Greetings once again, my friends, I have returned to bestow upon you a vast knowledge of predominantly nothing. I hope everyone have a safe and enjoyable holiday season that included some awesome presents and I hope all you bad eggs received a visit and mugging from Krampus.
So the new year is upon us and we don’t have to endure anymore awful pre-taped Raws (like a lot worse than usual), I can proudly exclaim that we are in Wrestlemania season!
At this point, what do we know?
-The Rock will be at Monday Night Raw to set up his championship match at Rumble.
-We’re all assuming Punk will be facing Rock at Rumble assuming he doesn’t further injure himself with an unfortunate bump from Ryback in their TLC match next week.
-The above two points mean we can look forward to a couple weeks of Rock/Punk promos in the flesh (or at least via satellite).
-We have not gotten any mysterious videos hyping the return of anyone.
-Ziggles still has a MitB briefcase and a lot of momentum
-We have a tease from HHH that we haven’t seen the last of Taker.
-Still no solid news regard Brock’s Mania plans.
-Cena will be the first entrant of the Rumble match.
Unless there’s some news I’m forgetting or haven’t heard, that’s essentially it. Doesn’t seem like much but it is incredibly early and two PPV’s are between here and there. I bring up the Cena point because I begrudgingly predicted about 2 weeks ago that Cena will more than likely win the rumble this year because as of right now, he’s literally got nothing going for him. Sure, he’s got this thing against Ziggler but we are in month 2 or 3 of their garbage and I’m making the assumption that Ziggler will be abandoning this story and taking AJ and Big E to the Heavyweight Championship picture in the near future (at least I’m hoping). As much as it pains me to see it, I believe Cena will win the rumble and we’ll end up seeing Twice in a Lifetime win Rock winning at rumble (maybe this time, we’ll actually see the torch getting passed now that WEE doesn’t have a hometown crowd to pander to). Wow, this paragraph has resentment towards everyone: Cena for being Cena and toward Rock because the company has been fellating (you know, pulling a Sheamus and yelling “fella” at everyone) the guy for almost 3 straight Wrestlemania’s now.
Then there is the issue of Punk, we heard talk (as if that is ever to be believed) that the company really wanted to end Mania with a Punk match. Obviously, the way WWE books their PPVs these days, he would have to go against an opponent that’s massively over with the fans. A lot of signs are pointing to Taker, some are saying that Punk maybe turns face again as we see a battle between two Heyman guys against Brock. Both would definitely making top billing appropriate but I know a lot of people are still hanging onto the possibility of a match against Stone Cold (whom we haven’t seen on WWE television in quite some time). SCSA seems to be recovering well from his surgeries from last year and if there ever was a window for this to happen, we’re coming up on it. But of course, there’s the off-chance that Punk wins at Rumble (only way WWE would allow that would be through COLLUSION!) and then set up Rock to be a late entrant to the rumble match, win and we get a heated rematch at Mania (at least that’s the scenario I had been wanting) and then we get Cena vs Taker out of the way (because we all know that’s happening at some point).
That leaves us to lower guys. There’s Dolph Ziggler, who for the past 2 years had great programs against the champions during the December and January months and then be completely forgotten about when it came time for Mania. Will this year be different now that he appears to be the head of some sort of weird faction? I’m hoping so or that manure dump will be a bit more symbolic than I would’ve liked. Like I said earlier, I’d be willing to bet he’s in the Heavyweight Championship picture by that point (Elimination Chamber would probably be most likely for Dolph to cash in while AJ skips around and Big E stands guard to make sure nobody interferes again).
Also, something I would like to see addressed…
Lately, the Mania card has been so packed with upper or returning talent that a lot of the rising wrestlers are off the card completely. Surely, they won’t leave Ryback off and maybe WWE can still get behind The Shield at that point (although it’s time to separate them from Ryback). So what will be done this year as an attempt to get more talent on the card? Last year, we got the GM tag team bit of nonsense after we heard the returning MitB match was scrapped due to Barrett’s injury. Will we see that MitB match now that Barrett is back and healthy? Or will it be brought back for somebody else? I remember having a wonderful discussion last year with some of you about possible MitB replacements for Mania, maybe we can see something along those lines because I’m still a firm believer that there’s a big void in the early card when MitB was taken out. Also, with rumors spreading about the possible return of MitB specialist, Shelton Benjamin (I’m not too convinced he’ll come back), maybe that’ll be an added bonus to bring the match back to Mania.
And there’s a detail everyone seems to be forgetting: Wrestlemania will be in NJ in an open air stadium in early April. It’s going to be cold as all the balls and I’m wondering how that will affect the wrestlers. I mean, I’m sure they’ll be fine and all but Cesaro’s nipples will take out the first 4 rows of fans.
Remember to listen to my podcast “Classy Ring Attire” posted here on Pulse Wrestling every week and follow us on twitter (@CRAttire) for live Raw sarcasm and sass as well as casual musings throughout the week.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answers: You would think hobby lobby would have a better furnished bathroom…
