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Posts Tagged ‘Drew McIntyre’

The King of the Ring concept will be brought back this Monday night on RAW. Formerly a PPV concept, it has most often and most successfully been used to launch young heel acts in WWE. Some of the most successful included Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kurt Angle, though some have fizzled after receiving the crown. (Booker T, anyone?)

This year’s field is laden with young talent with great potential to live up to the King of the Ring title. From the Smackdown brand, we have Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre and Albert Del Rio. From Raw, we have John Morrison, Sheamus, Daniel Bryan and Ezekiel Jackson.

If WWE decides to go based on pure talent, the finals ought to come down to Kingston vs. Daniel Bryan. But since both are currently faces in the promotion, look McIntyre to be the favorite. After all, Rhodes has more experience under his belt and doesn’t need the push as badly; the same is true of Morrison, who is also currently a face and the most veteran guy in the group. Both are probably there to put over the younger talent.

At least none of them are folks who use the best weight gain supplement around; they’re all well-cut, in-shape talents who have main event potential.

If the angle had involved Vince McMahon, it would have felt like a stale retread; but Friday’s Smackdown, which opened with a very strong segment featuring an altercation outside the ring between IC Champ Drew McIntyre and Matt Hardy, felt fresher and more energetic that anything that’s aired on Smackdown in quite some time.

The show opened with Hardy coming to the ring to challenge McIntyre, a standard storyline on many wrestlers’ resumes-, and when McIntyre responded by coming to the ring and engaging Hardy in an unsanctioned altercation, the authority figures, including Teddy Long, showed up to try and put things in order.

McIntyre ignored Long’s orders to story in a matter of minutes went from champ to suspended to fired and stripped of his title. Sure, it’s a storyline and it’ll be interesting to see where things go from here as Hardy was given an injury angle to play up as a result of the conflict with McIntyre, but kudos to WWE for relying on someone other than Vinnie Mac to sell this angle. Well done.