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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.

Longtime WWE toy licensee Jakks Pacific has been ousted from their spot as the WWE licensee, according to media reports. While their current deal runs through 2009, in 2010, the new WWE toy licensee will be Mattel, Inc. Now isn’t that a dose of hoodia?

There has been bad blood between WWE and Jakks Pacific for a while; a while back, WWE alleged that Jakks attempted bribery to win a licensing deal and sued the company, but the case was tossed from court by a federal judge. The change of partners should come as no surprise.

There are no immediate details as to how the switch from Jakks Pacific to Mattel will affect the WWE’s videogame licensing. Currently, and for about a decade now, the license has rested with THQ, who has partnered with Jakks Pacific in making the game. Now that Mattel will take over the WWE toys license, it is unclear whether the videogame license is a separate contract, or whether Mattel is free to choose a new videogame partner. Mattel has an in-house label for videogames, Mattel Interactive, but they are mainly known for making educational software.

Time will tell.

OK, here’s where the night takes a bad turn.

We all get the David vs. Goliath allusion, but it’s a gimmick that’s been done to death, and definitely the wrong direction for a monster like the Great Khali. Khali has the potential to get more over with the fans than Andre the Giant, because Khali is younger, bigger, and in much better physical shape than Andre ever was. But to do it right, they can’t jerk him into meaningless storylines like this; that’s how they wasted the wrestling career of The Big Show.

The pre-match pep talk from Vinnie Mac to Hornswaggle was good fun, but the match itself just didn’t come off well. Next to the Great Khali, Hornswaggle looked even tinier, like a midget on hoodia. The match itself was mostly ring intros, some crowd interaction when the “We want Shaq” chant filled the arena; and that was a fun tease, because Shaq is one of the few folks who has the height and weight to maybe put together a good “wrestler vs. athlete” match, but if they do something like that, it’ll be a WrestleMania, not Survivor Series.

The match itself was too predictable, with Hornswaggle unable to even make Khali blink, but striking the Midge down effortlessly when Hornswaggle started getting a bit of action in against Khali’s manager. Then, even more predictably, the save comes in the form of a Finlay run-in, which sets up a feud between Khali and Finlay, which is what this was all about to begin with. And since Finlay is the most boring wrestler on earth, that is ALSO a program that holds no interest for me.

Now, a Khali-Undertaker program… THAT would be something.

WINNER: The Great Khali (via DQ)
RATING: 2.2 (out of 10)