The following edition of News and Analysis is dedicated to Elizabeth Hulette, her family, friends, fans, and most important of all, to her legacy. The First Lady of Wrestling, Miss Elizabeth, shall be missed.
It’s a bit hard to do this report. This is also the reason why it’s getting updated/posted so late. We lost Curt Hennig not that long ago, and now we’ve lost Miss Elizabeth herself. Another death in the wrestling world. I really don’t know what to say. I was going to get into explaining everything until I get to the bottom of it, but I don’t find it appropriate. I’m sure you’ve already read it anyway, and just bringing it up again and reminding everyone about it would quite frankly suck. I’ll just say one thing. We had the Fabulous Moolah to prove everyone that females are tough and can kick ass inside the ring. We’ve had good women wrestlers since as well, but before women could get big in this business, most of them became as valets. Nobody saw the role of a valet or a women’s manager serious at first. All of this changed when Elizabeth Hulette came to the scene. Taking part in one of the biggest storyline ever (The clash of the Megapowers involving Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage), as well as managing the biggest name the industry has seen, from Savage and Flair all the way to Luger, Miss Elizabeth has paved the way for females in the industry, and DESERVES to be called the First Lady of Wrestling. I hope she rests in piece. She will never be forgotten.
The WWE presented SmackDown! on Thursday night. The show followed the recent trade of confusion on Thursday nights. It had its good side but it also had its bad side. I think we should face it — Ever since Paul Heyman was demoted as the main writer for SmackDown!, the show has gone downhill. Several superstars are out with injuries, and the writing is not even half as good as before. Mr. America finally debuted on Thursday and it was Hulk Hogan, as expected. Hogan continued his feud with Vince McMahon and now Sean O’Haire and Roddy Pipper immediately, and it seems that at Judgment Day he’ll probably take on O’Haire or Pipper. Elsewhere on the program, Brock Lesnar challenged The Big Show, Team Angle and Los Guerreros continued their feud and we now know the two teams will face off at Judgment Day in a Ladders Match. Chris Benoit, Rhyno, and The FBI were in action and these guys all worked great together. Brian Kendrick confronted John Cena in what was the best segment of the night. SmackDown! scored a final rating of 3.2, which is up from last week’s 3.1, but definitely not a “good” score. I’ve lost all perspective into looking at ratings for the Thursday show. At least for now.
After successfully defeating John Cena at Backlash, Brock Lesnar continues his reign as the WWE Champion. With Kurt Angle still sidelined after his neck surgery, WWE has decided to go ahead and have Big Show feud with Lesnar for the following month, not giving Cena a rematch. Of course, a lot of people are not happy with this decision. Big Show is once again being portrayed as a “monster heel,” after causing an injury to fan favorite Rey Mysterio at Backlash. Brock Lesnar, on the other hand, is used to step up here and “represent the locker room” in a fashion, as supertars are apparently unhappy with what Show did. I can see WWE’s way of putting Brock over yet again and keeping his “babyface” persona alive, but they’re once again destroying the basics of wrestling. How is that the locker room cares for the injury to Rey Mysterio, but they didn’t care for the injury to Edge (for example)? How is it that nobody besides Benoit even asked who was it that injured Edge? Or that nobody ever did anything about it? WWE is just killing the ways and basics they created themselves, and sometimes it’s hard to follow.
Anyway, I guess we’re just going to have to deal with Show being in the main event again, but at least this time I’m pretty sure there’s no danger or any possibility whatsoever that he will win. If he does, it’ll be brutal. We’ll see what WWE does, but I don’t expect this match to be pretty. Lesnar is not Kurt Angle when it comes to working with others. What I mean is that unless Brock is in the ring with a Kurt Angle, or a Chris Benoit, or an Eddie Guerrero, or an Edge, he’s just fine. But once he steps in there with someone like Big Show, or A-Train, or even The Undertaker, the big guys who do carry you through a match but need help from you, Brock seems to fade away. I’d much rather see him fight John Cena again, but maybe that’s just me.
Mr. America has arrived and to little surprise to the people, it’s Hulk Hogan. People have called this storyline “corny” and tons of other things, and I can’t help but agree. However, I will also agree with the mutual Internet opinion that as corny as it was, the storyline was good… but for one night. Hopefully they’ll be careful with Mr. America and how they threat the character. What they don’t want to do here is have Vince continue the feud and turn it into an “evil Mr. McMahon hates everything, including Ameirca” kind of thing. This is just going to be horrible if it happens. The best thing they can do from here on is have McMahon continue to refer to Mr. America as Hogan and in his promos talk about Hogan and completely ignore the Mr. America persona. Roddy Pipper and Sean O’Haire are also the focus here, and I would expect either O’Haire or Hot Rod to get a shot at Hogan at Judgment Day. I don’t mind this storyline, it’s good to see both Pipper and Hogan in there thrown with Vince, and since Sean O’Haire is getting elevated I’m cool with it, but it’s not main-event material. Well, it is, but for one night only (this past Thursday). That’s enough for it. It needs to be a second-hand type of story, slowly and securely progressing to a turning point. Again, let’s wait and see how they handle it.
Chris Benoit and Rhyno were in action on SmackDown!, as Benoit took on Johnny Stamboli. The match then turned into a tag team bout, as Rhyno and Chuck Palumbo were added to the mix. Nothing but good things to say about all these guys. FBI has picked it up big time lately, especially in the ring, as these three guys continue to improve and show great wrestling ability. Rhyno and Benoit are at their usual best, and just need more TV time to get over as needed. Word has it that Rhyno and Benoit will be teaming up with Undertaker and Nathan Jones to take on the FBI and John Cena at Judgment Day. Speaking of which…
John Cena and Brian Kendrick had a hilarious segment on SmackDown! in my opinion. Spanky came to life from Kendrick, and it was simply great. For those who saw the show, you know what I mean. For those who didn’t, I’m sorry you missed it. Hopefully you’ll get to see it some day somehow. Anyway, Cena is now back in the mid-carders mix and looks like WWE will keep him there for a bit. I just hope that they do a stable job of building him up first before having him job to people such as Benoit and Rhyno. Cena proved that he’s not a main-eventer yet, but he has the skills to make it in the very near future.
Team Angle will be taking on Los Guerreros at Backlash in a Ladder Match. These two teams have provided for some great in-ring action over the past few weeks and had the match of the night at Backlash if you are into pure wrestling. I’m expecting an even better showing at Judgment Day. It’ll also be Shelton and Charlie’s first more serious test of how they’ll do since they enter an area we haven’t seen them in — a gimmick match. I’m sure they’ll do just fine, or at least I hope so. Stay tuned.
Well, looks like I’m getting into Judgemnt Day a whole lot. While I’m at it, here’s the current rumored Judgment Day card with some of the matches already confirmed:
– Triple H (c) vs. Kevin Nash — World Heavyweight Championship
– Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Big Show — WWE Championship
– Team Angle (c) vs. Los Guerreros — WWE Tag Teams Championship
– Bill Goldberg vs. Chris Jericho
– Sean O’Haire vs. Mr. America
– Chris Benoit, Rhyno, The Undertaker, Nathan Jones vs. The FBI and John Cena
I’d also tend to guess that Matt Hardy, Scott Steiner, La Resistance, Kane and RVD, and probably Jazz will be on the card in some fashion. With two weeks left until Judgment Day, I would look for WWE to start something up this upcoming week.
That will do it for tonight. I apologize for the delay on this report, but as you can understand, I’ve been a bit shocked by the events of last week. There really wasn’t anything to talk about either. Well, let’s say bye on a positive note. Have a great week everyone!
Thanks for reading. See ya.
Eddie
