That's a fair observation, Cross, but it doesn't really disprove my argument: he could have fleshed out a nice little sub-story with Johnny and Bruce, given their apparently-aborted feud over then IN title, or Bruce and Jimmy, given their respective runs in the Hardcore division, or with Drake and Landon, given the ongoing storyline going on in the ME, and so on and so forth.
The match could have been greatly enhanced by adding a little more subtext to it with some... segways, as you put it, and I think that Akira's ability to do that in his match was greatly inhibited by eliminating so many major players so early.