ProWrestlingViews.com

Some of the most famous pro wrestling bloggers really get some advantages the rest of us do not, like being asked to do sports radio interviews whenever something big or controversial happens in the world of Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Though I never gave it a lot of thought until recently, I’ve come to realize that having my own business card might not be such a bad idea.

So I hopped over to LogoYes.com to try out their free logo design and business card creation tool, just to get a rough idea. I didn’t expect much more than that - a rough idea. That’s where I was wrong; with the flexibility of their online tools and just a bit of creativity, I came up with a look I really like, and it only took maybe 10-15 minutes, mostly because I’m fairly fussy and kept adjusting stuff.

With plenty of clip art available and three main styles of clip art to choose from, I was able to come up with a design that not only goes well with the new look I adopted for ProWrestlingViews.com when I was hunting down and customizing the new template last night, but I think if I had the money to order a set, I probably would have, right then and there. The card looks sharp, I think, and would present a pretty impressive professional image.

Of course, I kept my address off the version I’m posting online for … well, privacy reasons, naturally. But if I placed an order, it would be relatively easy to correct that. Now if only I could figure out how to develop a custom blog template around the sharp logo I designed at LogoYes.com, I’d really be in business!

In the upcoming Fatal Four-Way match at Backlash, JBL has seemed the odd man out. While Cena, Orton and Triple H belong in the title picture, JBL has seemed like the interloper and the subject of an unmerited push.

That was remidied at the England broadcast of WWE Raw, when JBL cleaned house on both Triple H and current champ Randy Orton, in a well-orchestrated match that made him seem like a world-beater. Sure, John Cena’s absence from Raw made JBL’s victory a bit hollow, but the image of JBL holding Orton’s belt over his head as Raw closed will certainly help give JBL the final push he needs to make the Fatal Four-Way seem like a contest of equals.

After the beating Triple H and Orton took at the hands of JBL, they’ll definitely need some massage therapy to be ready to go again at tonight’s RAW King of the Ring broadcast.

With the firing of Joey Styles as the play-by-play announcer of ECW, Vince McMahon has effectively severed one of the last ties to the upstart rebel promotion Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman started about 15 years ago. His replacement, Mike Adamle, formerly best known as the announcer of the original American Gladiators, is a wrestling newbie whose inexperience hurt the ECW telecast this week, and could very well doom the promotion in the ratings.

Perhaps there were good reasons behind the scenes for letting Styles go, including a price tag issue brought up by the company’s budgeting software. Who knows? But for anyone who was holding out any vestige of hope that ECW could rebound and recapture its former glory, the last spark of hope was snuffed out with Styles’ dismissal.

Last Monday’s Raw broadcast had one of the best women’s title matches on display in a long time. Champion Beth Phoenix and challenger Mickie James put on a long, roughly seven-minute contest that was surprisingly physical. The payoff came when the imposing Phoenix felt victim to the fast-moving James’ quickness for a surprise win and a title change.

In all honesty, though, the victory is somewhat pyhrric, given that Phoenix was given the title almost immediately upon entering the WWE and was never established well as a character on TV broadcasts. Her title reign was long but rather empty as a result, and putting the title on James gives the fans of WWE a performer who has established an appealing persona, as well as a record of working hard in the ring.

Truth be told, though, this is a match that would have been better-suited to WrestleMania, rather than a Raw broadcast; but the women’s division is currently a bit morose, given too often to sex-appeal matches at PPV, rather than athletic title matches like the one one Raw last Monday.

Perhaps a rematch for grudge purposes will be worked up for a future festool PPV. Give James and Phoenix some time to cut promos against each other and a 12-minute spot to do real ring work, rather than bra-and-panties crap, and you’d have a very watchable WWE Women’s Title match for a future PPV.

One of my favorite WWE PPV events is coming back, but not as a pay-per-view. Instead, the legendary King of the Ring event will take place on a single, three-hour broadcast of Monday Night Raw this Monday, April 21, on USA Network.

I used to say I’d give up a lifelong season pass to the North Padre Island rentals of my choice just to see King of the Ring return. Now, I don’t have to. It will be a load of fun to see who they put the crown on this time. King of the Ring made its reputation on crowning the next big WWE heel star, and launched the WWE careers of such folks as Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Ted DeBiase, Kurt Angle, Edge and Brock Lesnar.

The PPV disappeared for four years, and came back in 2006 as a Smackdown-only event, with Booker T crowned as King Booker. There was no King of the Ring in 2007, but this year’s Raw event will include competitors from Smackdown and ECW as well as Raw.

I can’t wait!

WWE’s Chris Jericho proved on last Monday’s RAW broadcast from England that he has the potential to pull off one of the quickest heel turns of all time. All he had to do was walk out on stage to Ric Flair’s entrance music and begin to cut a promo against Shawn Michaels.

Although Michaels is working a program against SmackDown’s Dave Batista at Backlash, the groundwork is already being laid for a Jericho-HBK feud that could help headline Raw-branded events throughout the summer. Both men are ring veterans who know how to work a match, work the ring psychology to get the crowd on its feet, and both cut excellent promos.

If this is going somewhere, I’m ready for it. And Jericho can just be glad that Michaels wasn’t wearing golf shoes when he performed that Super Kick to Jericho’s jaw.

You know, looking back over the main matches at WrestleMania again, I’d have to say that my favorite match was still the WWE title match between Randy Orton, Triple H and John Cena. While the Flair-HBK match had way more emotion, the truth of the matter is that the WWE Title match just had more youth and energy.

You don’t have to be a futures broker to see that John Cena and Randy Orton will be WWE mainstays for some time to come. The question here is where the next big stars are, who are lining up behind them.

I still like the long-term potential of Ken Kennedy and MVP, and Jeff Hardy isn’t exactly new, but his solo work in WWE since returning from TNA is like a fresh start for him. My main complaint, though, is that in both WrestleMania and now the upcoming Backlash, WWE continues to insist on overpromoting the inferior SmackDown brand.

Let’s face it; Raw is where the action is. Let’s start structuring the PPVs to reflect that, shall we?

Inserting John Cena into the Backlash main event wasn’t as well-handled as Triple-H’s insertion. Cena didn’t appear on the show until the second hour, and only after Orton, Triple H and JBL are all the worse for wear due to fighting each other so Triple-H could earn his spot in the match.

While requiring Cena to earn his way into the main event at Backlash gave Cena’s challenge the appearance of being equal to Triple H, keep in mind that H faced a completely fresh Orton and JBL, wheras no matter who he faced, Cena was dealing in storyline with two wrestlers who would have already fought that night.

This is why so many wrestling fans boo Cena and treat him like someone selling wholesale fashion jewelry, rather than lapping up his “the Champ is here!” hype. Of course, there was a way they could have booked Raw to make Cena’s insertion into the match just as thrilling as Triple H’s.

It should have been a 3-on-1 handicap match with Cena having to face Triple H, JBL and Orton, and come away with a win, in order to be inserted into Backlash’s main event. Pulling off a 3-on-1 upset would have made for a higher-odds storyline of overcoming adversity, and the Cena insertion would have gone down better and perhaps even turned some of thosse “boo the babyface” rubes into cheers.

One of the biggest risks in professional wrestling is the decision to turn a bad guy good, or a good guy bad. Usually, this is done when a star’s career is faltering, or thier gimmick simply isn’t getting them over with the crowd. Sometimes it works quite well; other tmies, it can be a career killer.

None of those situations describe the career of “the Legend Killer,” Randy Orton. Despite a brief stint as a babyface when he was breaking away from the Evolution group a few years ago, Orton has remained comfortably over with the crowd ever since he delivered a Legend Killer finishing move on WWE Diva Stacy Keibler to cement his heel status.

That momentum eventually lead to Orton being the heir apparent last fall when John Cena went down with a career-stalling injury. Initially seen as a “transitionary champion,” until the return of bigger stars like Triple H or John Cena, Orton shed that label and cemented the WWE’s choice to put the belt on him by giving him the win over both men at WrestleMania last month.

So why mess with a winning formula? It’s not like Orton’s career needs a figurative cell phone repeater to boost his image even more. Yet consider the evidence.

At WrestleMania, many fans cheered Orton and booed Cena, due to Cena’s career suffering from overexposure. (The same thing happened to The Rock, in his day.) And on last Monday’s RAW, the initial makeup of the Backlash main event was going to be Randy Orton versus JBL; both are heel characters as currently promoted, and JBL’s character would seem to be the hardest one to turn.

Granted, later in the segment, Triple H came out and inserted himself into the Backlash main event picture, but even Triple H is a borderline face at best, since he is most notoriously known for his extended hardcore heel run of five years ago, a run that set the mold for hardcore heel runs the likes of which Randy Orton has been on for the last couple years.

WWE could have protected Orton’s heel status by matching him up against a true face, like Jeff Hardy or Chris Jericho. Instead, the company is pitting Orton against all-out or borderline heels. Ultimately, they may just be testmarketing a face turn for the Legend Killer champion.