Hey Hey Hey! You’re reading what I shall call a TRIPLE EDITION of News & Analysis today. There’s tons of things to get to — from SmackDown, to tomorrow’s Armageddon PPV, all the way to the latest news. I hope you’ll enjoy it, so let’s get to it…
WWE presented SmackDown this past Thursday night on UPN. From what I saw, it was a good, and enjoyable show with several matches standing out and delivering some good in-ring action. The story of the night was Hometown Hero Rey Mysterio who stepped up to Brock Lesnar. In the same program, Hardcore Holly managed to continue his confrontation with Lesnar by returning to the show. With Angle and Taker out, and with the SmackDown brand not having a PPV this month, I think that they’ve done a solid job of delivering good shows over the past few weeks with nothing to build up to, but rather present a single program for a single night. It has been a good showing from the SmackDown brand.
WWE is having Paul Heyman “build” SmackDown around Brock Lesnar, who they’re now calling the Greatest WWE Champion ever. I think that it’s a nice push for Lesnar, who has improved drastically over the course of the last year. His mic work has gotten much better recently, as well. Several months ago, it was obvious that he was struggling on the mic, and when he debuted he had Heyman as his mouth piece. At any rate, Heyman announced that Benoit will never get a title shot again as long as he’s the GM of SmackDown, and him and Lesnar come out as somewhat of a team. That means two things — Heyman’s word will be broken somehow and Benoit will be getting another short-lived push, or Heyman will not be the GM for too long, with probably Stephanie making a return soon. Time will tell. For now, I think they’re headed in the right direction with Lesnar because he needs to be build up as a strong champ (after becoming a joke recently), and more matches and promos is the way to do it.
With the way SmackDown ended and with the fact that there will not be an exclusive SmackDown PPV until February (Royal Rumble is a mixed-brands PPV), I am guessing that WWE will go ahead with a short program between Brock Lesnar and Hardcore Holly for the end of the year and maybe the beginning of 2004 over on SmackDown. I think that’s a good move. Holly got a good reaction on SmackDown, and these two have gotten some good heat on each other. We’ll see if this storyline will draw or not.
Rey Mysterio again proved that he’s an important part of SmackDown, especially its Hispanic viewers. In his hometown of San Diego, they gave him the main event to work, and he didn’t disappoint. The crowd was in it big time, and Mysterio’s good work resulted in a great main event with Lesnar. They have certainly misused Rey as of late, but at this point in time, I think that he needs a new gimmick rather a feud. What I’m saying is that maybe it’ll be better for them to put him into some sort of a program (gimmick), rather a match over a belt (for example, the way he worked with Angle upon debuting). Mysterio is certainly a very important wrestler on Thursday’s show, and someone WWE can put to use.
The Guerrero tag team faced the World’s Greatest Tag Team. It was definitely the match of the night in my opinion, and I’d have to give some solid props to these guys. They worked a solid bout, and managed to tell a story from beginning to end. The crowd got into it big time, and it was obvious they were hot. For those of you who haven’t heard the news yet, Eddie has injured his arm and got a little upset at Haas and Benjamin for putting too much pressure on his injury. More on that in the news section… As far as the tag teams division on SmackDown goes, they are moving things around. The Bashams will be defending against Rikishi and Scotty next week (as announced on SmackDown), and sooner or later Chavo and Eddie will be out of that division.
Speaking of Chavo and Eddie, I think that this was the first time I actually enjoyed their program. I have been against it this whole time, and still continue to hold that view, as I feel that it’s a waste of Eddie, and a push for Chavo that is going to result into nothing. I could be wrong. At any rate, I just felt that these two somewhat clicked in their backstage segment this past week, and maybe it’ll bring about more positives in their storyline as it goes on. Time will tell. Bottom line to me is that Guerrero should be fighting Lesnar right now.
I enjoyed the John Cena/Big Show segment a lot. I thought it was entertaining, and Big Show showed a lot of character! He didn’t do that good of a job delivering his lines, but they were well written and the fans obviously were into it and liked it as well. As long as you’re getting a crowd response and the fans are into what you do, then that’s showing character to me. Cena is so over it’s not even funny. They’re obviously building towards a Cena/Show program, and I would expect it to culminate soon, probably with Cena willing the US Belt. The word I’m getting is that Cena is the current choice for the Royal Rumble winner this year. WWE should be very careful here. Cena is someone the fans love right now. The best thing to do would be to continue to book him strong against heels like Big Show (yes, it sounds weird, but so far it’s been a good program with Show), then take his push slowly by having him win the prestigious Royal Rumble, and then go on to fight Lesnar at WrestleMania. A match between the two shouldn’t take place earlier in my opinion. That’s also when Cena should win the world championship, which would definitely put him over. It does take off some of Brock’s heat, but Lesnar has been at the top for nearly two years now, so at the time ’Mania rolls around, that wouldn’t be a big problem. As far as No Way Out in February goes, it’ll be a good time to have Lesnar cause Cena to lose his US Title, which I really do think he’ll win from Show. This is just me guessing and putting an idea out there, so please take it for what it’s worth.
I fail to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing with the whole Jamie Noble and Nidia storyline. All I know is that with so many great cruiserweights on that show, this stuff sucks. It hurts.
I like what they’ve done with Shannon Moore. He was barely used as a singles competitor with Matt Hardy around and I feared that when the Sensei left for RAW, Moore would be in used even less. They’ve used the Hardy switch to RAW to their advantage on SmackDown and have been building up towards a Moore win over one of their “giants.” He beat A-Train, who by the way is headed for a face turn. I don’t know how people will react to that one, but having in mind that most of you out there don’t like Train, I guess you won’t be into this one too much.
I don’t know why, but I think that Rhyno deserves better. I really do. Before coming back from his injury, WWE had the biggest plans in the world for him. Now that he’s back and that McMahon didn’t like one house show match against Tajiri, things have taken a complete turn. I guess the initial mistake was that they had Rhyno return to SmackDown due to the many injuries they had at the time. He’s a better fit on RAW in my opinion. That was also the original plan. Maybe some of you hardcore fans remember that several months before he came from his injury, Rhyno actually made an appearance on RAW from his hometown of Detroit, and Eric Bischoff (the only GM at the time) locked a deal with him. I hope somewhere down the line they’ll give him a shot by switching him to RAW. That is, if they renew his contract.
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WWE presents their Armageddon PPV tomorrow night on PPV. The card certainly doesn’t look too strong on paper, but due to some great editions of Monday Night RAW in the past month and some solid build-up this past Monday night, WWE has done just fine for this PPV. In a fun fact that I thought I’d note before I gave you my predictions for the event, the Armageddon PPV has taken place four times since it was created in 1999. It occurred in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2003. In 2001, Vengeance was the December PPV, and it made Chris Jericho the first-ever Undisputed Champion. At any rate, in all four showings since 1999, Triple H has been in the main event of ALL FOUR PPVs — In 1999, he faced Vince McMahon in a No Holds Barred match when Stephanie turned on McMahon; in 2000, he faced Kurt Angle, The Rock, Steve Austin, The Undertaker, and Rikishi in the Armageddon Hell In a Cell match, where Angle won; in 2002 he fought Shawn Michaels in the main event in a 2 out of 3 falls match and recaptured the World Championship; and now in 2003, he’ll be facing Goldberg and Kane in the main event. The Armageddon PPV is certainly important to The Game.
Armageddon Predictions
Battle of the Sexes — Lita/Trish vs. Jericho/Christian
– WWE’s best storyline in months was the on-air love affair between Trish Stratus and Chris Jericho. The strong heel, Jericho, fell for the baby face Trish, and in the period of several weeks, fans kept tuning in wondering where this one is going. In my opinion, they did a tremendous job with that storyline, and they also managed to sneak in a Lita/Christian relationship to the mix. However, a twist took place two weeks ago, as Jericho and Christian revealed that the whole thing was a bet between the two over who can “nail” one of the two divas first. At any rate, a mad Trish Stratus teams up with Lita at the PPV in this Battle of the Sexes match, that Christian really liked hearing about from Eric Bischoff, whereas Jericho didn’t seem so happy about. I’ve heard from several sources that this is no way the end of the storyline and that the continuation is supposed to turn it into a block buster story, so I’m looking forward to it. My best guess is that Jericho will realize that he actually enjoys Trish’s company and will somehow turn face. As far as a prediction goes, or the match itself, logic would have you to expect that there will not be a lot of wrestling here, with probably someone interfering to stop the beating the divas might get. I am not quite sure, but at this point in time, WWE is really high on both Trish and Lita and with the way they go about women anyway (as witnessed by Gerwertz’s writing) I won’t be surprised if they went at it for a couple of minutes. That’s where probably Christian will be left with Trish in the ring, and Jericho will stop things from happening. Just a thought. My prediction is a guess in the wild
My Prediction: Lita and Trish
Booker T vs. Mark Henry
– I’ve been one of the few who have really enjoyed this program. While many out there can argue that Mark Henry isn’t that good of a wrestler, I think that sometimes in wrestling it’s more important to tell a story, and the execution takes second place. That’s exactly how things are here. WWE has managed to get some good heat to this match by building it up in the past few weeks and portraying Henry as a dominant giant, which he indeed is. They have a lot of people trying their best to look Henry look good, and so far I think they’ve actually succeeded. That’s probably where Booker T’s success should come in, as I expect him to get the pin.
My Prediction: Booker T
Tag Team Turmoil
– There’s several stories here, going into the match. The Dudley Boys and their confrontation with Mark Jindrak and Garrison Cade comes to mind first. WWE has done a tremendous job here as well, as they’ve been able to present two young superstars on TV and elevate them big time, by giving them a push based on their wrestling. In the process they’ve tried to add some charisma and character to Garrison Cade who’s had the opportunity to talk on the mic, as well. Another story going into the match is Val Venis and Lance Storm, in their quest to tag team gold, as well as confrontation with the other teams. Test and Scott Steiner have made a long-term plan to be the World Tag Team Champs on RAW, so you got to wonder what they’ll be up to as well. The other teams, in La Resistance, and Rosey & Hurricane wrap this bad boy up to show that RAW has the much better tag team division than SmackDown number wise, although on execution level, the Thursday nights brand is better. I think the main question here is whether or not Cade and Jindrak will be given the belts at this stage of their careers or not. They did it with the much less-experienced La Resistance several months ago, so I won’t mind if they do it with the better team here…
My Prediction: Cade and Jindrak
Shawn Michaels vs. Batista
– Shawn Michaels proved to everyone at the Survivor Series PPV that he is without a shadow of a doubt an amazing wrestler. Whether you’d like to think of him as a legend or not, the veteran has come back, and in the past several months has been putting up some great performances. The match-up with Batista comes in hand, as WWE will definitely have some big plans for the Evolution member in his future. The one person who can give him the rub is HBK. I just can’t help but wonder if they’ll give Shawn the victory first, because otherwise this will remind us of the Randy Orton / Michaels feud. At any rate, I think that Batista should be eventually getting the pin, and maybe this will result in some tension with teammate Orton in the future.
My Prediction: Batista
RVD vs. Randy Orton w/ Foley as Special Guest Ref
– This match is for the Intercontinental Championship. (I’m one of the few people online who once every two-three months tends to spell out the word “Intercontinental.”) WWE announced this match a week after Survivor Series, and sort of built things around it for a short period of time. I am definitely looking forward to this bout, as these two men have worked well together so far, and have put up a good program. Mick Foley’s addition as a Special Guest Referee also takes out Flair of the equation and adds that factor of “fairness” for the fans, as from past experiences, some of them would associate Evolution with DQ wins, interferences, etc. I guess that logic would have us think Orton is the next Intercontinental Champion, and I think that will be a great move. I don’t know, it just seems too fishy to go with Orton, but I’ll do it and be sorry later.
My Prediction: Randy Orton
Goldberg vs. Triple H vs. Kane — World Title
– I really don’t know what to say about the PPV’s main event. A part of me is happy to see that there’s new faces on the top of the card, but another part of me is still not sure what to make of all this. Kane and Goldberg seem like an OK pair-up who can definitely put up a show together on a good night. Triple H’s involvement however continues to piss a lot of people off. There were some scary rumors going around that they had Flair announce on RAW that H is in the arena because WWE actually thinks that people might tune off knowing Triple H isn’t there. What’s even worse is that a source says Triple H can always say if the rating is high that the fans just waited for him to show up the entire two hours. Take this for what it’s worth. In my opinion, Goldberg or Kane should come out of this one victorious, and if Goldberg is to win, he shouldn’t be pinning Kane. The plan as I know it is for a Kane/Goldberg program in 2004 with Kane actually winning the belt, but Goldberg working hard to get it back in time for WrestleMania. We’ll see what happens, and if any of the rumors were right.
My Prediction: Goldberg
In conclusion, I do feel that the Armageddon PPV will end up as a good one. Even though the card doesn’t seem that strong, there’s several matches where you can expect some good action, and sold in-ring work. The Tag Team Turmoil might end up being a place where the guys will get a lot of high spots in, and that’s always fun to watch from a fan standpoint. I hope you’ll enjoy Armageddon if you buy it! Now to some news…
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If you haven’t had the chance to read about it, Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair threw a wrestling classic match, and probably one of the best bouts in the year, at the MSG House Show last night. From what I’ve read and heard, it was not only the best match of the night, but one of the best in recent times for WWE.
On the same house show, Lita acted out as if her leg was injured. It was all a work, as WWE wanted to get her out of the match for some reason. She’s doing well, and is not injured.
I don’t know if you missed it over the past couple of days or not, but there was a backstage altercation at the SmackDown tapings between Eddie Guerrero and Charlie Haas. There’s been some tensions between the two teams for a while, to begin with, as the Guerreros have been complaining of some stiff wrestling from their opponents at house shows (WGTT). Eddie went into the SmackDown bout with a sore arm, and seems to have gotten upset over the fact that Haas and Benjamin worked hard on his arm, resulting in a minor injury. Backstage, a fired up Eddie went at it with Haas, yelling, and according to some, throwing punches. The thing was broken up pretty quickly and the two men shook hands. This goes to show you what things are like in the SmackDown locker room at the moment.
MMA fighter Tito Ortiz was in attendance at both RAW and SmackDown tapings this past week. It’s no secret to anyone that Ortiz is a huge wrestling fan, and that WWE has been dreaming to work some sort of a deal with Ortiz to work for the company for quite some time. Of course, the chance of that happening is minimal.
Plenty of talk on The Rock, as the Great One made a surprise appearance on RAW, and also gave WWE.com a pretty interesting interview. He basically said that he will be back in the month of January, and will be available to set up a match for WrestleMania as well as work for WWE in March. This certainly comes in as great news for WWE fans, especially Rock fans. There was a lot of heat on The Rock when he appeared on the David Letterman show and stated that he’s done with wrestling, but fans sometimes tend to forget that Hollywood stars are often made to say things like that, especially make statements that deny their affiliation with a certain organization, decision, thought, etc.
People have been suggesting a program with John Cena at WrestleMania. I don’t know if this will come true, but I believe the plan was for Orton to work against Rock at WrestleMania in a Third Generation Superstars match, with Rock losing to Orton. Going back in time, a plan before that called for Rock to do the job for Goldberg at Backlash, but for Goldberg to return the favor at WrestleMania XX. As you can see, there’s a lot of options open, and WWE will have to do their choosing.
Triple H is currently working on Blade 3 alongside Wesley Snipes. Word also has it that WWE Films has purchased the rights to some type of horror movie and are looking forward to having one of their stars play the main role of a violent “monster,” the likes of Freddy and Jason. The rumor going around is that Triple H will be used for that role.
You’ve probably heard by now, but WWE will actually be coming out with a new music CD, on which current wrestlers such as John Cena, Trish Stratus, Steve Austin, Lita, The Guerreros, Dudleyz, Stacy, etc. will actually sing! A DVD will come along with it. It’ll be released on January 12 in the UK. No US release date is set as of now.
On the Injuries Front:
* Brock Lesnar is a pretty beat up man at the moment. He will be getting his knee scoped during the Christmas vacation WWE Superstars are getting. His knee has been giving him trouble ever since days before the Iron Man Match he had with Kurt Angle on SmackDown, as it keeps “locking up” on him. Then, when WWE was in Australia just days ago, Lesnar ended up injuring his arm, and will have to take care of some bone chips. He has worked through everything and still managed to deliver a hell of a match with Benoit, so he gets my full respect and appreciation of what he’s willing to risk to entertain. I wish him a speedy recovery over Christmas.
* Ref Nick Patrick ended up busting his nose during a match on Velocity at the SmackDown tapings this past Tuesday. He didn’t work SmackDown due to the injury, but it appears that he didn’t break his nose.
* There’s still no return date set for William Regal, but it’s believed that he will eventually make a return in some shape or form.
* Hulk Hogan’s knee is still not responding well to the scope he got. Jeff Jarrett visited Hogan recently and said that his knee is pretty swollen and doesn’t look good. This is an all addition to the NWA-TNA/WrestleMania/Japan situation Hogan has upon his head. According to Dave Meltzer, Hogan is currently focused on starting the career of his daughter Brooke, and nothing else. When Jarrett asked him about ‘Mania, Hogan said that him and Vince view the business differently and are like a married couple who has been divorced three times.
That will do it for this Triple Edition of News & Analysis. I hope you enjoyed it! It took a lot of time to prepare, but hopefully it was worth it. You can reach me at eddie@thebalorgslair.com. Thanks everyone!
Thanks for reading. See ya.
Eddie
