Was Christian cheated or is it a sign of bigger things to come?
After coming across some spoilers (mainly thanks to Randy Orton tweeting it…dumbass) I was utterly SHOCKED and PISSED off to find out that a mere TWO DAYS… TWO FUCKING DAYS after Christian had finally ‘broken the glass ceiling’ and obtained the World Heavyweight title that he had dropped it to Randy Orton.
WWE, Are you serious!? I think it was obvious that Randy Orton was going to get the title eventually. As the golden boy and face of Smackdown, no one expected it to be a long time until he was hot-shotted the belt however, two days is utter bullshit and total blasphemy. I despise short title reigns, particularly World Title reigns… even Edge didn’t lose the title this quickly. I can’t believe that WWE didn’t trust Christian even a month to be the World Champion and maybe lose it at the Over The Limit ppv. Apparently not, it’s safe to say I was pissed.
At face value, it’s a fucked up situation. Christian is one hell of a worker, great on the mic and one of the most underrated talents in WWE history. You might argue that Christian isn’t a proven draw and Orton is. Invalid. The Miz is coming off one the longest WWE title reigns in recent history and he is by no means the highest drawing member of the Raw roster. John Cena is, and will probably be the most marketable superstar for years to come. Orton may shift merchandise but, does that mean that no one apart from proven draws such as Orton, Cena or Undertaker can be champion? NO! No it certainly doesn’t. They will be proven draws regardless of whether they’re champion or not and is not a valid reason for Christian dropping the title to Orton. If no one else gets the opportunity to be champion then WWE will never build new stars.
Perhaps politics are at play. It’s no secret that Orton has played his fair share of political mind games and jibbery joo in the past. Most recently, he was reportedly unhappy with his feud with The Miz and wanted a re-working of his feud leading into the Royal Rumble. Perhaps WWE gave him the title to appease him after being traded to the ‘B-Show.’ It’s not out of the question, but of course, I’m just speculating.
When viewing the new Smackdown roster, there isn’t a great deal of main event level competitors – Orton, Sheamus… that’s about it. If you’re WWE, you can’t be too picky with who you consider to be a main eventer if you’re roster is rather thin. You need to build someone up who has a great deal of experience and can handle a title reign… That is exactly what should have happened with Christian. Losing your title in your first defence a mere two days after you win it makes you look absolutely pathetic, ruins your credibility and destroys any chance of you looking like a great main event level talent. In my opinion, WWE absolutely screwed the pooch with Christian and I’m pissed about it.
I suppose I should look at the opposite side of the fence. If you look deeper than face value, then this may all be part of a storyline to make Christian a main event heel. I mean, he was visibly emotional when he won the title and rightfully so. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that he'd be upset. Upset that he lost the title. Upset that he wasn't prepared for a match with Randy Orton on Smackdown this week. Upset enough that he just might have to act on his emotions.
Going on to a heated feud with Randy Orton definitely helps his cause, much more than defending his World Title against the likes of Mark Henry and Sheamus would. After all, he did defeat Alberto Del Rio, not a former World Champion, so his win didn’t allow him to be seen as ‘legit’ in the eyes of many people. Smackdown is in dire need for a main event heel and a long feud with Orton may allow Christian to be twice as big as he is now.
There are potential problems with this feud though. With as dominant as Randy Orton has been booked to look in the last few months… beating an entire faction all by himself, dominating the feud week after week after week… does anyone really think that will change against Christian? If he can easily beat guys like Mason Ryan, David Otunga and Husky Harris, what would the sense be in losing to a guy considerably smaller than even Orton?
In the interest of fairness (McMahon reference) I suppose we’ve got to sit back and see what happens. If Christian is turned heel and he begins a meteoric rise to the top, then fair do’s. If he plummets back down to doing nothing in the mid-card… then its time to feel utterly fucked over. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy about this situation at all. How unhappy in the long term however, is yet to be determined.
I wanted to say something short about Impact. If you don’t know I’ve been with TNA since the beginning. There used to be a channel on Sky known as ‘The Wrestling Channel,’ needless to say as a huge pro wrestling fan it was probably my favourite channel on the whole of the subscription service. It showed ROH, CMLL, 1PW, New Japan, CZW and most importantly TNA… from the beginning. Yes that’s right, I had the privilege of watching this organisation grow and grow, from its weekly pay per views at the Nashville Asylum, to moving into the Impact Zone. The world X cup’s, the amazing feud between AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Daniels and everything in between. After my 1 and a half year/ 2 year (I’m not really sure how long it was… I watched Wrestlemania’s and other odd bits… I was a bit burned out) hiatus from wrestling, I switched on TNA in around February of 2010 to find out that Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff had joined and were promising change.
After watching, waiting, it became clear that Hogan and Bischoff were just there to prolong their dead careers and massage their ego’s by being in front of the camera. A plethora of ex-WWE talent either past their peak of past the point of caring about the business began to dominant the storylines. Excellent original TNA talent barely got TV time and the ratings showed absolutely no sign of change. This is where I began to fall out of love with TNA Wrestling.
Fast forward to next week’s Impact. Mick Foley is revealed as the ‘Network’ member who has been calling the shots over Hogan and Bischoff in recent weeks. Ignoring the fact that this gives TNA ANOTHER authority figure, and makes absolutely no fucking sense (cos a wrestler gets to call the shots at TV networks) it is pretty interesting. Foley claims that TNA Impact will simply be known as ‘Impact Wrestling’ and will be all about wrestling. Wow! Wouldn’t that be great? The X-Division picked some beef with Bischoff aswell. Wow! Maybe we’ll get wrestling AND X-division prominence on Impact from now on. As with anything TNA does though, I wouldn’t get too excited. Impact has been nothing BUT talking in recent months. One recent episode had less than 15 minutes of in ring action on the entire show. That’s disgusting. Furthermore, as with a lot of things TNA does nowadays, it’s probably just a shot at WWE and there recent re-branding policy to be called simply ‘WWE’ to avoid the cliché of being purely a wrestling company. Sure enough, TNA bring back Chyna to ruin any excitement I had. Chyna in the ‘Attitude Era’ had a completely unique look. She has lost a ton of muscle mass since then. Moreover, she's been an absolute mess since leaving the WWE in 2001 (maybe 2002). She’s hit rock bottom a couple of times due to alcohol and drugs. Chyna wasn’t a great worker when she was in the WWE and it seems as if TNA are just bringing in another drug-addicted has-been to try and capitalise on fame they had nearly 10 years ago. It just sickens me. I hope to god TNA move forward with this wrestling initiative and prominently feature talent of the PRESENT, not the PAST.
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