2006: Reviewing the Year of Wrestling: Part 1.

There are plenty of other articles looking over the past year in wrestling. I’ll be writing a couple of articles about the past year. I’ll look at the year in terms of WWE, TNA, their main event scenes, their undercard, tag team situation and miscellaneous. This will be a multi-part posting considering how long this post could be.

WWE Main Event Scene:

Raw’s WWE Championship scene brought in new main eventers this year. Only three men held the WWE Championship this year: John Cena, Edge, and Rob Van Dam.

Edge has now solidified himself as a believable main event-caliber wrestler. He had some fantastic matches with Cena, but the one match that stands out to me is Edge’s title defense against Ric Flair in a ladder match on Raw. The match was excellent with dangerous spots and showed how badly Edge wanted to keep his WWE Championship. Actually, every WWE Championship match Edge performed in showed how badly Edge wanted to be champion. From good promos to excellent matches, Edge should remain a main eventer (assuming Triple H doesn’t crush him in singles competition).

Rob Van Dam looked to be the new/old face of WWECW. WWE took a chance by having the WWE Championship given to the high flyer at an ECW PPV. WWE’s biggest championship belt rested on the shoulder of RVD. RVD then blew his spot by getting caught on drugs. The ECW and WWE championships were taken from RVD quickly and it looks as though Van Dam will never be a champion again. I expect RVD to go to TNA as soon as his contract is over.

John Cena is the champ and has been quite established as the top face of WWE. I think his ring skills have improved and he does what he can with scripted promos. Raw is stacked with other main event level talent such as HBK, Triple H, Randy Orton, Ric Flair (when necessary), Umaga and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Okay, I’m kidding about Duggan – just seeing if you were paying attention.

SmackDown!’s World Heavyweight Championship scene was chaotic. Batista vacated his title, Raw’s Kurt Angle filled in as champion (after HBK refused to go over to SmackDown! according to articles online), Rey Mysterio was terribly booked as champion only to lose to the revitalized King Booker. King Booker kept the title with excellent promos, created a stable of wrestlers, but lost the championship to Batista in November. The best thing for the division this year was King Booker. His size and ability allowed him to feud with wrestlers of all sizes and his personality made the fans root for the babyface. Hopefully, he’s solidified himself as a true main eventer after numerous false starts (such as the WrestleMania XIX debacle against Triple H).

SmackDown! needs to position some more main eventers for its championship scene. Finlay’s feud with Batista, involvement in King Booker’s court and his excellent ring work make him a candidate for rising to the main event. Chris Benoit is a main eventer and does not need the U.S. title. Mr. Kennedy has positioned himself at the upper mid-card/lower main event after his excellent feud with Undertaker. If need be, Kane can become a champion with the right push. Mysterio and Undertaker can float around in whatever scene they would like although Taker has more control over his own destiny.

Next Time: I’ll cover either TNA’s main event scene or WWE’s undercard.

SummerSlam 2006 Thoughts

Now I had said I didn’t want to pay for SummerSlam 2006 because the card didn’t seem too great. But then I got caught up in the SummerSlam hype. I actually attended the first SummerSlam with the MegaPowers vs. the Megabucks – so I’m a SummerSlam fan.

They got me to pay up the 40 bucks and I watched the show. Here’s my opinion on it: It was a decent show that was quite fun and set up storylines for a while. Did anyone else notice that every match (except the DX one) had the loser enter the ring first?

The night opened up with Rey vs. Chavo because no other match could open. I enjoyed the match and the two have very good chemistry. Chavo selling of Rey’s offense is believable and the two did not disappoint. I think their No Way Out match was better and no Vicki Guerrero interference would be nice, but all in all a good opener with some nice highspots.

Hogan/Orton was what I expected except for the finish of Hogan going over. It’s not like he needs to protect his spot so I don’t understand why he didn’t job to Orton. Hogan played the crowd excellently and he’s the smartest man in wrestling – I wonder how he would do as a booker (assuming he was no longer an on-air talent).

Show vs. Sabu was alright. I was surprised there was no interference by Paul Heyman or RVD or someone. The two didn’t work together that well and the match was sloppy in parts.

The I Quit match was more hardcore than the ECW match. Some crazy bumps had me cringing for both wrestlers. The match ended abruptly with Mick quitting to save Melina and quite possibly means that the feud will continue.

DX vs. The McMahons (+10): I enjoyed seeing Ken Kennedy getting such offense on DX. It would be nice to see a Kennedy vs. HBK feud since the two can be loudmouths very well. Since Kennedy is such a star on SmackDown! it’s only a matter of time before he is sent to Raw. Anyway, the match portion was weak, but I enjoyed seeing the McMahons using tag-team finishers from the past. I was disappointed they did not use the Midnight Express’ finisher. It also set up a Kane-Umaga feud to give both men direction.

King Bookah vs. Batista: Batista needs some conditioning work since he nearly botched the Batista Bomb. Bookah retains and the feud will continue. That’s good for SmackDown!

Edge vs. John Cena: Cena loses in front of his home crowd so Edge will do the job at Unforgiven in Toronto. I’m glad Edge successfully defended the WWE championship at such a major PPV. It was a good match and I still think that Edge is a great champion. He seems like he could lose any match to any opponent (take a look at his ladder match against Ric Flair or his recent match against Carlito). He draws good heel heat and fans want to see him get his butt kicked in the ring.

BTW: I also liked the interaction between the champions. It makes the two shows really seem like two different promotions.