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Posts Tagged ‘King of the Ring’

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.

Talk about trying to RAM a screwjob down our throats? While I was thrilled to see the King of the Ring return a couple weeks ago, and on a free Raw broadcast, no less, I was vastly disappointed with the booking.

While King of the Ring has often been used to anoint the WWE’s next big heel, all it was used for this time around was to further the career of a well-past-his-prime wrestler and Raw general manager, William Regal. Regal didn’t need the King of the Ring crown to get over with the crowd; he’s been around long enough that he’s as over as he’s going to get.

Of all the possible endings for the latest edition of the King of the Ring event, giving the crown to William Regal after stacking the events and matchups in his own favor, was perhaps the worst of all possible endings, save except for an ending that would have put the crown on Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

One of my favorite WWE PPV events is coming back, but not as a pay-per-view. Instead, the legendary King of the Ring event will take place on a single, three-hour broadcast of Monday Night Raw this Monday, April 21, on USA Network.

I used to say I’d give up a lifelong season pass to the North Padre Island rentals of my choice just to see King of the Ring return. Now, I don’t have to. It will be a load of fun to see who they put the crown on this time. King of the Ring made its reputation on crowning the next big WWE heel star, and launched the WWE careers of such folks as Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Ted DeBiase, Kurt Angle, Edge and Brock Lesnar.

The PPV disappeared for four years, and came back in 2006 as a Smackdown-only event, with Booker T crowned as King Booker. There was no King of the Ring in 2007, but this year’s Raw event will include competitors from Smackdown and ECW as well as Raw.

I can’t wait!