let Orton lose next month)
You know I didn’t think Henry had a shot in the dark of winning, but now that you mention it… he’s due. I mean he’s been in the heavyweight scene various times, but has never won it. (ECW title excluded) Khali has held the World Title so why not Mr. Henry? He hasn’t lost a match straight up lately and even beat Sheamus at SummerSlam which surprised me.
I know, I expected the two of them to have a fairly lengthy B-story feud to Randy and his latest rival. But Henry seems to have blown through Sheamus and moved on to his next opponent already.
I do not look forward to Orton/Henry matches though.
Christian
But speaking of Orton matches… what do you think is next for Christian?
I think in Orton’s radio interview (the one where he badmouthed both The Rock and Kelly Kelly) he mentioned at one point that he didn’t like being in the ring with bigger wrestlers, specifically, Mark Henry because he felt like he couldn’t have a good match against them. And now just a few months later, they have a PPV match together.
As for Christian I was surprised by his total absence from Smackdown last week. I guess if his feud with Orton is 100% through they’re now stuck with a heel Christian and the only other real main event face on Smackdown right now seems to be Sheamus. Â Â Â
Unfortunately I think it’s very possible that WWE had no plans for Christian post Randy feud so he might get shuffled back into the mid-card range waiting for another face to come along on Smackdown for him to fight.
Well Orton doesn’t have a great match with most of his opponents. Christian and he meshed pretty well, but Christian is a phenomenal talent. I am in agreeance with you that they probably didn’t have any real plans for Christian post Orton, but I think he was out Friday to sell the injury. That was a nasty RKO on the steps after all. I just can’t get that interested in a Christian/Sheamus match. Perhaps a Christian/Sin Cara or Daniel Bryan feud. It’d bring some new flavor and match-ups to SmackDown.
Well I really like what has happened with Daniel Bryan and Wade Barrett lately so I would hesitate to break them up just yet. But I could get behind a Christian/Sin Cara feud. With no promo ability Sin Cara’s feuds have to be with people who are fantastic in ring performers and Christian fits that requirement.
I could see Sin Cara attacking Christian and then showing a video of when Christian ended his undefeated streak. That would be reason enough for a feud. Albeit the man under the mask was different at the time, but that is a non-factor.
Taking a Vacation From…
And my last question is what would you take away from the WWE for a year if you were in charge? The Tag Team division? The Divas? Orton or Cena?
I like the idea of taking Cena away from the WWE for a year, not because I automatically hate Cena as I know a large number of people do, but because I would like to force the WWE to do something with their title scene that doesn’t seem to revolve around Cena so much.
But if I can take away anything at all, it would be the brand splitting between Raw and Smackdown. The idea of a split brand seems to be trying to force a rivalry between the two rosters, a rivalry that just doesn’t seem to exist in the real world. And then we have instances like when Del Rio was on Raw every week even though he was still a member of Smackdown at the time. unifying the tag team belts and the diva belts seems to be a step in the right direction but I would be interested to see what would happen if there was one main belt and one mid-card belt as well. Still two shows and four hours of wrestling each week. Just with one big roster.
The only positive thing that seems to come from the split brand is the Draft which always proves to be an interesting episode of Raw but thats one episode of the 52 that WWE has every year (104 if you count Smackdown as well) so it’s worth losing that one episode to see what would happen with just one roster.
That’s actually a really interesting question. I’m curious to know if you have an answer as well.
I understand everyone’s gripe about the brand split, but imagine if there was only one World Title. There would only be one man on top and it would most likely be… you guessed it Cena. WWE is now in the stage where a feud for the top title has to end with a face on top. Such as Cena always getting the last laugh as opposed to said heel getting over on him and then another face triumphing over that heel. The Tag Division and the Divas division are so depleted and stale that a joining was necessary, but I like the fact that we have the two world titles. It gives guys like Eddie, Punk, Rey, Miz, and others more opportunities to become champion.
If I had to get rid of anything for a year, it’d get rid of the tag team division. Patrick Spohr made a very interesting point in his column this week when he said that they should take it away in order to give them enough time to establish a desire to bring it back. It would be similar to the X-Division stars demanding that the X-Division be given more time. Except it would be tag teams such as the Kings of Wrestling, The Usos, and a maybe a few other teams all pressuring whomever is in charge to let them have their division building to a big re-emergence of the tag division with three or four good, solid teams on both shows.
Like anything in the WWE a merging of the two brands could be done well and could be done horribly wrong (and pessimistic me would expect it to go wrong) but the main problem i have right now with the brand split is that they aren’t equal. Sure on paper The WWE champion and the World Champion are the same level of title but you know that at the end of the day WWE is going to put the WWE Champion on their favorite and the World champion on thier second favorite. Now instead of two levels of wrestlers (main event and mid card) we almost have four (main event Raw, main event Smackdown, mid-card Raw and mid-card Smackdown at the bottom)
The problem is that Raw is WWE’s favorite which unfortunately leaves Smackdown getting pushed to the side. Raw gets the better wrestlers, the better main event slots, and the better feuds and gets to be live.
I would hope that a merging of the brand, even just a temporary one, would be enough to shake things up in the roster and maybe put some fresh faces on some of the shows when it came to the end of the year and the Brands returned.
It could be done and you’re right about the four divisions. It makes it that much harder to scale the ladder. Y’know unless you’re Sheamus or Alberto del Rio who leapfrog the lesser titles. Well I see SmackDown and Raw as oranges and apples. Raw gets to be live, but it seems really crazy at times. As in stories don’t know where they are going. SmackDown gets to be taped so the crowd can be modified (which I dislike), they can correct something if it goes wrong, and they generally have better/longer matches.
The one thing I do like about Smackdown being taped is that the cut to commercials in the middle of matches don’t run the risk of the at home audience missing some high flying stunt the way they do on Raw. But far too often Smackdown being taped leads to any big story development on Smackdown being Spoiled for me by Wednesday (Christian losing the title in two/five days being the most recent example)
Spoilers are tempting and that’s why I’m glad once again that we have two different shows. If you like surprise and suspense, you have Raw. If you like technical expertise as well as not missing any action, then you have SmackDown.
The Wrap-Up
That’ll about wrap this thing up for this week, any other comments Joel?
Nothing more on my end. I wanted to thank you for having me this week.
No problem Joel and everyone be sure to check him out on his column ‘No Chance’ which also premiers on Wednesdays with me.
And quite frankly my dear… that’s a wrap.
