Scotts Wrestling World

Jan. 23 Raw: This Raw was not that pivotal but they continued with their 3 big things going on there at the time being the Cena-Edge rematch for the WWE Title, the McMahon-Michaels feud, and the anticipated return of “Mr. Monday Night” Rob Van Dam. Although RVD did not return on this night, I believe that there were some people, myself included that RVD would make a surprise return to Raw before the rumble. People have been anticipating RVD’s return to the ring from his knee injury because of what he said at ECW One Night Stand and what he said the next night on Raw after he got drafted to Raw. RVD’s character now, from the look of things, is very anti-office. His character was that back in ECW but after he came to WWE, he was degraded to just being a “cool” character. With TNA starting to pick up pace and many people, myself included, are starting to look at TNA as competition to the WWE. I think that Vince might not be showing it to us fans, but I do believe that deep down he knows TNA will catch up to him and he will be struggling again like he was when WCW caught up to him. So the WWE needs a guy like RVD to help defend the WWE from the onslaught that is coming from TNA. They used an anti-office character by the name of Stone Cold Steve Austin to stick it to WCW and they will need a guy like that again to stick it to TNA before this option becomes a last resort like Austin was. I am not knocking Austin, he is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, but everything else they used against WCW at the time did not work and if this did not work, we might not have a WWE today. We would still have a WCW. Last July, I mentioned on Eric Gargioulo’s Pro Wrestling Radio show (the link is up there) that I believed that John Cena was the next Stone Cold. Eric mentioned that Cena could be Stone Cold on the mic, but he won’t be Stone Cold in the ring. I have now realized that and now I believe that RVD will be the next Stone Cold. Not only can RVD live up to Austin on the mic, he can live up to Austin in the ring because RVD is more athletic than Austin by far (again I am not knocking Austin). So we will just see if WWE creative lets RVD turn into the next Stone Cold or they will just downgrade him again lower his vocab like he said at One Night Stand to “whatever” and “cool”.

Jan. 27 Smackdown: Smackdown marched down the road to the Royal Rumble but believe me, it was not a positive march. Smackdown’s most important match (besides the rumble) is its World Title match pitting defending champ Kurt Angle against Mark Henry (good god). The reason that match came about all stems back to Batista vacating the title because fo an injury suffered at the hands of Mark Henry and Angle returning to Smackdown in the battle royal and winning the title. To see who would face Angle at the rumble for the title, they had a number one contenders match pitting Rey Mysterio against Mark Henry (no mismatch there hey). Now, the WWE had 2 outcomes to this match. Outcome 1: Have Mysterio win and go on and face Angle for the title and represent Smackdown with a great title match at on of the bigger shows of the year. Outcome 2: Have Mark Henry win and represent Smackdown ith a mediocre or just flat out bad match for the title at one of the bigger shows of the year. So what does the WWE choose? They chose to have outcome 2. Now believe me when I say this. This could be an interesting match if they did not do an awful job with Mark Henry’s character during his first 2 runs here. This guy was a low-mid carder at best when he was here his first 2 times here but he returns and now he is a main eventer. And on top of that, worty enough to challenge for the title. On this past week’s Smackdown, Angle and Angle alone like Mark Henry was a good enough challenger for the title by making Henry look strong by not staying down from the Angle Slam and kicking out of the Ankle Lock. You will here the winner of this match in my Royal Rumble section of this blog.

Jan. 28 TNA Impact: On this night, Sting would make his return to cable tv after being gone for 5 years. Team 3D was asking for fan participation to see who they should face at TNA’s upcoming ppv “Against All Odds”. We the fans get to choose between Team Canada or AMW. You can vote at tnawrestling.com and when I voted, Team Canada was in the lead by 5 percent. Now on to Sting. When he came out, he got a standing ovation. When he gave his speech, he looked back on some of his career’s best moments, most of which were including Ric Flair. Then he went on to say how he never got to say goodbye to the fans. He said that was his final resolution. He then proceeded to say goodbye to the fans and as he was walking up the ramp, some of TNA’s finest came out to say goodbye to him. Was this the last time we will ever see Sting again or will he come back sometime in the future. Only time will tell.

Jan 29 WWE Royal Rumble: This is the beginning of the road towards Wrestlemania. It really is the beginning bcause the rumble match determines who will be the challenger in the main event of Wrestlemania and usually, whoever wins the belts of Raw and Smackdown, are usually still champs by Wrestlemania. The WWE Title changed hands as defending champ Edge dropped it back to Cena. Now many people say that the WWE had Edge drop the title back to Cena was because Edge was not producing as champion. Newsflash to the WWE. The reason why Edge was not producing was because of that live sex celebration that you guys wrote up for him the night after he won the title. People thought that Edge was going to be a disgrace to the title because he was so contreversial. Believe me, people would not have thought this if you guys (the creative team) did not book that segment. I believe Edge could have carried the belt for Raw all the way up until Wrestlemania 22. Angle retained his title over Mark Henry (thank god). But what happened after the match was more interesting than the match itself. Undertaker made a surprise return and sent a message that he wants Angle’s title by having lightning strike the ring and have it collapse. Now to the winner of the Rumble. Some people, myself included, believed that RVD would be the winner of the rumble because he was making a triumphant return to the ring from knee surgery. Some people said HHH, Big Show, Kane, Lashley. The list goes on and on. But very few believed that Rey Mysterio would win. You would not expect a guy his size to win it but he did. He dedicated his rumble performance to his friend, the late Eddie Guererro. I am happy for Mysterio and he does deserve this victory. But I believe it should not have taken a friend’s death to happen for this to come to pass for Mysterio. But I could see this coming for Rey or Eddie’s nephew Chavo because they were both very close to Eddie and knowing the WWE creative team, they were going to use Eddie’s death to lauch 1 if not both men to main event status. You might say Rey already was a main eventer but he was not a solid one. He would have main events every now and then, but now because of his rumble victory, he is a solid main eventer. This has yet to pass for Chavo. Here is the entry numbers and order of elimination for the rumble match.

Order Of Entry
1. HHH
2. Rey Mysterio
3. Simon Dean
4. Psicosis
5. Ric Flair
6. Big Show
7. Coach
8. Lashley
9. Kane
10. Sylvan
11. Carlito
12. Benoit
13. Booker T
14. Joey Mercury
15. Tatanka
16. Johnny Nitro
17. Trevor Murdoch
18. Eugene
19. Animal
20. RVD
21. Orlando Jordan
22. Chavo Guererro
23. Matt Hardy
24. Super Crazy
25. Shawn Michaels
26. Chris Masters
27. Viscera
28. Shelton Benjamin
29. Goldust
30. Randy Orton

Order Of Elimination BY
1.Simon Dean HHH and Mysterio
2.Psicosis Mysterio
3. Flair HHH
4.Coach Big Show
5. Sylvan Lashley
6. Lashley Big Show and Kane
7.Big Show HHH
8. Kane HHH
9. Booker T Benoit
10. Animal RVD
11. Chavo Guererro HHH
12. Tatanka Mercury and Nitro
13. Murdoch Michaels
14. Hardy Viscera
15. Eugene Benoit
16. Super Crazy Mysterio
17. Benoit Orton
18. Viscera Carlito and Masters
19. Masters Carlito
20. Goldust RVD
21. Jordan Orton
22. Mercury Nitro via Michaels
23. Nitro Michaels
24. Benjamin Michaels
25. Michaels Shane McMahon
26. Carlito RVD
27. RVD Mysterio via HHH
28. HHH Mysterio
29. Orton Mysterio
Winner: Rey Mysterio

Now here are the 2 news stories I came across.

Shawn wants Bret in the Hall of Fame: Shawn Michaels was asked in an interview if he would like to see Bret Hart in the Hall of Fame. Surprisingly, he said yes. He believes that having Bret in the Hall of Fame would be awesome and says that Bret deserves it. He said that Bret should move past the Montreal incidet because both Shawn and Vince have and he believes that Bret should do the same. The invitation has been sent to Bret but he has not accepted nor rejected it as of right now

Rock denies Michaels match for Wrestlemania 22: Shawn Michaels has requested to The Rock that they should wrestle in an epic encounter at Wrestlemania. The Rock denies Shawn’s request saying that Shawn does not have enough star pwer to present this match as an epic encounter. He still has some hard feelings towards Shawn for the way he treated him when he first came to WWE a decade ago.