The News WeekThe Survivor Series title match now officially has a stipulation. Orton is can lose his title on a disqualification, and HBK is banned from using his Sweet Chin Music in the match. I hate these kinds of matches. And what about a normal super kick; Can HBK use a normal super kick that doesn’t involve the tuning of the band and all the other stuff that makes his super kick special?
The Raw rating for the attitude flashback episode of Raw is in and it was good news for the WWE. After a dismal 2.8 and then a decent recover to the low 3’s, the episode that featured the return of both DX and Steve Austin pulled in a 3.8 rating. This was great for the WWE and told Vince that fans still want to see nostalgia like this on the show. Unfortunately, it is probably bad news for a lot of the fans, and for the future of the company, as we may well now see a lack of development of the younger wrestlers as Vince relies, once again, on his older stars to push up the ratings.
The ECW title match for Survivor Series has been announced. CM Punk will defend against Morrison and Miz. I like this match as, even thought it is the same competitors, it seem to add freshness to the main event scene, and Miz and Morrison have actually started to get a decent rivalry going as well. In fact, if there was someone else for Punk to go up against, I wouldn’t be at all bothered if Miz and Morrison continued a number one contendership feud leading into the next pay-per-view. However, its much more like that this match is a way for Morrison to take back the ECW title by pinning someone other than Punk – which will undoubtedly lead to future defences against Punk.
Apparently Vince is still very high on Gene Snitsky. The slow push is going to continue, as it has done for the last 9 months. Apparently this slow push is because Vince likes the guy, but he can’t think of anything to do with him. Sure the monster build worked for Goldberg and it may work for Snitsky, but I am sure it would all work out better if there was an actual plan for him. He really shouldn’t be kept on the roster if there are no plans in the pipeline. I mean, he hasn’t even had a feud or a PPV match in, like, a year! Have him change his mind and be the muscle for Carlito if you must do something with him.
So Chris Masters is gone. To be fair to the guy, he had it coming. He has been caught by the Wellness Programme three times if he has been suspended for sixty days (first time – no punishment, second time – 30 days, third time – 60 days) and he obviously didn’t get the message. He also had a lot of backstage trouble at one point and was sent to rehab due to a painkiller addiction, so I am not at all surprised. He never really brought that much to the WWE and I don’t think that he will be truly missed. I might be wrong about how talented he is and he may end up going to TNA and proving that he can be great in the ring, but I would be rather surprised if they picked him up at all, given that he has been so frequently related to failing drug tests.
So it’s official now that the Kaz/Roode/Brooks storyline has been dropped. This was pretty obvious anyway when Roode move onto Joe and Kaz moved on in the Fight for the Right tournament. Apparently, the storyline was dropped as no one knew how to end it as the writers didn’t want Brooks to end up with Kaz. I’m not surprised about that, but why did they try the storyline in the first place then? On top of that, it now appears that they are going to repeat the storyline, mere weeks later, with Erik Young, James Storm and Jackie. I like the idea of these interacting, but I can see them coming up with the same problem again though – as I really don’t think that they are going to want to pair Jackie up with Erik Young.
Carlito is rumoured to have asked for his release from WWE. Now he must be really unhappy to want to leave that pay check behind. He has been under pushed for over a year now, but it is supposedly down to his own attitude. The one thing I will say is that if he wants to leave, he either wants out of wrestling altogether, or TNA has expressed an interest in him. Now I don’t like the idea of too many stars jumping ship, but I would love to see the old Carlito (i.e., when he debuted in WWE) in TNA, and I think he would be a great mid-carder for Impact.
One John Bradshaw Layfield is looking pretty certain to be making a return to the ring. His recent actions have been confusing, as he has managed to get himself involved in two major feuds between Rey Mysterio and Finley, and then The Undertaker’s title feud with Batista. The one with Rey made perfect sense if he is coming back, as Rey “retired” him, but the main event feud didn’t really make too much sense, especially after the Cyber Sunday referee job had been and gone. The latest news is that he is looking to come back early next year (WrestleMania anybody?) and has started to lose quite a lot of weight. Personally I would be quite happy to see JBL back in the ring as he was a bit of a guilty please for me, even though his in-ring style isn’t anything amazing, and obviously he is gold on the mic. Unfortunately, I now find his commentary to be great, and losing JBL would be a huge blow to the Smackdown announce table.
Johnny Stamboli debuted in TNA as REDRUM. I like Stamboli and I think he has a decent amount of talent. Apparently, he has also been getting good reviews on the indy circuit with this gimmick so it could be good. What I am not sure about, whilst I won’t argue that he fits in well, is how much he is needed in the current, and still developing, Abyss/Black Reign/Judas Messias/Raven storyline. This storyline is starting to get out of hand due to the sheer number of people that are being drafted in, and I don’t want to see it become pointless.
Booker T and Sharmell also debuted in TNA at Genesis. This comes as no shock to anyone and TNA weren’t exactly being too secretive about his debut with their “cryptic clues”. I will reserve my judgment on Booker in TNA until he has had chance to settle in, but I feel that he will fit in well and could actually improve the product; if some of the actual fat is trimmed at the same time.
So the divas have got their own survivor series tag team match. I’m not sure what this adds to the event, or why it has really been added, but I am glad that we are going to get another classic series match. They are fun to watch and are very good at hiding the lack of talent of some of those involved – which will be good for some of the divas. This could also add some more interest to the women’s division if someone pulls out the surprise win over Beth Phoenix, rather than having Beth destroy the rest of the division, which is just as likely.
Extreme Expose is in jeopardy of being destroyed after Brooke was fired – leaving only Layla, and the disgruntled Kelly Kelly. I am not at all concerned about this and I don’t really think that it will affect the ECW show at all. We may see less of Balls Mahoney, as he has only been involved with Miz and the girls, but with Expose gone and Miz moving up the card, he could be left with nothing to do. It would be a shame for Balls to become another jobber on the roster, but losing Layla herself will be no major loss to the show.
The big rumour going around is that the WWE magazine has let the cat out of the bag on the return of Chris Jericho. This could all be a hoax, but supposedly the new WWE magazine discusses the return to the ring of Y2J. WWE still hasn’t confirmed his return so this would seem to be giving the whole thing away. It would be a shame for the WWE to have let this return out in such a way, after they did there best to keep things quiet after the information originally leaked, but, on the plus side for the fans, it’s now being confirmed by a WWE source that he is returning.
However, with this weeks Raw, it now seems that they are in full swing for the return and don’t care about this sort of thing anymore. We basically got the exact time for next weeks Raw, and Jericho was expected to be back the night after Survivor Series anyway, so it looks like we only have a few days left to wait for the saviour to arrive.
Looks like Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes have been thrown into a tag title match at Survivor Series. I don’t like how this has come about and I think that it should have been given more time. The match will probably be good but this should not have come about so soon. The contenders match wasn’t even aired on TV, so most people won’t even know about it. Its likely that Rhodes and Holly will miss out here and the storyline will continue for a while, but I still think this could have been built up better so that the title opportunity would have actually meant something.