Welcome to News & Analysis, a brand new section, here at TheBalrogsLair.com. My name is Eddie, also known as Eddie T., and I will be bringing you the latest in pro wrestling every week! Martin will fill in for me as needed. Now, before you read the first ever News and Analysis Report, let me get into some explaining…
This report will not discuss any gossip news. That’s one of the reasons we killed News and Rumors. We feel that the Headlines board offers plenty of updates on everything that you need to know. The only time you’ll see gossip on here will be with a purpose, or when a bigger issue is discussed. Usually, several subjects will be discussed in this report, and they will be taken from beginning to end. Meaning, we’ll go into as much details as we can, or feel necessary to explain a certain thought, to the extent of what’s important and what matters storyline-wise, and future-wise. Like Martin said, we’ll focus more directly and fully on wrestling storylines (analysis) and latest news. There will be time for fun in this report, but that’s after it’s done. Everything else is looked at on a professional note. This report is just like any other reports on other sites, but unique in its own ways and with our own thoughts expressed. You may find the format similar. Finally, we hope that News and Analysis will serve better than the former News and Rumors report and will give you more precise information with further thought-out opinions. Make sure to have fun reading this! Hopefully I managed to get you thinking on some issues already! Enjoy!
The WWE went ahead and aired their first LIVE show of 2003 in SmackDown! on Thursday night. The heavily-advertised wedding between Al Wilson and Dawn Marie finally took place, and as usual, everybody was left scratching their foreheads and pondering over what the WWE was thinking with this one. The wedding occurred and both Al and Dawn wore nothing but underwear. Nobody interfered either and we were told that the two are off to their honeymoon and we’ll be seeing plenty more of them. Interesting. Anyway, we’ll see what they have planned for us in the near future, but from what’s been reported, if we didn’t like the wedding gig, what’s coming could be as bad. Now to some serious stuff — Chris Benoit and Edge faced Team Angle in what was the official in-ring debut of Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin as a tag team. Elsewhere on the program, Billy Kidman faced Eddie Guerrero, who has gotten rid of the mullet. John Cena and B-2 continued their storyline with the Guerreros and from Cena’s rapping, I believe they have challenged Los Guerreros to a match for the WWE Tag Team Championships. Elsewhere on the show, Brock Lesnar destroyed Matt Hardy in the main event after suffering a very stiff chairshot to the back of the head which opened him pretty bad. Overall, SmackDown! was a good show, but it was an example of the good and the bad in the company, heading into 2003.
Probably the most talked-about issue on-line after Thursday night was the video footage that aired on WWE SmackDown!, hyping up the return of The Undertaker. The promo, however, featured shots of Undertaker from his old gimmick of The Phenom, or The Dead Man. The promo finishes with the following statement: “Darkness Consumes the Light, and Beckons His Return, the Dead Man Walks Again… Royal Rumble,” as the Royal Rumble logo flashes on the screen. Could it be? Could The Phenom be returning?! The WWE has teased us a lot over the years with a return of The Phenom, and not the Badass, but we’ve always gotten the second. I personally believe that now is the time for the change to happen. It’s now or never, really. Undertaker’s character has been toyed with before, where they have tried to add on to the American Badass persona with as much as they could. For example, the latest twist when he turned heel was his new short haircut upon winning the belt, and the new song when he turned face. These type of changes always add on to the outside picture a wrestlers draws to the audience, but they don’t last too long until you’re back to square one. This isn’t anything new. They’ve had that problem for a while. ‘Taker is not a youngster, and in my opinion has at least two or three more good years left in him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he hangs the boots in one and a half. The point to get here is that The Undertaker is in the need of a makeover once again, and with not much left in the tank, why not turn him back to what he was upon his debut? After all, the fans loved The Phenom, and have always stuck with the character. It has also provided for some very interesting storylines in the federation years. If done carefully, one last run would be a win-win situation for WWE, Undertaker, and the fans. It’ll definitely bring some fans back as well in my opinion. It should be noted that Undertaker is still healing form an elbow injury, so unless WWE changes their plans (which they are known for recently), he will most likely not be wrestling at the Royal Rumble but rather make an appearance, or interfere. If you’re looking for a spot for him, look no further than Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar, as Show is the man who put Taker out. I would also venture to say that Big Show will be the first man in ‘Taker’s route of “destruction” unless Vince McMahon and Co. decide to contie working on Albert’s push (who’s back on Velocity) and the rumors about an Albert/Undertaker feud upon ‘Taker’s return are true. That way the WWE will be able to keep the character alive for at least two months of storylines and have him feud Show and Albert. The only problem I can think of is how the WWE will be able to handle his storylines, as ‘Taker is a veteran who is not exactly known for his love to sell to others, especially younger guys. With a repackaging and a turn to his old character, it’ll be a bit tougher to book him, but hopefully they’ll be able to handle it. More on that upon the return of the Dead Man!
Other storylines continued their development on SmackDown!. With that said and with RAW on Monday, the card for the Royal Rumble PPV is pretty much set up. WWE has done a very good job of building up the two main events that are Triple H vs. Scott Steiner on RAW’s side of things, and Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle on SmackDown!’s point of view. Of course, there’s also the 30-Men Royal Rumble match, which this year will feature 15 RAW Superstars and 15 SmackDown! competitors. The winner of the bout will get a shot at the Heavyweight Championship of his respective brand. The WWE will most likely announce the participants from each brand in this week’s TVs, and I would venture to guess that at least a couple of names will be left a secret, because that’s a part of the fun around the Rumble match. The surprises can really get the fans into it and that’s been proven over the years. Then again, they may just flat-out give us all the names and use the time until the PPV to heavily build it as a strong event. Either way is fine, but I’d personally like to be surprised for some of the participants. It’s too early for any predictions as we don’t even have the names yet, but if I were to take a pure guess right now, I’d go with Brock Lesnar. Again, that is a selection I made because of current storylines. I definitely think Brock will defeat Big Show (maybe even with some help from Undertaker) and advance to the Royal Rumble and probably win the thing. After all, Brock has already been a King of the Ring, and a WWE Champion, so adding a win at the Royal Rumble will make him an even bigger of a character than he already is and he’ll be the one star the WWE will be able to focus on in the short-term. After all, he does havethe skills to make it, and I think everybody can agree on that now. Another match that was rumored for the Royal Rumble PPV was Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels, but it’s been rumored that HBK’s next one-on-one match will be at WrestleMania, so it’s doubted it’ll happen. Probably both guys will be added to the Rumble to give it even more star power. To wrap up the card, the WWE might put the Women’s title on the line, or probably SmackDown!’s tag belts. I doubt the cruiserweight championship will be on the line.
Speaking of the Royal Rumble, it’s been announced that both Kurt Angle and Rey Mysterio will be back at the PPV, alongside the return of The Undertaker, which we already discussed. In Angle’s case, I don’t even think I need to say that he will be there and he will be wrestling no matter what. Kurt continues to amaze with his toughness as he had his knee ‘scoped but didn’t take any time off, showed up at shows, and is even trying to be a little physical here and there. What an amazing athlete! In Rey Mysterio’s case, it looks like he will be at the PPV, but it’s not yet confirmed if he will be in the Royal Rumble match itself. I really can’t see Rey doing anything else, unless Edge is singles action, or A-Train shows up, but the latter two are rather doubtful. Anyway, if not at the Royal Rumble I am sure that Mysterio will be back on SmackDown! the following week. A couple of lines on Rey here. The WWE brought him in to boost the cruiserweight division, but his talent has put him over with the fans so much that he’s been wrestling anyone but cruiserweights since his arrival. His feud with Kurt Angle was definitely one of the better ones in 2002, and his teaming up with Edge has proven to be successful on numerous occasions. Maybe the WWE will use his injury to finally let him settle down in the cruiserweight division, or Vince will keep milking him for all he’s worth for a bit longer. Either way, Rey should be back this month.
Now to the rumored names for the Royal Rumble. Anybody from Steve Austin to The Rock to Hulk Hogan makes it in this “sub category” so to speak. It’ll make for a really interesting storyline if someone like Steve Austin returned and won the Rumble. Will Austin be counted as a part of the RAW brand? What if the return of Rhyno happens in the Royal Rumble match?! What brand is he from?! This simple solution of the Rumble format might bring for many interesting storylines, so you can definitely anticipate some returns, whether they happen or not. In case you were wondering, Rhyno, Chris Kanyon, Jazz, Tajiri (who wrestled on Velocity on Saturday) and Mark Henry (unless WWE has already given up on him) are the first ones to return to action. Following that group, Randy Orton should be able to return as well, so those are some names to look for in the months of January and February.
Well, there’s two new people who will be debuting soon. Gail Kim never made her debut to SmackDown! in the month of December, and she’s been working bra and panties matches on house shows with Dawn Marie, but I’m sure she’ll show up on TV soon as well. Another very important person we should talk about is Nathan Jones. I’m very surprised that the Internet has said nothing about the promo that aired on SmackDown!, and even most sites don’t have the promo in their reports! For those who missed it, the WWE aired a somewhat disturbing 10-second piece of a secluded room with some kind of an opening. We hear an Australian voice asking us how we’d feel if we were incarcerated for 10 years, and then set free. Just then a hand gets through and with big letters we see “NATHAN JONES / Coming Soon” on the screen. For those not familiar with him and if you haven’t been following the news from about 2 or 3 months ago, Nathan Jones is an Australian talent who’s near the 7 feet mark and is famous around the world. The WWE was rumored of signing him recently, but gave him a tryout first. Obviously, they liked what they saw, and have signed him, as he’s now advertised on TV. Rumors had it that he wasn’t happy with the tough WWE schedule and that he wasn’t fitting in well backstage with the others, but I think that’s past us now, as the man is to debut soon. He might show up at the Royal Rumble, I don’t know, but this guy is impressive and from what I’ve heard is worth his money. We’ll see if he can back it up.
OVW’s Damaja will be also in the Royal Rumble match as he earned that right recently on an OVW show. No word on which brand he’ll represent, if any, or what his role in the near future would be, but look out for him.
WWE RAW airs live on Monday (tomorrow, as of this writing) and it’s the first LIVE show for the RAW brand in 2003. However, recently, the more intriguing story on the Internet has been the RAW 10th Anniversary show which airs January 14 at 9 PM. From what we know, the show will be 1 hour long and WWE is advertising over 50 wrestlers for the event. Superstars from past and present will relive some moments and the Best moment in the history of RAW will be picked as well. The RAW Retro clips the WWE has been showing recently have happened to have Steve Austin in most of them, which led many to believe that Austin will be making a return at the show. That is definitely not out of the question, but I would have to agree with the opinion of others in saying that this will be somewhat of a waste. It’ll be much more interesting for fans to see Austin come out as man #30 at the Royal Rumble, or maybe return surprisingly on RAW sooner or later. The RAW’s 10th Anniversary should be saved for stars we’ve missed and for stars who you never thought you’d see, but will probably not have the same impact in the future as Austin might. What I mean is that the WWE will try very hard to get people like Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Mick Foley and The Rock, but will not even bother contacting the likes of Sable, Nicole Bass, etc., as the relation between the company and these people isn’t good. The Ultimate Warrior isn’t expected either. Expect most of the current wrestlers to be in hand, as well as guys like Gene Okerlund and Bobby The Brain Heenan. Hopefully, more names will become available soon and we’ll have more to talk about on this. The WWE has waited until the last moment so everything can be confidential and that’s how it should be. It would be nice to be surprised and have tons of people to look forward to on Tuesday of next week. Look for the show to be more sentimental and not ground-breaking. Then again… Anything goes in the WWE.
The one thing that made it on-line on Friday, which I wasn’t going to talk about but decided to do so after all, has been another biggy as of lately. Jim Ross said that his famous Ross Report will be no more. J.R. stated that the reasons behind his decision were that he didn’t have enough time to fully update every week, however, the big issue was that many guys (talent, management, etc.) were interpreting some of the things in the report the wrong way, and unnecessary heat was created this way. Sources have stated this was the main reason behind the cancellation of the Ross Report, as many wrestlers felt as if they’re getting heat through the report and that just didn’t work well backstage and created for a bad environment at times. It’s really sad to see the Ross Report go, but WWE.com is working on a new way of getting the information J.R. used to post to their fans. Without a doubt, J.R. was very helpful to us the smart guys and to everyone who was an Internet fan. His column will be missed also because he had a certain way of representing a thought. A way that would get you to think beyond the point of just reading a simple update. Anyway, maybe it’s for the better!
Usually, here, after the end, you’ll find one-liners, rhethorical questions, funny quotes, etc. Funny stuff to sum it up. This addition to the News & Analysis will debut next week!
Thanks for reading everyone! Check back again next week for more. Please let me know what your thoughts are by e-mailing me. Once again, thank you all. Later.
Eddie
