ProWrestlingViews.com

Is John Cena the new Hulk Hogan? And I don’t mean this necessarily in a good way.

While I enjoy Cena as much as the next guy, this return to the ring at Survivor series was an event that resulted in him regaining his World Title on his first night back. That’s the kind of star treatment few in WWE have enjoyed since Hulk Hogan left the company to join WCW.

Injured and returning twice in the last year, Cena’s made a habit of carrying around Swiss Army luggage, it seems, but apparently the World Heavyweight Title is in that bag and he can have it any time he wants.

At least with Triple H, there are marital ties to the McMahon family to explain it. With Cena, it could be another Hogan nightmare all over again, if he lets it go to his head. Time will tell.

Hulk Hogan’s latest foray into wrestling looks like a big, fat bust. Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling promotion features a load of D-list celebrities who, it seems, can’t wrestle their way out of a wet paper bag - but they’re learning the trade.

That’s the concept behind the show; part wrestling promotion, part reality show in the vein of WWE’s original Tough Enough competition, the show fizzles out of the game as literally over half of the celebrities cast in it appear not to even have known what professional wrestling was, prior to the first episode.

While it’s clear most of the cast would be better off on a show about tropical cruises, Dennis Rodman and Danny Bonaduce at least look like they might be trying.

Still, with such old-school WWE castoffs as Brian Nobbs of the Nasty Boys, Brutus Beefcake, and Jimmy Hart running the show, it’s unlikely this CMT program is going to gain any traction.

Next!

Tonight, WWE Monday Night Raw will celebrate its 15th anniversary. After 15 years on the air, surviving the Monday Night Wars against WCW, the celebration is set to run three hours plus overrun, and the guest list is growing by the hour.

Currently confirmed to appear in some way, shape, manner or form tonight on Raw are the following:

* Hulk Hogan
* Stone Cold Steve Austin
* The Undertaker
* Mick Foley
* Sunny
* Trish Stratus
* Lita
* Eric Bischoff
* Evolution Reunion (Ric Flair, Triple H, Randy Orton, Batista)
* 15-person gimmick Battle Royale featuring stars from the last 15 years

All in all, it’s building up to be a great show, and even greater if The Rock decides to make a cameo. C’mon, Dwayne Johnson, don’t make us beg! Cat5E!

Terry Bollea, better known to wrestling fans as Hulk Hogan, knows his son Nick has been living fast, but is now praying Nick won’t be living up to the other half of that famous expression, “Live fast, die young.”

Nick Bollea was traveling in his Toyota Supra “at a high rate of speed” with a friend, at around 7:31 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, when the car apparently lost control, slammed into a median, flipped and the rear of the car impacted with a palm tree.

A police vehicle rolled up right after the crash and immediately called in the accident. The yellow Supra was totaled and at this hour it is unclear whether it was Nick or his friend who was at the wheel at the time of the accident. However, since the car belonged to Nick and the Hulk Hogan family, the driver is believed to have been Nick.

Nick, who has become somewhat famous himself while appearing on his father’s VH1 reality show, Hogan Knows Best, has transformed from the younger of the two Hogan kids, living in the shadow of his famous father and his older sister, who would goof around for attention, including wearing animal masks, to an emerging adult with his own set of talents, hopes, frustrations and problems.

Now, though, both Nick and his friend were flown by medical helicopter from the scene of the accident and other than being informed that both are in either “very serious” or “critical” condition, the extent of their injuries are unknown at this hour.

We at Pro Wrestling Views ask readers to keep the entire Hogan family, and Nick’s passenger, in prayer in the coming hours.

Sure, it played in front of a huge live crowd, but don’t for a second think that WrestleMania 23 was a success on the level of WrestleMania 3, 20 years ago. That memorable 1987 pay-per-view featured Hulk Hogan doing the near-impossible… bodyslamming the un-bodyslammable Andre the Giant. As weak and quick as Hogan’s bodyslam of Andre was, it is still the most memorable moment in WrestleMania’s 23-year history, and no figures produced by modern budgeting software to declare WM23 a bigger moneymaker will change that fact.

Nothing about WrestleMania 23 really measured up, and mostly it was due to poor, run-of-the-mill booking. The main event, John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels, lacked heat for many reasons. First, Michaels is too past his prime to really be a main event threat to the red-hot Cena. Also, both were crowd favorites and wrestling is at its best when there is someone to boo. That lead folks to have to choose between a legend like HBK and the WWE’s hottest champ since Stone Cold and The Rock walked away from the biz.

The “billionaire’s hair match” was too predictable to be interesting, despite some decent story-building. No one believed Donald Trump would agree to be shaved bald for WrestleMania, especially since he’s in the middle of a season of The Apprentice. So the outcome - Vinnie Mac getting shaved bald due to an Umaga loss - was entirely too predictable.

The ECW Originals vs. New Breed match was OK as far as it went. The lumberjill women’s match was nothing special. Undertaker continuing his undefeated streak by becoming the new SmackDown champ was also entirely too predictable, and another example of booking two crowd-favorites against each other with neither playing a true heel.

I liked the Money In the Bank ladder match best of all, but the rest of the card was purely average at best. It’s a shame that wiser minds didn’t prevail. Even though he’s not yet established very well, a far more compelling main event would have been a title match between Cena and The Great Khali… it would have called to mind the classic Hogan/Andre main event of 1987.

Missed opportunities.