ProWrestlingViews.com

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?

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.

Could the biggest heel wrestler of the last year or more, Umaga, be moving off WWE Raw to the SmackDown brand? That’s the word on the street; the move is expected to take place sometime within the next month or two, now that WrestleMania is over.

This is a time of year when WWE typically likes to shuffle the deck and freshen up all its brands. With SmackDown apparently set to move from The CW to MyNetworkTV in the fall, a changeup to make the SmackDown brand stronger is long past due.

The makeover started at WrestleMania, with Undertaker winning the World Heavyweight title from Edge. With a new champion, new opponents will be needed and the Umaga character, a primitive, force-of-nature style of heel, would make an ideal foe if ‘Taker’s run is to be an extended one.

Although often portrayed as a beastial, monstrous heel, Umaga has lost most of his meaningful matches in the past year for storyline purposes and has become overused and less of a threat on RAW; by moving the Branson golf-loving heel to SmackDown, the company has a chance to rebuild Umaga’s character from the ground up.

Time will tell if this rumor is accurate, but Umaga’s WrestleMania match against SmackDown’s Batista for brand supremacy, which Umaga lost, would seem to set the stage for a brand-switch move.

Eddie Graham, as well as Jack and Gerald Brisco, have been added to the 2008 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony scheduled for next Saturday, prior to WrestleMania. The induction ceremony, sure to be more pleasant than going through drug rehabilitation, may be a calmer, less controversial one than in recent years.

In addition to Graham and the Briscos, this year’s class includes Ric Flair, Mae Young, and The Rock’s dad and grandfather, Rocky Johnson and High Chief Peter Maivia. While Graham ran the Florida promotion that secured the Hall of Fame status of his brother, Superstar Billy Graham, as well as spawning the career of the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, even Graham is not expected to be as controversial a choice as some recent nominees.

In recent years, WWE has thrived on inducting deserving candidates who had reason not to like McMahon or WWE, such as AWA founder Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkle, and Bret “the Hitman” Hart. None of this year’s nominees are expected to be McMahon-haters, which should guarantee a smoother ceremony, but also guarantee a far less interesting broadcast.

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.

One of the original female wrestlers, Mae Young, who first stepped into a Memphis wrestling ring in the late 1930s/early 1940s and occassionaly makes a guest appearance on WWE programming even now, has been selected to be one of this year’s inductees into the WWE Hall of Fame.

The class of 2008, as announced so far, also includes Ric Flair, Peter Maiavia and Rocky Johnson.

Young, who only about 10 years ago was involved in a Raw storyline in which she “got pregnant” by WWE wrestler Mark Henry and, in a rather disgusting resolution, gave birth to a slime-covered hand (as in, “give the woman a hand”), wore maternity clothes and everything to put the sketch over the top; and she has frequently been used, alongside fellow geriatric WWE Diva Fabulous Moolah, as the foil to some of the seemier WWE sketches and plotlines.

Despite her use over the last decade or so as comic relief, Young was a barrier-breaker in her day and the Hall of Fame induction is certainly a legitimate selection. Congrats, Mae!

Everyone’s talking about Floyd “Money” Mayweather vs. the Big Show like boxer vs. wrestler is something that’s never been done before, yet the tradition extends all the way back to Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki back in 1976. Inoki wasn’t allowed to use any wrestling moves. Other famous boxer-wrestler tilts from years past include Andre the Giant vs. Chuck Wepner, Muhammad Ali vs. Kenny Jay, Muhammad Ali vs. Gorilla Monsoon, and more recently (and embarrassingly), Bart Gunn vs. Butterbean.

Many boxer-vs.-wrestler matches end up being pretty embarrassing for the wrestler in question. Andre vs. Wepner involved Wepner being tossed from the ring and left in such condition that he had to use shower chairs after the match. Ali vs. Inoki ended in a draw, a finish that satisfied fans from both sides somewhat at least. But Gunn vs. Butterbean ended in less than a minute and left Gunn with no respect and, ultimately, no career after that. Gunn was about half the size of Butterbean.

The Mayweather vs. Big Show tilt looks to be an Andre/Wepner style mismatch, only worse… this time for the boxer. Mayweather stands 5′8″ and weighs around 155. Big Show is right around 7 feet tall and still weighs around 420. So Big Show has well over a foot and nearly three times the weight as Mayweather; Big Show’s open hand is nearly as big as Mayweather’s head.

What this likely means, in addition to a $20 million payday for Mayweather, is another embarrassing episode in boxer-wrestler history, rather than anything approaching a legit mixed martial arts contest. There are only a couple ways I see this going down.

First, it could be a crush by the Big Show, with him completely dominating and quickly defeating Mayweather. Give the size differential, this would be believable as a finish, but would do nothing to help Mayweather’s career as a boxer.

Second is even more embarrassing for sports entertainment in general and the Big Show personally; and that would be for a man of Mayweather’s size to take Big Show down in flukey but similarly swift fashion.

What I don’t see happening is a longer, more legit match; the injury risk to Mayweather is too great, and given his upcoming boxing title defense in August, it’s unlikely Mayweather would agree to anything like that. So no matter who gets squashed here, I expect it to be a blink-and-miss-it event that will disappoint and annoy fans of both wrestling and boxing.

Still, Vince McMahon always knows how to get the non-wrestling sports press talking right around WrestleMania time every year; last year, it was McMahon vs. Trump in a hair match; this year, it’s Mayweather vs. Big Show.

As ProWrestlingViews.com reported Sunday night, John Cena returned to the WWE about seven months earlier than expected, winning the Royal Rumble match. The WWE has been kind enough to share a press release and a photo of Cena’s return with us, so we’re passing it on to you, our readers. Here it is:

STAMFORD, Conn., January 28, 2008 — He was supposed to be injured and out of action for as long as a year, but WWE® Superstar John Cena shocked the wrestling world Sunday night by entering the Royal Rumble Match at No. 30 in front of a sold-out crowd of more than 20,000 fans at Madison Square Garden. Cena won the 2008 Royal Rumble Match by tossing Triple H® over the top rope.

With the victory in the 2008 Royal Rumble Match, Cena earns a World Championship opportunity against the title holder of his choice at WrestleMania XXIV on Sunday, March 30, in Orlando, FL.

Stay tuned to Monday Night RAW at 9 PM ET/PT on USA Network to see which champion John Cena will choose to face at WrestleMania XXIV. To see a replay of John Cena’s triumphant return to the ring, call your local cable provider and order the 2008 Royal Rumble in HD only on pay-per-view.

Additional information on World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: WWE), can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com. For information on our global activities, go to http://www.wwe.com/worldwide/.

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.

This week’s SmackDown featured what could become Montel Vontavious Porter’s big chance to grab a portion of the WrestleMania spotlight in the first weekend of April. In a match that featured relatively little setup, Batista battled MVP over the “honor” of Ric Flair’s legacy.

Now, it is ProWrestlingViews.com’s position that, far from being the 2007 wrestler of the year that WWE claims him to be, Batista is the most overexposed and overhyped performer of 2007. However, it’s also clear that main event status runs through Batista over on SmackDown, so even though he doesn’t hold the belt, clashing with Batista can only help MVP in his rise to main event status.

Clad in tights and sheepskin boots, MVP and Batista had a great TV match that showed the potential of the feud without giving away so much that it would diminish PPV buy rates. Batista does the “unstoppable force” thing well, and MVP is a versatile enough performer to pull a watchable match out of him.

Most think Batista is headed for a title match against Edge at WrestleMania, but if the company (hopefully) changes course from overexposing the Beast in the WWE title picture, a feud with MVP that reaches its zenith at WrestleMania might be a good use of Batista outside the title picture, and help push MVP into main event status. That could be good for both mens’ careers.

The worst storyline going on on Friday Night SmackDown lately has to be the “Edge is dating Vickie Guerrero” storyline. Granted, in real life, Vickie Guerrero does not have to eternally remain Eddie’s widow. She has the right to move on with her life.

Yet does that real-life fact have to be played out in such a disgusting, in-ring manner? Exploiting real-life tragedies for ratings has long been a staple of WWE programming, but it rarely pays off well; it costs the company fans in the long run and any temporary ratings bump is short-lived.

We all know that in real life, Edge is not involved with Vickie Guerrero, so using that as an in-ring storyline makes the tale seem all that more sleazy and exploitive. More than any other WWE broadcast, SmackDown is in need of some serious home improvements prior to WrestleMania. Quickly resolving and flushing this storyline should be at the top of WWE’s to-do list.

Chris Jericho’s return to the WWE was supposed to be huge, but after a very brief run against champ Randy Orton, he has now been inserted into a feud with JBL. Now, I enjoy JBL; both in his normal life outside of wrestling as a Fox Business/Fox News contributor, and his in-ring character over on SmackDown.

However, while it’s a huge move to use a feud with Jericho to bring JBL back as an active wrestler and onto the Raw roster, it’s definitely a step way down for Jericho, whose mission was supposed to be as the Raw savior, delivering us from the Randy Orton era. While the move is a necessary sidestep, perhaps, to avoid overplaying the Jericho-Orton feud too soon, what may be brewing here is the unexpected, and that’s the dramatic popularity of the Jeff Hardy-Randy Orton feud. Hardy, a former TNA champ as well as a multiple-time tag champ in WWE, had been a terrific performer in his feud with Orton and is earning a lot of respect and momentum in his drive toward his Royal Rumble title match.

Whether it’s in the ring or doing charitable work for victims of cerebral palsy, Hardy’s a sentimental favorite to get a surprise win and ride that wave into the WrestleMania main event for a rematch against Orton. That could leave Jericho hanging in mid-card limbo again, as has often been the case in his pro wrestling career.