Can They Be Champ? 04.20.08: The World Heavyweight Championship: From Now Til Summerslam

First off, I want to thank everyone who commented on last week’s article about the WWE championship. As I promised, I’ll post and respond to some of those comments at the end of today’s column.

This week, I’m going to be looking at the immediate future of the World Heavyweight Championship. Again, from now til Summerslam. This means I’ll be predicting the Smackdown world title scene for quite sometime into the future.

But first, let’s plug the 411 podcasts.

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First off, I want to be clear that this isn’t fantasy booking. I’m writing what I think will happen, not what I want to happen.

First up, we have Backlash, and the Edge/Undertaker rematch. This should be a fairly standard Backlash style rematch. I mean, it’s not like they bothered giving Taker the belt just to have Edge win it back immediately. I don’t feel like this will be the final match in the feud. I mean, you’d think that some sort of gimmick match would have that honor, and this is surprisingly a standard one fall match. So Taker wins, but Edge (using his GM connections) somehow finds his way back to the title scene.

This will bring us to Judgment Day, and another Edge vs. Taker match. We’ll probably see some sort of gimmick here. Maybe a Buried Alive Match. We haven’t seen one of those in awhile. Of course, Taker will win this match, “burying” Edge (see what I did there?). I imagine that will be the end of the feud, and Edge will get involved in some sort of storyline that brings an end to the whole Vickie thing. Taker, meanwhile, will be set to have that long title reign the WWE wanted him to have last year. Let’s just hope he doesn’t get injured again. I don’t want to have to see another WHC hot potato fiasco.

Next, we have One Night Stand. Well, looking at the Smackdown roster, it’s hard to imagine who would fight Taker after the Edge feud. Sure, there’s Batista, but that has been done beyond death. The only reasonable choice is the Big Show, who should be built up after beating Khali around for awhile. So let’s go ahead and say Big Show vs. Undertaker at One Night Stand. After a brutal (nice way of saying slow) match, Taker will win.

Now, around this time we should be seeing the draft take place. Now, some people called me out for not talking about the draft in the Raw column last week. That’s because I believe that Raw will not lose or gain very many top level guys. For crying out loud, they already dominate when it comes to main eventers Smackdown was screwed in last year’s draft. Their biggest wins were Ric Flair (retired) and the Great Khali (poop face). Thank god they got Edge a little before, and even then it was only because Taker got injured.

Smackdown desperately needs some help from the draft. But let’s be realistic, the WWE isn’t going to be sending guys like HHH, Cena, or HBK away from the top brand. So who do I think will head to Smackdown? Well, Jericho seems like a good choice. He’s over, and while a big star, he just doesn’t seem to fit in with Raw’s crowded title picture. On Smackdown, Jericho can be a star, and one who can easily play face or heel. I’d also think we’ll see Kennedy return to Smackdown. He hasn’t done much good on Raw. I mean, remember how quickly he seemed to be getting over on Smackdown? Of course, injuries and wellness failures are also factors in his static placement on Raw’s midcard, but even when he was active, he didn’t do much memorable. I’m trying to remember the details of his Shawn Michaels feud, but even that was unremarkable. Let’s put him back to Smackdown, where he can be better utilized.

So, Jericho will be Smackdown’s big draft pick. The next PPV will be Night of Champions. I think we’ll be seeing some kind of triple threat or fatal four way here. Taker, as champion, will be involved, of course. Big Show would probably come back. The third man would probably be Jericho. Maybe they’ll throw Batista or Edge in the match as well. Since every match has to be a championship match, it’s hard to come up with creative ways to get all of your main eventers in a show. Maybe two of them will form a tag team and beat the crap out of Miz and Morrison. Whatever they do here, Taker wins again.

Now we come to the Great American Bash. This will be a one on one encounter. I’d predict Taker vs. Jericho here, with Jericho playing heel. Jericho could be Smackdown’s fresh heel, giving Taker someone new to wrestle who isn’t Edge. Jericho wins here, giving Smackdown a new heel champion, and ending a pretty good title run for Taker.

Now we’re at Summerslam. A Jericho/Taker rematch is possible here, but I think CM Punk could be cashing in his Money in the Bank here. That’s the main reason I had Jericho win the belt, really. I think Punk is going to Smackdown (again, Raw has enough main event guys). They’re going to need a heel champion to put him over, which can’t be Taker. Punk either gets to Smackdown because of this match (like Edge last year), or he moves over during the draft. So we have Jericho vs. Punk, and guess what, Jericho cheats and Punk loses. This would make him the first person to lose a match with the Money in the Bank clause. Hey, they have to make that stuff at least somewhat unpredictable.

Ok, I know I’m not supposed to talk beyond Summerslam, but obviously this feud would continue, and Punk would win the belt eventually.

Well, that’s that. Be sure to let me know how you agree or disagree. Now, let’s look at some of last week’s comments.

I like you’re thinking the whole way through the booking sounds very much like
the route the E would go here. I do however think that whether it’s at
Summerslam or before hand Cena and Triple H will meet again title or not, like
you said. The fact that the last time they met was 2 years ago makes this
second meeting more important and I think the E is trying to distance out these
guys matches to give their “feud” a more historical, memorable feel to
it similar to Rock-Austin who met 3 times with 2 year intervals. To me, at this
time I expect Trips to get what he wants (sooner rather than later) and get his
title and I do expect it at Backlash but I’m not ruling out Orton holding on. I
expect Trips to make a run in the summer facing guys like Jeff Hardy Y2J and
possibly Batista assuming he makes the move to Raw. Now that can go 2 ways, I
could see Trips having his money match with Batista and ultimatley delaying the
inevitable. But what I think will happen is we will see Triple H Cena 2 at
Summerslam where Triple H will tie up their series 1-1 and begin the chase to
Wrestlemania 25 where money will grow on trees for the E. Now on a small note
if Orton holds on we will see him and Batista at Summerslam for the title and
Triple H and Cena in a non tile match that will get a lot more attention. All
in all I see Triple H and Cena in some fashion at Summerslam. I find it hard to
believe HBK will ever get a run with the title again unless it’s being a
transitional champion which would be more likely heading into Mania be it on
Raw or Smackdown. The man works a part time schedule no house shows only
international tours and big markets the champ needs to travel everywhere and
HBK is at that stage in his career where he doesnt do that anymore so it is a
longshot that he gets the gold back although it would be a great moment.

-Justin

If Raw does get any big wins in the draft, it probably will be Batista. That could throw the title matches I predicted for Raw out of whack a little bit, but I don’t think we’d see him win the WWE championship immediately.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people don’t buy my “Shawn will be champ again” prediction. Well, like you said, I do think he would probably be a transitional champion, unless Shawn feels up to the longer schedule of a world champion again. Knowing how happy he is with his current role, that’s unlikely. Still, after the Flair angle, I feel like HBK is really going to be on a roll, and a great way to accentuate that is with a title win. Then have someone beat Shawn, and they get a great rub.

I can see CM Punk being that guy against ” Orton. But I think he will go
with edge on smackdown. I would love to see a Shelton push to see if he could
handle it. Of course he would’t win but would probably be a hell of a match..
,aybe getting him over. which in my opinion would not be bad thing.

-Ted J

A lot of people questioned me leaving Punk out of the Raw side of things. Like I said in this column, I think we’ll be seeing him on Smackdown. But if he does go to Raw, an Orton feud would be the best bet. As far as a Shelton push goes, I wouldn’t hold my breath. They can’t even commit to pushing him on freaking ECW.

We will never see Triple H versus John Cena on a non big four pay-per-view. Are
you insane?

-Random Guest

Come on, do really believe in the whole “Big Four PPVs” thing anymore? Sure, the Royal Rumble is still important due to the rumble itself, and WrestleMania will always be big. But SummerSlam and Survivor Series? Ever since they decided to have every brand represented at every PPV, what makes those two shows special? Nothing for SummerSlam, and Survivor Series has the survivor series match no one really cares about anymore.

Personally, I’d love to see a triple threat match between Cena, HHH & HBK at
SummerSlam. It should be awesome from an in-ring point of view, and it would
practically book itself, too. All three men have feuded *and* worked together
at different times; all three could conceivably take the belt at the drop of a
hat; and all of them could realistically cross the line (read: turn heel) in
their frenzied pursuit of it.

I’d pay to see it!

-Vinz

Me too, Vinz. Me too.

Cena/HHH will never happen apart from WM. “Our generation of
Austin/Rock” are the words that come to mind…

Either Cena or HHH need to get away fom Raw in the draft. Get Batista to Raw so
we have a huge fued with Orton/Batista and then for Summerslam have CM Punk cash
in his MiTB and LOSE (yes lose, not win) in some sneaky (not bitchy) way. I
would like to see Orton lose the title on Raw… havent had that for a while,
maybe 2 weeks after Summerslamm, then Orton gets his rematch and loses. Punk
goes on his merry way to fued with HBK (DREAM MATCH~!)…

Thats how i would do it anyway.

-Brad

But Austin/Rock happened many times outside of WrestleMania.

CM Punk and Chris Jericho. Two guys you are completely forgetting as the WWE
also seems to have a problem with. Oh and the Big Show who I believe is RAW
talent.

-Joe

Again, I think Punk and Y2J are Smackdown bound. And according to WWE.com’s roster, Big Show is Smackdown talent.

Alright, let’s go ahead and stop there. Again, thanks for all of the comments.

Have a good week, everyone.