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Posts Tagged ‘Christian’

In one of the shorter and more unjust title reigns in recent memory, Smackdown’s Christian, who became World Heavyweight Champion at Extreme Rules 2011, lost the title on last Friday’s Smackdown to Randy Orton – all without WWE turning Orton heel again. It’s a bit baffling, and a transparent case of WWE doing short-term planning and then re-setting the table after the WWE Draft.

Extreme Rules’ card was set by the time the WWE Draft occurred. Orton, who was destined to move to Smackdown after the draft to replace the recently-retired Edge, was already booked to face CM Punk in a storyline ending match, while Christian had been booked to face RAW-bound Alberto Del Rio for the vacated World Heavyweight Championship title.

To avoid having Del Rio carry Smackdown’s title to RAW, they booked Christian to win, but it was clear by shipping Orton to RAW via the draft who WWE wanted as Smackdown’s standard-bearer. When Teddy Long came out and asked the crowd who they wanted to see face Christian for his first title defense – with two heels (Mark Henry and The Great Khali) and one face (Orton) to choose from, the crowd naturally chose Orton.

From that point, the intent was clear and predictable, so much so it set smart phones like the Android-based new Incredible S ablaze; Smackdown immediately books Orton to take the title from Christian without so much as a PPV match to make it interesting. Thus, Orton became champion while remaining a face.

It’s a blown opportunity. I have to believe an short program between Christian and Orton leading into the next PPV would have sold, and made Christian’s reign at least passingly legit. Besides, Orton works better as a heel anyway; that’s when he’s at his most effective.

Look for Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio to be the underdog match of the entire Extreme Rules PPV; both workers are solid, and with Del Rio drafted to Raw, there’s a solid chance for Christian to gain his first solo World Title reign, in light of the retirement of his former tag partner, Edge.

Christian has proven his ability to be a credible solo champion over in TNA, and while he’ll probably be a transitional champ until they put the belt around Randy Orton’s waist, where it will likely stay until Wrestlemania, don’t be surprised if Christian’s run is at least entertaining. He’s one of the guys on the roster who is always undervalued and therefore doesn’t need to look for Columbus jobsprior to every PPV.

William Regal has always struck me as a person who could use the help of the best weight loss pills, but even he didn’t deserve the seven seconds match treatment dished out to him by WWE at SummerSlam tonight. Christian’s a better wrestler, capable of sustaining long and entertaining matches, and while Regal’s a lifelong midcarder at best, this ECW title match simply wasn’t worth the announcements one had to go through to get to it.

Seven seconds and it’s over? Show the ECW title more respect, please.

The WWE’s Backlash PPV offered up three title matches and three new champs this past weekend; set your conversion rate optimization to calculate the odds of that, bucko!

On the ECW front, Christian became the new title-holder, while the WWE title was put around Randy Orton’s waist and Edge defeated John Cena to take the World Heavyweight title back to SmackDown. It was a turbulent night, as a result, and indicates the WWE is a bit unhappy with the status quo they’d stuck with through last month’s WrestleMania.

Time for some new champs and new storylines in the wake of the Draft, apparently.

It was a swerve that worked.

After months of knowing that TNA’s Christian Cage would be returning to WWE, the wide-spread speculation was that he’s come back on Smackdown to be reunited with Edge, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy. The internet burned up bandwidth speculating about Christian’s possible role in Matt’s betrayal of Jeff.

Fooled ya.

In a swerve that worked, Christian made his first appearance in a WWE-owned ring earlier this week, but not on Smackdown and not even on RAW; he debuted on ECW, inserting himself into the Jack Swagger-Finlay feud. It was the first time in a while I can remember being genuinely and pleasantly surprised by a move in the WWE, storyline-wise.

While the appearance was not necessarily electrifying – after all, they are taking a TNA champion and placing him on the lowest broadcast on the WWE totem pole – but it was genuinely surprising and that counts for a lot, no matter how much safety equipment they keep handy to make sure nothing goes wrong in the matches themselves.

Everyone was expecting Christian Cage to return to WWE tonight, and this was the match most folks expected it to occur in. So imagine the surprise when not only did Christian not return during this match, but the backstab a former tag partner move came from an unexpected source. It was a storyline so unexpected that it might require a Chicago accident attorney to clean up the mess.

So, what happened? Well, the match between Hardy and Edge was top-notch, but at the critical point in the match, Matt Hardy, fresh off his defeat at the hands of Jack Swagger, showed up and at first it appeared he would be helping his brother Jeff.

Then? The chairshot heard across the WWE as Matt attacked his own brother to turn heel and give Edge the win. Talk about defying expectations? A Matt-Jeff feud could be a huge draw for several PPVs to come!