Hey, Scott! I have something to bring before the BOD crowd. I was reviewing some Raws and Smackdowns from June 2001 for my website (kingsrecaps.wordpress.com, BTW) and was wondering how frustrating it was to watch Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho during the build to King of the Ring '01. Benoit and Jerihco get the big tag title win over Austin and Triple H, making you think they were finally getting thier chance, but in the weeks they repeatedly jobbed to Austin in title matches, Jericho lost in a handicap match to a pair of midcarders (Big Show and Rhyno), Benoit lost the famed cage match to Angle that he should have won, and only got one other big win along the way, and that was the six man tag on the raw before KOTR. Plus if you watch the last three shows before the pay-per-view, you'll notice Benoit and Jericho were hardly featured, while Austin was allowed to run wild with all his wacky segments and skits. Was it worth seeing Benoit and Jericho win
the tag titles and get to be in the KOTR main event if it meant they would get buried along the way? Just wanted to get some thoughts.
This was actually well documented in the Observer at the time, and basically it was a case of Vince pulling the trigger with the tag title switch and then changing his mind when it became obvious that Benoit and Jericho weren't going to do business on top. And then Benoit needed the neck surgery, so they basically decided to pull the plug on the whole thing and let Austin regain some heat and then rebuild Jericho later. That's why King of the Ring ended up structured how it was. And given Benoit's injury, they were kind of right to change it anyway.
I'd 100% be ok with this. The ambrose/jake promos would be awesome.
ReplyDeleteI like to think that this is Vince leaking one of their possible WM cards to the audience just to gauge interest, since wwe is super concerned about giving their audience what they wa.... Couldn't finish that
I don't care for the card to be honest
ReplyDeleteCena/Undertaker or GTFO.
ReplyDeleteIf they're only going to have one title moving forward, they should move MITB back to WM.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure HHH headlining WrestleMania for the title is not a dream many people would share.
ReplyDeleteWhy in the blue hell "dream matches"? This is WRESTLING - anything is booked anyway, so WHY NOT BOOK THEM?! And they don't even need Sting, Goldberg, Hogan for it.
ReplyDeleteI know it's a throw away .com piece but I'd be pretty ok with Bryan going over Orton and hhh in a triple threat main event. Play up some dissension between HHH and Orton all the while portraying Bryan as a huge underdog. Have Bryan make HHH tap a la WM XX. Blows off the entire authority angle in 30 minutes.
ReplyDeleteLangston/Reigns makes perfect sense and would actually elevate the IC title a bit since Reigns had his Rumble run.
ReplyDeleteAmbrose/Jake would be a great little novelty match with tremendous promos. Jake wins, forfeits the title the next night ala Bret Hart and then we can unify the IC/US belts finally.
MITB needs to come back to WrestleMania since there's one title shot up for grabs.
The Divas match isn't really appealing as I don't see where there's someone we would want to root for given their current face/heel statuses (stati?)
Brock/Batista could work as well. Batista could get fed up with the crowd giving him shit and cash in his title shot after EC, leading Brock to destroy him as soon as he's about to win the title.
Cena/UT is just a matter of time and I think everybody's down for it. Realistically, probably next year or at WM 32, but being WM 30 it would be appropriate.
Finally, Bryan going over Orton and HHH at the same time to end his chase once and for all would be epic and would payoff all of the disappointment many fans have felt since SummerSlam.
I wouldn't have a problem with this card at all. The match quality may not be great overall but it would feel like a WrestleMania card. These are all fairly fresh matchups as well. I would probably nix the Divas match and add a tag title deal, fatal four-way or something, but otherwise I like it.