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Posts Tagged ‘Triple-H’

In the upcoming Fatal Four-Way match at Backlash, JBL has seemed the odd man out. While Cena, Orton and Triple H belong in the title picture, JBL has seemed like the interloper and the subject of an unmerited push.

That was remidied at the England broadcast of WWE Raw, when JBL cleaned house on both Triple H and current champ Randy Orton, in a well-orchestrated match that made him seem like a world-beater. Sure, John Cena’s absence from Raw made JBL’s victory a bit hollow, but the image of JBL holding Orton’s belt over his head as Raw closed will certainly help give JBL the final push he needs to make the Fatal Four-Way seem like a contest of equals.

After the beating Triple H and Orton took at the hands of JBL, they’ll definitely need some massage therapy to be ready to go again at tonight’s RAW King of the Ring broadcast.

You know, looking back over the main matches at WrestleMania again, I’d have to say that my favorite match was still the WWE title match between Randy Orton, Triple H and John Cena. While the Flair-HBK match had way more emotion, the truth of the matter is that the WWE Title match just had more youth and energy.

You don’t have to be a futures broker to see that John Cena and Randy Orton will be WWE mainstays for some time to come. The question here is where the next big stars are, who are lining up behind them.

I still like the long-term potential of Ken Kennedy and MVP, and Jeff Hardy isn’t exactly new, but his solo work in WWE since returning from TNA is like a fresh start for him. My main complaint, though, is that in both WrestleMania and now the upcoming Backlash, WWE continues to insist on overpromoting the inferior SmackDown brand.

Let’s face it; Raw is where the action is. Let’s start structuring the PPVs to reflect that, shall we?

As a conept, and even to some degree in execution, last Monday Night Raw’s main event, pitting John Cena and Randy Orton against the entire Raw roster, was a fun challenge. My only complaint is the brief amount of time given for the match to develop and play out. It needed another 10 minutes, at least, to really deliver a great ring psychology payoff.

Still, the concept, delivered by Triple H as the third part of the “triple threat takeover” of Raw, part of promoting the triple-threat main event title match at WrestleMania between Orton, Cena and Triple H, is a fascinating one, and ought to be tried again sometime with more airtime given to the match. It played out like a fine bottle of Riedel, but was all-too brief.

About the only way to improve on it, in fact, would be to somehow have Jeff Hardy be one of the principals involved in facing the entire Raw roster; few people deliver better in-ring psychology in their matches than Jeff Hardy.

Former WWE champion John Cena, sidelined last fall with a shoulder injury that promised to keep him out beyond WrestleMania, returned to the active roster on Sunday as the 30th entrant in the Royal Rumble and went on to win the match and earn an automatic title shot against the champion of his choice at WrestleMania. It is almost a guarantee that Cena, who was injured by Orton, will focus on regaining his WWE title from the Legend Killer, rather than jump brands to take on Edge on SmackDown or C.M. Punk on ECW.

The Rumble event featured classic wrestlers Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Mick Foley, all sporting their retirement luxury watches; Cena’s spot had been teased to be the return of The Big Show, Paul Wight, who did not appear at the Rumble. Instead, Cena returned at least four months ahead of his announced recovery schedule, a turn of events that, while likely planned, has to have Vince McMahon and WWE stockholders sighing in relief.

Unlike previous Rumbles, no one Superstar was given a dominating run; Undertaker, Triple H and Kane all eliminate three or four guys, but only the eventual winner, Cena, had a real dominant stretch leading to the win. Even then, Cena eliminated only four, including Triple H for the win. In previous years, some WWE superstars have been allowed “ring-clearing runs,” eliminating up for six or more superstars to establish their dominance despite not being given a Rumble victory. That didn’t happen this year.

The when and where of Paul “The Big Show” Wight’s return remains a mystery but is still expected to take place, despite being used as a red herring to cover the return of Cena.

It was unexpected and the kind of match most wrestling fans would give up their gold cufflinks to see. No, I’m not talking about the excellent Jericho vs. Orton match, or the somewhat less than stellar triple threat match between Batista (yawn), Undertaker and Edge.

No, this time I’m talking about the number one contenders match for the WWE title shot at the Royal Rumble next month, between Triple H and Jeff Hardy. On paper, it looked to be an big squash match to continue endlessly promoting Hunter as an unstoppable monster on his way toward regaining his title at the next WrestleMania. Right?

Wrong! WWE threw everyone a curveball by finally having Hunter give the rub to someone else in a match that mattered. For 19 glorious minutes, Jeff Hardy did what he does best, which is to put 110-percent of himself into his match against Hunter, and Hunter played along.

But when the dust cleared, it was Jeff Hardy who stood victorious over Triple H. What? That’s right! Jeffy Hardy, who nearly incurred the lifelong wrath of Vince McMahon by jumping to TNA a few years ago is not only back in WWE for a bit over a year now, but is back in a way he was featured in TNA, but never WWE: in the heavyweight title picture!

Hardy was champion at TNA briefly during his run there, but in WWE had never been featured as more than a tag champion with his brother, Matt. As a singles wrestler, Jeff was never featured higher than as a third-tier contender, wrestling well in gimmick matches but never in contention for a title shot.

That changed at Armageddon. With a win over Hunter, and his work ethic, Jeff Hardy is set to make the Royal Rumble something special this year, as he faces off against Randy Orton. Hardy may not win, but to even get this shot in the WWE is evidence that the old order is changing and a new set of contenders are being groomed for top spots in the company.

Way to go, Jeff! Congrats!

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!

Finally, what is for me probably going to be the highlight of this PPV! A real, traditional, five-on-five Survivor Series elimination match. Only trouble is, a real-life injury to Matt Hardy means it’s not even five-on-five, but four-on-five. Geez, can’t they at least pull off a surprise here and insert someone?

I mean, with all that footage of Edge with his chainsaw, it’s not like it would require some highly technical plasma cutting to write someone new into the match. Oh well.

This match had the best in-ring psychology of the night, even if it ran a bit predictably. OK, so Matt’s out and the odds seem against Triple H’s team of babyfaces? No problem. Let’s get the boring ones out of there right away. So DOWN goes Kane. Then DOWN goes Rey-Rey. Now it’s five on two and we have some classic ring psychology to work on here.

I will say, it was nice to see Mr. Kennedy and MVP in the same ring again; they have good in-ring chemistry and although Kennedy is on Raw and MVP’s on SmackDown at present, I predict big things for these two; they will be tearing it up against each other sometime in the next five years, at some major PPVs, and doing it for a championship strap. Both are great “talents of the future.”

After that, the other team began to thin out. First down goes MVP. Then Kennedy. Then Big Daddy V. Then Finlay.

By the time it’s down to Triple H and Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga, I half-expected Hardy to get eliminated. But not this time. Triple-H and Jeff show some good teamwork in a crowd-pleasing, feel-good, Thanksgiving PPV finish that has both men celebrating a babyface win. And the match was appropriately long! Over 20 minutes of ring time and with interviews and entrances, almost twice that!

OK, I’m a happy man as far as this PPV goes with, after THIS match.

WINNER: Triple H’s team
RATING: 8.7

In reality, we know Triple-H is Vince’s son in law. He married Steph after a storyline brought the couple in close proximity to each other several years ago. Hunter and Steph recently had their first child.

Having Triple-H be the “son” of Vince is a payoff that makes a lot of sense, from a business perspective. For one thing, it would reaffirm Helmsley’s entrenched status in WWE. With Vince’s daughter as his wife and a storyline that makes him Vinnie’s son, he has too much tying him to WWE for him to ever again bolt from WWE to a rival promotion.

HHH is already family, so he can be trusted more than most. Plus, it would provide a certain “ick!” factor to the storyline, an element Vinnie-Mac seems prone to favor over years and years and years of RAW broadcasts.

Trouble is, the “incest” aspect of this – even though fictional – might leave some viewers squeamish. While chances that HHH being the bastard son of Vince are high, it’s not a lead-pipe cinch, either. I mean, the thought of HHH and Steph being brother and sister after having a kid together, even though it’s fictional, is enough to make most viewers wet their padded panty in disgust.

The feud between John Cena and Bobby Lashley is just getting started. The two men put in an impressive effort at the Great American Bash main event, which made the PPV memorable, even though the match was kept to an all-too-brief 15 minutes.

Choosing this route is definitely a wise choice by WWE. Cena could not have kept staving off the Great Khali indefinitely between now and next spring’s WrestleMania if they had stayed on Raw together. Khali is too over as a monster big man to waste him as a jobber the way WWE did with The Big Show.

Using the WWE Draft to move Khali over to Smackdown gives Khali time to win a lot and build his fearsome rep before an ultimate showdown with Cena … who I believe MUST be his ultimate showdown partner.

Meanwhile, Cena could use a legitimate threat to his dominance who’s not an indefatigable monster, and Lashley is just the guy to pull it off, no matter how many commercials for diet pills drive away viewers in the wake of the Benoit tragedy.

Here’s how I would play things out between now and WrestleMania.

The rubber match between Lashley and Cena is almost assured for SummerSlam, but it’s time to freshen up a Cena feud by allowing a legit contender to win and hold the title for a while. Aside from WrestleMania, there’s no better place and time than at SummerSlam for the title to change hands. Give Lashley his first WWE Title run with an upset victory over Cena at SummerSlam.

Of course, that would trigger another rematch for September, and I see that one as a No-DQ Last Man Standing match, something long and harsh that would take a toll off both men. Have Cena come close to recapturing the title, but then introduce an interference angle by having World Title champion (from SmackDown) the Great Khali interfere in the match (without penalty, since it’s a No-DQ match) by putting Cena down and Lashley on top of him.

If not the Great Khali, then perhaps Triple H could fill this roll; he’s returning and the man’s always been at his best as a full-on heel. Sorry, but the De-Generation X revival was a pure dud.

This could lead to a “Lashley retains, and Cena’s out for a while” result that would accomplish three important things:

1) It would provide Cena some much-needed time off to shed the “we’re getting tired of him winning all the time” boos he’s been receiving for at least the last six months at Live Event matches. Cena could use the time to perhaps do another movie, relax and spend time with family. It would give fans something fresh so that when Cena returns, he feels fresh to the audience and welcomed back by Cena-weary fans.

2) It would give Lashley a chance to build his rep, perhaps by feuding with Triple H through Survivor Series.

3) Bring Cena back in time to win the title shot of his choice at the Royal Rumble. Shut out of a title shot under storyline, Cena could win the Rumble to get a shot at either Khali or Lashley. Have him choose Khali. Then have Cena somehow stumble into a Fatal Four-Way at the final PPV prior to WrestleMania, winning back the title from Lashley, perhaps by beating one of the other men involved in the match… let’s say, Triple-H or Mr. Kennedy. That would make Cena the WWE champ again, with a WrestleMania match against Khali that, through storyline, could be made into a WWE Title/World Title reunification match. One could even toss the ECW title into the mix, just for kicks, and whoever wins would become the first WWE World Champion, the first undisputed title holder since Chris Jericho.

That undisputed champion, for my money, would have to be John Cena.

As a result of an actual injury at the New Year’s Revolution PPV, Triple H recently underwent surgery to reattach a tendon on his knee. The surgery will keep The Game out of the ring for 4-6 months, meaning he definitely won’t be around for WrestleMania in April.

All I can say is, thank goodness. Sure, it’s easy to nitpick at a wrestler who’s been overpushed as much as the Cerebral Assassin, but let’s be honest: the whole DX Reunion thing has been a bust. And while it may be the fault of bad booking, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been a big, giant headache that requires the use of Fioricet or something similarly potent.

After all, DX’s first big feud that lasted WAY too long was with – the Spirit Squad? The annoying Team of Five simply hadn’t been built up nearly enough to merit such a long-standing feud with Michaels and Helmsley, and really robbed heat from DX more than it built up the Squad members.

Launching off that into a feud with Team Rated-RKO was a legit feud that was finally launching Michael and Helmsley back into the legit ranks, but frankly the feud’s credibility was a stretch after such a long feud with the McMahon Family and the Spirit Squad. Linking Squad holdover Kenny Dykstra to the feud didn’t help.

Frankly, the main reason the DX reunion doesn’t work anymore is that while Michaels and Helmsley are the biggest stars to emerge from the original DX faction, the original DX had a lot more to offer than just Michaels and Helmsley. Now, I’m not saying that WWE should have found a way to reunite the two DX vets with Road Dogg, X-Pac, Mister Ass and Chyna; that would only guarantee the DX reunion a failure.

What I am saying is, reforming DX should be as much about promoting promising new talent as it is about re-establishing the careers of the aging Michaels and Helmsley. I mean, sure, there’d have to be some heel-face turns to make it happen, but wouldn’t a new DX have been much more interesting if it had Michaels and Helmsley at the head of a larger group of young talent who are the next generation of WWE superstars?

Just going off the available WWE roster, here’s my Dream DX team: Shawn Michael, Triple H, Johnny Nitro, Melina, Joey Mercury and Carlito. Sure, one could maybe put together an even better roster if one were to scalp more talent from SmackDown and ECW, but with a core like this, it would lend legitimacy to the younger talent and make for more interesting booking.

In the final analysis, though, I think moving DX forward requires waiting until The Game returns, and then turning Triple-H heel. Helmsley has always worked better as the WWE’s hardcore heel, and if one were to play up the reunion of Michaels and Helmsley, then have Triple-H betray him, you could have that be the catalyst for a DX split where Michaels headlines a “good” DX faction, while Helmsley headlines a “heel” DX faction, and thus promote even more young talent.

If that were the case, here’s my suggested DX factions, based off current roster talent:

DX-Face:

Shawn Michaels
Cryme Tyme
Carlito
Mickie James
Charlie Haas

DX-Heel

Triple-H
Mercury, Nitro and Melina (MNM)
Shelton Benjamin
Kenny Dykstra