Greetings and welcome to the weekend edition of News & Analysis, at the one and only Balrog’s Lair. It sure has been a while hasn’t it? 😉 This actually is my first time writing News & Analysis as it has been Eddie having all the fun up to this point. Though it’s been a while since I’ve done this, I’m hoping it won’t show in this report. Enough chatter, let’s get this show on the road.
I enjoyed this week’s Raw, and the parts that I saw from Smackdown. Slowly but surely, I believe WWE may be heading in the right direction. Storylines in my opinion at least are becoming more interesting and having more meaning to them. My criticisms remain that you got Austin, Hogan, The Rock, Undertaker, and possibly Goldberg in the WWE mix in the next few months, and while I am not against the returns of these individuals, I hope WWE doesn’t believe these returns will solve the problems that the company is having. I was really hoping younger stars like Edge, Booker T, Chris Jericho, and Rob Van Dam would be allowed to step up for this year’s WrestleMania, but with the returns of the individuals listed above, I don’t see that happening.
So where does that leave people like Booker T, Jericho, Van Dam, and Edge? Right now, it looks like after his mini-feud with Test, he will have his match against the Heart Break Kid at WrestleMania. That has been in the works since the night after Royal Rumble. Booker T’s name has been thrown around as the idea is he may receive a singles push now that his partnership with Goldust seems to be over. Rob Van Dam somehow seems to be involved with Kane, I don’t know if anything will evolve out of that by the time WrestleMania rolls around. Edge seems to be backing with Chris Benoit as far as Team Angle goes. I would say it’s still in the air for Edge what his WrestleMania situation will be.
Moving on to some of the returning superstars, I listened to highlights of The Rock’s promo on Smackdown last night. I have stated this since 2000, and its that The Rock works better as a heel. The way his character is suppose to be (not the nice guy we have seen in the last two years) always worked better as a heel. The Rock will continue to be booed as a heel, but just like in 1999, I would definitely expect him to receive more cheers, assuming his heel role is portrayed correctly. As of this time, it is really up in the air what The Rock’s future holds in WWE. Some claim he has no planned obligations with WWE after WrestleMania, while originally, it was believed he would wrestle at least until the later spring months or mid-summer. I don’t believe anything concerning the Rock and his wrestling plans for now is set in stone. As time moves closer to the big event, perhaps his future will be more clear.
I read Austin’s piece in the latest Raw Magazine earlier this week. I hope to have a column with my reactions to it sometime this weekend or perhaps next week. As to the question of if he will be at No Way Out or not, I definitely believe he will. With all the teases of him possibly appearing on Raw (i.e. with Bischoff attempting to track him down on last week’s Raw), I don’t believe WWE would do the same at a Pay-Per-View. If WWE did not believe Austin would be at No Way Out, then the invitation made by Bischoff for Austin would have never been given. I am not sure what Austin was referring to when he questioned he wasn’t sure if he would wrestle again. The rumor now is that if Goldberg does make any type of deal with WWE, then The Rock would wrestle Goldberg at WrestleMania.
Speaking of Goldberg, there is really nothing new to report about him that hasn’t already been mentioned in N&A by Eddie, or on the newsboard. Plus, if WWE and Goldberg do reach some kind of agreement, I wouldn’t expect it to be all over the Internet, as I believe WWE would do their very best to keep it hush-hush until the time was right for the public to know.
Rumors late suggest WWE may bring the Acolytes Protection Agency (APA) back as a tag team. It was believed that Ron Simmons (Farroqq) retired recently, so it is unclear now what his situation is. Bradshaw will be returning to action shortly after suffering an injury to his biceps many months ago.
That is going to wrap it up for the news & analysis portion of this report. Before I head on out, I have a few site items I want to address. The Luce Cannon who has been writing Raw Horizon has stepped down from the position due to certain circumstances. The good news is he will be debuting a regular column later on in the regular week, starting next week. One popular site feature that has been MIA is Pardon The Ring. The return of PTR is taking longer than we anticipated (after Adam’s computer went out), I hope to know more about that by next week. And finally, I realize updates have been rather slow lately. I am hoping everything with the newsboard and regular updates will be worked out very soon.
It was nice to write one of these bad boys again. Since we have replaced the news and rumors report with News & Analysis, I am very pleased with the progress that Eddie has made with this section. We are hoping that N&A will be updated twice a week, but that all depends on what kind of news and material is out there. Whether it is Eddir or myself, we would appreciate any feedback from you, our readers. I am assuming Eddie will return in the middle of the week or next weekend with another report. I should be writing a new edition of Mark My Words very soon, so until next time, thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend.
