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Former WWE champion Brock Lesnar upset Randy Couture over the weekend to win his first UFC title and becoming the first person to ever win WWE and UFC titles. Although Lesnar currently wants nothing to do with his pro-wrestling background, his unique achievement is nevertheless one for the record books.

Lesnar has been a dominant monster ever since his NCAA wrestling days at the University of Minnesota, and although he tried and failed to make the Minnesota Vikings as a defensive lineman, the ultimate fighting path he’s on now puts him back in more familiar territory.

Never one who needed a diet pill, Lesnar’s hulking physique and aggressive attitude have finally won him the legitimacy he’s longed for.

Continuing to increase their output of PPV events, the next WWE PPV will be the former WCW-branded Night of Champions, later this month. The basic idea is that every match is a title match. All titles will be defended.

Sounds fun, actually, and the way more WWE PPVs should be run. Instead of a bunch of meaningless matches over who gets to do the next hoodia commercial, each match means something.

I only hope that the matches in question are not replays of the last few PPVs, but actually introduce some new storylines. After all, the Triple H/Randy Orton thing had a satisfying conclusion, and it might be nice to see Triple H face off with a new challenger. The Age of Orton is over for now; let’s see who else has some main event potential.

First of all, let me stress that I hate how One Night Stand has changed in recent years. Initially debuting as an all-ECW event, then used for ECW vs. WWE matches, the PPV has devolved into just another WWE PPV event, in which the ECW brand is an afterthought. Keep in mind that the only match with current or original ECW members in it was the second match of the night; any other match on the card could have taken place at any other WWE PPV throughout the year.

That being said, the only remnant of ECW remaining in One Night Stand is that all the matches were “extreme rules” matches. Well, not really. More like they were all stipulation matches. Some of these dust-ups were pretty lackluster, but the match of the night has to go to the main event match between Edge and Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Title.

As a TLC (tables, ladders, chairs) match, the stipulation played to Edge’s strengths, as he made a living a decade ago, along with the Hardys, at putting on injury-defying TLC matches that almost shortened the careers of Matt and Jeff Hardy, as well as Edge and his then-partner, Christian Cage.

While Taker is nowhere near as acrobatic, fast and flexible as Edge is, well, Edge isn’t as nimble as he was a decade ago, either. Still, the two men put on an amazing show that proves why TLC matches are so popular… and so rare. If you ever get a chance to see one live, buy a bus and make sure you get there and take a bunch of friends along with.

The excitement was enhanced by having Taker’s career “on the line” based on the outcome of the match; since Edge won, that means that Taker conceivably has been “retired” by Edge, though it is widely expected that this is either an excuse to give Taker an extended vacation, which he takes periodically over the past few years, in order to minimize the abuse on his aging body, or may simply set Taker up to “reappear” on the Raw roster at the WWE Draft, due in three weeks during a special, three-hour Raw episode on USA.

Just saw Judgment Day and the Shawn Michaels-Chris Jericho match had to be the “highlight reel” match of the night for me, personally. I recognized what they were trying to replicate right away, which is one of those action-filled, tons of near-falls type of matches like the classic Flair-Steamboat match, or the equally-classic WrestleMania 3 Savage-Steamboat match of years gone by.

The great thing is they told a great storyline in the ring through wrestling and ring psychology, rather than a series of high spots, so classic fans like myself can appreciate it as a tribute to the way wrestlnig was done in the pre-WrestleMania era. The old AWA standby champ, Nick Bockwinkle, was one of the best at this style of match, and Michaels was around in the latter days of the AWA, so he knew Bockwinkle, at least in passing. Jericho, a student of the game, wasn’t wrestling yet back then, but as I recall, when he was the Undisputed WWE champ, his style of “heel champ” had a distinct Nick Bockwinkle tribute feel to it.

So if you missed the PPV, bubba, stretch out on your foam mattress and buy the replay, because that was one match worth the price of viewing, for sure. The two title matches (Orton v. Triple H and Edge v. Taker) were also top-notch efforts by the top talents from both brands.

Did anyone catch Lawler’s opening blunder? It was typical but still kind of amusing when he exclaimed, “Everyone here is erect — electrifyed by…” Amusing bit; maybe Lawler needs a dose or two of Orovo, though.

The PPV lead off with two of the best wrestlers still on the Smackdown brand; Matt Hardy versus MVP. Hardy’s an old hand in WWE terms, but a solid worker now in his solo career; and MVP is a solid up-and-comer with a gimmick that won’t get in the way of him someday reaching the top of a future PPV card. Good match to represent the Smackdown brand.

Mick Foley was less than great, though, filling in for Coach, calling Matt Hardy, Matt Hardly. Hardy’s surprising win over MVP was a fun and thrilling finish, but doesn’t really take much shine off MVP’s rising star, even though it put the US Title on Hardy. However, I suspect MVP is being groomed to move up and take on Undertaker soon for the World Heavyweight Championship, so getting the US Title off him was a necessary move.

Next up was Kane vs. Chavo Guerrero for the ECW Title. Kane’s a completely uninspiring champion and Guerrero’s no better an option, so this made for a really boring match. Giving this match over 10 minutes to play out really cut against Kane’s dominating title win at WrestleMania, in which he bested the same opponent in well under a minute. Whatever. Vince, mend fences with Paul Heyman and make ECW matter again. Please.

Now it’s back to the SmackDown-Raw cross-brand match up with Raw’s Big Show taking on SmackDown’s Great Khali. Two giants is always a fun concept match, and these are two of the biggest men in the pro ring today. It’s also a smart match for WWE to use to advance Show’s return after the high-profile boxer vs. wrestler match at WrestleMania, when Show took on Floyd Mayweather.

The “battle of the head-butts” was a rather boring way to start the match, and the crowd wasn’t loving it, to be sure. There was even a “BO-RING” chant gong at one point. Khali was allowed to dominate most of the six-minute-or-so match, with Show pulling off only a couple really successful moves; a bodyslam, which he blew on his first attempt; and a reversal out of a chokeslam for a chokeslam of his own. Typical big-man matchup, but Show was given the win after jobbing to the under-160-pound Floyd Mayweather at WrestleMania last month.

The Batista-HBK match, with Chris Jericho as the special guest referee, was the first real stamp of Raw on the Backlash PPV, since both HBK and Jericho are Raw guys and most of this storyline played out on Raw. This match was a great antidote to Show-Khali, as it was a much higher-energy, faster-paced match.

It was nice to see this match get over 25 minutes of ring-time to develop, although the ending was unexpected; Michaels came down wrong on a move and seemed to get a real knee injury, but then unexpectedly got up and delivered a Superkick with the injured knee being the support leg for the Superkick move. If this is a real knee injury, that was am impressive moment on Michaels’ part; if it was a sell-job, Michaels did great at playing possum. Either way, it was good to see Michaels get the best of the overrated Batista.

The 10-woman diva tag match was quick fun, which is all one could expect of a non-title women’s match, since not all the women are of equal ring-skill. At least it game Mickie James a nice spotlight.

The Undertaker-Edge match was next, with Taker defending the title he won at WrestleMania, against the same opponent from whom he won it. The rubber match concept is great for fued-building, but SmackDown’s not doing itself any favors by not injecting fresh blood into the title picture. Taker’s always reliable and Edge is an electrifying, polarizing personality, but more faces are needed at the top. Hopefully, MVP will soon be added to the mix, now that his US Title isn’t in the way. Having Taker win the rematch in virtually the same way he won the title intially pretty much puts a cap on their rivalry for a while and should open a path for new opponents to face off with Taker. Nice 12-minute or so match, not counting the entrances.

Finally, it was main event time and it’s a good one; a four-way match with elimination rules, one of my favorite stips since it doesn’t take one fluke pinfall to end it. Triple H, Orton, Cena and JBL makes for a rock-solid main event and fortunately, even though this PPV was Smackdown-heavy, it was this Raw-branded match that was given the top spot for a change, and deservedly so.

The 30 minutes given to the match to develop was terrific, and the match lived up to expectations for me. With four of the top workers in the biz in the same match, there was no weak spot, really. Cena brought the most energy to the match, fighting hard and fast and clean to show both his desire and momentum. He earned the first elimination, forcing JBL to tap out.

So it was a disappointment when Orton entered immediately afterward, delivered a kick to the head and speedily sent Cena packing for another night. That left just Orton and Triple H to settle things one-on-one, which was disappointing, since I wanted to see more three-corner action before we got to the second elimination.

Oh well.

As we all know by now, after earning his legitimacy with a WrestleMania win, WWE ended Orton’s reign with an entertaining, but fairly predictable title change to Triple H. HHH has been working hard and patiently since his return from injury, and the victory makes him a 12-time champion, which helps push him toward Flair territory (16 times).

With the summer PPV season upon us, I expect Triple H will reign at least through SummerSlam, but by then it should be up for grabs as the company starts to map out its road to next spring’s WrestleMania. All in all, not a bad PPV.

After last year’s disappointing and far-too-average WrestleMania 23, I was almost afraid to watch this year’s biggest PPV event of the year, in case I would be disappointed yet again. Yet despite even the seemingly ridiculous Big Show-Floyd Mayweather match, WrestleMania 24 turned out to be one of the best editions of the annual PPV event in quite some years.

The matches that were not expected to amount to much were played appropriately for comedy, and the matches that were expected to be huge and meaningful were given plenty of time to play out. For a show that lives mostly out of travel trailers, this year’s WrestleMania delivered the goods in a way that it hasn’t for several years.

Signs that we were in store for a solid WrestleMania began early as the Money In the Bank match was given an unexpected twist ending, with underdog C.M. Punk getting the rub and the win over favorites like Chris Jericho, Mr. Kennedy, MVP and John Morrison. That match was given almost 14 minutes to play out and featured some of the best spots of the night.

I cheered when the Batista-Umaga match was kept mercifully short. Batista winning was just another example of WWE trying to convince a completely unconvinced fan base that SmackDown is just as good, if not better than, Raw. No way. All it convinced me of is that the company isn’t spending enough time establishing Umaga’s credibility as unstoppable, and also that they remain committed to overhyping Batista, who’s simply far too overrated for a man with such borderline mic skills and mat skills.

Kane defeating Chavo Guerrero in about 10 seconds to win the ECW title was an unforgivable crush and only continues to demonstrate how little the company cares about the credibility of the ECW brand.

But the Ric Flair-Shawn Michaels match was given a solid, heart-pounding 20 minutes plus to develop, allowing these veteran showmen to prove why they’ve had such lasting careers in sports entertainment. It was everything one could ask for in a retirement match for a man of Flair’s standing in pro wrestling history.

Hopefully, he’ll never tarnish the memory of this match by coming out of retirement for “one more run” endlessly, like Terry Funk sadly chose to do. The Flair-HBK match was my personal favorite of the night and, all by itself, made WrestleMania 24 one of the best in recent memory.

The next indicator that we had a legendary WrestleMania on our hands was when the company swerved everyone on the WWE Title match and, instead of putting the belt back on John Cena, or - heaven forbid! - giving Triple H another title run, the victory was given to Randy Orton, extending his run as a true heel champion and making him anything but an “interim champion.” While the triple-threat match played out nicely, receiving over 14 minutes of air time, it would have been even better had it been given another five minutes or so. Still, the match was hot from start to finish and the surprise ending of keeping the belt on Orton was a refreshing change of pace.

Then, WWE completely shocked me by giving the Big Show-Mayweather match nearly 12 minutes to play out, and managing to make such length seem legitimate despiet the David vs. Goliath matchup. Somehow, they allowed Mayweather to survive the onslaught of the Big Show in a credible fashion that didn’t rob Show of his overwhelming physical threat status. And even though Mayweather earned the improbable win, he did so in classic WWE style by delivering a brass knuckle punch to Big Show’s jaw for the win. All in all, what could have been a crush or a joke match turned out to be a whole heck of a lot more entertaining than last year’s Hair-vs.-Hair match between Vince and Donald Trump, as well as their in-ring seconds, Batista vs. Bobby Lashley. This year’s Show-Mayweather bout turned out to be a far better way to draw mainstream headlines, and deliver an entertaining match at the same time.

The showstopper was the 24 minutes given to Edge and the Undertaker to decide the fate of the World Heavyweight Title. Apparently, the company’s obsession with selling SmackDown as the superior brand over Raw continues, as this match initially held little interest for me. Yet Edge is a legit heel and Taker is a solid worker, even if he is a bit long in the tooth these days.

Given the storyline of Taker’s “undefeated at WrestleMania” streak, the match held a fair amount of suspense, since the question was weather the company was finally ready to pass the torch and allow Edge to be the superstar to end Taker’s WrestleMania streak, or if they were still committed to pushing Taker as a legit title holder/contender.

Given ‘Taker’s win, the fans went home happy at the end and time will tell whether Taker will hold the belt until at least SummerSlam, or if he’s just being used as an interim champ while WWE reshuffles the SmackDown deck to reinvigorate that show after it has been festering for ages.

Personally, I think MVP is the future of SmackDown; but not this time out. Overall, several matches were terrific or even legendary, and the show finally lived up to being the top PPV in the WWE calendar year, after seeming a bit too average - recently and especially last year. Well done, at last, WWE.

Ric Flair has been giving great matches lately, thanks to the “next time you lose, it’s your retirement match” storyline, and last Monday night’s street fight with Mr. McMahon was no exception. No one wears the crimson mask to greater effect than Flair, and although he’s ridiculously old to be winning so much, he’s been giving some of his best in-ring performances in years of late.

Although popular thought has Flair losing to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania to put the final swan song on his career, it would be fun to push the storyline past WrestleMania, I think. It’s not like Flair is a man just out of drug rehab; he’s in top form for a many of his age, and could probably ride this storyline until SummerSlam next August.

See, thing is, Flair has now won enough that he ought really to be considered a number one contender for the WWE title, if he wins his match at WrestleMania; what better way to send Flair off into his final sunset than to have him fact whoever is champ after WrestleMania, win the title, and carry it for a few PPVs before finally losing the title and retiring at SummerSlam? The 17-time world champ deserves one final, career-capping title run, if you ask me.

It would take a huge truck and a Jobox to come between the WrestleMania clash between the Big Show and Floyd “Money” Mayweather. With a $20 million unconditional guaranteed payday for Mayweather, and a certain amount of pride on the line for the Big Show, one might expect the clash to be epic.

Truth is, though, the match simply won’t be credible if it’s not a crush of Mayweather. With Big Show tipping the scales at 440 pounds, he’s almost three times as big as Mayweather at 156. I expect Mayweather will get his WrestleMania moment of getting in a good jaw shot on Big Show, but I think expect Show slam and sit on Mayweather for the quick win. Anything longer would be too much of a stretch.

Former WWE champion John Cena, sidelined last fall with a shoulder injury that promised to keep him out beyond WrestleMania, returned to the active roster on Sunday as the 30th entrant in the Royal Rumble and went on to win the match and earn an automatic title shot against the champion of his choice at WrestleMania. It is almost a guarantee that Cena, who was injured by Orton, will focus on regaining his WWE title from the Legend Killer, rather than jump brands to take on Edge on SmackDown or C.M. Punk on ECW.

The Rumble event featured classic wrestlers Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Mick Foley, all sporting their retirement luxury watches; Cena’s spot had been teased to be the return of The Big Show, Paul Wight, who did not appear at the Rumble. Instead, Cena returned at least four months ahead of his announced recovery schedule, a turn of events that, while likely planned, has to have Vince McMahon and WWE stockholders sighing in relief.

Unlike previous Rumbles, no one Superstar was given a dominating run; Undertaker, Triple H and Kane all eliminate three or four guys, but only the eventual winner, Cena, had a real dominant stretch leading to the win. Even then, Cena eliminated only four, including Triple H for the win. In previous years, some WWE superstars have been allowed “ring-clearing runs,” eliminating up for six or more superstars to establish their dominance despite not being given a Rumble victory. That didn’t happen this year.

The when and where of Paul “The Big Show” Wight’s return remains a mystery but is still expected to take place, despite being used as a red herring to cover the return of Cena.

Despite an effective storyline that had WWE fans believing in the possibility of a title change so close to WrestleMania, Jeff Hardy failed in his bid to unseat Randy Orton as the WWE champion at the 2008 Royal Rumble on Sunday. They threw everything but Kohler sinks into the title match, but while Hardy and Orton took turns dominating the match, Hardy seemed on the verge of victory, about to deliver a Twist of Fate for the win.

That’s when Orton hit the reversal and an RKO helped him retain the title off a clean victory. The real question now is where the WWE will take the storyline from here. Will they continue to develop the Hardy-Orton storyline that worked so well, or will they switch storylines as the company focuses in on WrestleMania hype?

Given the winner of the Royal Rumble… well, let’s just say it’s looking like back-burner time for Jeff Hardy, through no fault of his own, and unless his character takes a hard heel turn soon, he’ll soon be out of the WWE title picture once again.

Ric Flair earned a victory over MVP as part of the opening match to the 2008 edition of the WWE Royal Rumble PPV. In the ongoing storyline for Flair, the Nature Boy will continue to have a job with WWE until the next time he loses a match. The storyline has led to Flair winning five consecutive matches, including the win Sunday night over MVP.

While Flair wasn’t vamping it up by wearing a bustiers or another other such showman nonsense, his matches since this storyline began did have the feeling of being a retirement / final tour storyline. The PPV event was held at Madison Square Garden. Flair wrestled at the facility for the first time in 1976, do to still be in the ring, winning matches, 32 years later and in his 50s is an achievement worthy of the Verne Gagne era of pro wrestling.

If you’re the kind of person who enjoys WWE PPV’s, you really should check out the new hosted version of this blog, ProWrestlingViews.com. I’m currently doing a match-by-match analysis of last weekend’s top-notch PPV, Cyber Sunday 2007.

While it’s not exactly a miracle cure for what ails you, like Botox for headaches, it is a lot of fun to read and a fresh approach for me toward dealing with covering this wild and crazy industry.

I’m having fun, and usually that means you will, too. Check it out!