clean rob

He'll probably have a cruiserweight squash and/or interfere in Taker's match to get the ball rolling on their apparent soon-to-be feud.

1)Will Benoit and Edge disolve as a tag team? If so, when? - Yes, in the week(s) following Bad Blood. 2)What are going to be the PPV main events for the rest of the year after Summerslam and next year leading to Mania? - RAW: Benoit/HHH, Benoit/Edge, Benoit/HBK - Smackdown: Eddie/Big Show, Eddie/RVD, Eddie/Cena. 3)Will Eddie hold on to the title until Mania? - Nope. 4)How long will Benoit and HHH feud for? Remember, they really haven't even had their first match yet since Benoit came over to Raw. - before Summerslam -> after Survivor Series. 5)Will Jericho step up to main event status or will he stay where he's at now? - Yes, wins the Rumble and beats Benoit at WM. 6)Will Eddie fight the Undertaker? - No. 7)What'll be the main event for Smackdown at Wrestlemania XXI? - Eddie/Angle/Cena/Big Show. 8)What'll be the main event for Raw at Wrestemania XXI? - Benoit/Jericho. 9)Who'll get injured? - Batista, Kane. 10)Who'll stay healthy? - RVD, Jericho. 11)How will Benjamin do? - Beats Orton for the IC belt between Rumble and Mania. 12)Who'll win the Rumble? - Jericho. 13)Will Angle come back as a wrestler? If he does when will it be and for how long? - Yes, around SurSer. Sticks round till WMXXI

Hopefully! But it's still speculative, though I have no doubt it will be a very good match. Personally, I'd like to see Benoit lose the belt around Survivor Series, preferably in very strong fashion (say, kickout of Pedigree but get rolled up) and then stay in the hunt for the title with one eye on a rematch down the road, but I really don't see him getting ruined by a loss at Summerslam. The crowd seem to accept him as a ME player now and he should be able to cope with it. As long as he doesn't go straight back to the midcard, that is. Me too!

Both of those are pure speculation. It was a really good Triple Threat. In terms of general match quality, agreed. I don't believe it was. Such an outcome, where there is no doubt that Benoit is better than HHH, makes HHH look pretty bad (granted, he'll never be buried, but there wouldn't be too much point in a rematch) and HHH is the top heel by a country mile - so what does Benoit do next? Until he retires, Benoit's struggle should never end. The Triple Threat isn't needed to set up rematches, but it's made it easier - Benoit had to start on Raw from scratch, with no real rivalries. Now he has two. As for HHH perhaps winning the belt again down the line - Benoit can't hold it forever. At the moment HHH is the only truly credible main event heel, so it only makes sense to keep him in the title picture so that he can take the belt off Benoit. As long as Benoit gets back in the hunt, it's only sensible. Well, we're just going to have to disagree on this one. I think it is good booking - although HHH has a single victory over Benoit, Benoit still has the Triple Threat victory, and the all-important 'I made you tap' card. It just makes HHH look strong, so that when Benoit (or some other face) eventually beats him, it really means something. I don't see how. Making someone tap in the middle of the ring =/= fluke IMO. Unless you do the exact same ending to both matches, someone is going to have to look ever-so-slightly stronger. Benoit has the two 3-way wins so it makes sense to give HBK the slight edge in their singles. Like I said, if Shawn decisively wins a singles match in the near future, I might have cause for concern then. If you've read any of my other posts you should already know that I'm a hopelessly idiotic optimist.

Hmmm, yeah - you're probably right about the woo-ing. Although I'd like to think that at least a large proportion of the crowd are actually cheering Flair for some reason, I suppose it may well be the case that an awful lot are just following along with everyone else. How sad.

Tch...if you go answering for him, then he'll never learn to think on his own Coffey. Let someone else put their hand up for a change. Anyway, that's kind of my point - if the fans didn't remember (or at least know of) Flair's history, he'd be getting much less reaction, because he hasn't done much recently. Hell, Sgt. Slaughter's hardly ever mentioned on TV, but every time he makes an appearance the fans give him a 'Slaughter!' chant.

If wrestling fans have so little respect for history and don't bother to think about what happened before 12 months ago, and Flair hasn't done anything of note in 10 years, then how come he still gets one of the better reactions on Raw, the crowd 'woooo' along with him, and he just sold a ton of DVDs?

1) This leaves PPV main events between Benoit and HHH/HBK fresher and with an easy set-up: i.e. "you've never beaten me one-on-one, Benoit, I demand a match blah blah blah". 2) By pretty simple probability, it's actually tougher to win two straight Triple Threats than two straight one-on-one matches, so how this is construed as making Benoit look weak? I could see your point if he'd fluked them, a la Benjamin - but he won both as clean as could be in the middle of the ring. The announcers seemed to make it seem a big deal. Besides, thats just sound ring psychology. Hmmm... sounds like a bit of a leap of logic there. HBK's character doesn't seem the sort to do something like that to me. So they've traded wins, neither of which have been clean, right? That doesn't make Benoit seem inferior to Michaels, it makes them pretty even. Which is good. If Benoit had flattened Michaels both times then I would have no interest in seeing another match between the two. As things stand, a clear victor has yet to be determined. Though I agree the distraction by HHH in Benoit/HBK 1 was really badly done. Plenty of people (me included) complained during 2002/2003 about how HHH would lose Raw matches while feuding with someone, only to always pull out the win in the big PPV matches. This is exactly what Benoit is doing at the moment - minor losses won't hurt him if he can win the big matches, and if he wins everything then there seems like no chance for his opponents to win at PPVs.

They should keep Flair as an on-air character in the background, but they seriously need to reduce the amount of matches he's having. Just as it looks like they may do with Angle, make a Flair match a 'special event', just once every so often. The more regular his matches are, the more identical they seem, and he's too old to be taking all those bumps.

I think this a big part of the problem. He's neither tall enough (Kane, Taker) or built enough (Lesnar) to really project much of a monster image. If, as reports seem to indicate, he eventually squares up to Taker, he's going to look dwarfed. They should focus on some other aspect of the character, like how EVIL!~ he is. Or something.

He's a singles wrestler who's currently tagging with another face singles wrestler. Seems like classic heel turn-material to me. Personally, I think heel RVD might be interesting and I'd like to see it. How can the feud not continue? The heel (JBL) got a DQ win and has every right to a rematch - which you can only imagine will have some sort of gimmick. The feud will at least continue to the 'PPV quality' (hah!) Smackdown in 4 weeks. I don't remember many people saying it flat out sucked. It was no classic, but it was a fun bout that played to the three mens strengths pretty well. You mean Show and Angle right? He'll never be 100% again. I can't see there being a problem bringing Angle back - just have him say that the doctors told him he'd never wrestle again, but they've told him that before and he's proved them wrong - and since no-one else can get the job done, he's going to take the belt off Eddie himself. Easy.

Predictions... out of force of habit alone... Eddie Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield. Four weeks ago, I would have said no contest, but if Jackie can beat Chavo who knows. Still, I'll go with Eddie. Smackdown needs Big Show back so bad. Charlie Haas & Rico, w/ Miss Jackie vs. Hardcore Holly & Billy Gunn. Haas & Rico win in the same fashion as always. John Cena vs. Rene Dupree Dupree. Why not? Jacqueline vs. Chavo Guerrero This match will only be any worth at all if Chavo gives Jackie a seriously vicious beating. This won't happen and Jackie will escape with the title to annoy me further. Next week she squashes London. The Undertaker, with Paul Bearer vs. Booker T Dodgy finish, maybe Booker wins by DQ. The Dudley Boyz vs. Rob Van Dam & Rey Mysterio. RVD & Rey. They need to elevate these two fast, and turn RVD. Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie. Torrie. Mordecai vs Scotty 2 Hotty (apparently) Mordecai.

I've heard he's using the Razor's Edge - one of my all-time favourites, no less.

Case in point: we do get it for free in the UK, but I just can't be bothered watching. And I haven't deliberately missed a PPV in 3 years. RVD/Rey vs. Dudleys is the only thing I can imagine breaking **.

Hopefully. Not a chance. We've never had any of the previous similar specials, so there's no reason why we'll get this one. Unless the Wrestling Channel pick it up, which they won't. Except for Smackdown recently.

Pffft. I've seen better True or Falses in people's backyards. You guys giving it ***+ have no standards at all. It's just a shame that this True or False gets so much exposure when ROH are putting out excellent True or False interviews on a weekly basis. Though of course, nothing will ever top the early 90's AJPW True or Falses. We'll never see True or False interviews like those again.

That's surely too much to hope for. If Lawler quit, nexts weeks Raw would be too good to possibly be WWE programming, and the universe would implode. (hopes for it anyway)

That Bad Blood poster screams Edge heel turn to me, but as Nikjohns said...they very rarely mean anything at all. Still, I'd be all in favour of a tag-team-breaking-up turn on Benoit leading to a title match. Torrie looks bloody awful in that photo IMO. What's up with her skin? It's almost Oompa-loompa-ish.

that's not unreliable. He's a wrestler. He's paid to do what he's told. The company is also expected to and are allowed to give us weekly shows and PPVs because they are mainly there to entertain us. What does that have to do with anything? I don't think anyone's mentioned the Dudleys yet... I can't remember the last time either of them got injured.

I wouldn't count on it. I'm not...hence the word miracle. I think it speaks volumes about how lame JD is looking that I haven't 'just not bothered' watching a WWE PPV in over 3 years...but I really don't think I can be arsed sitting through this one. And I get it free!

I have a feeling that particular run will be broken fairly soon, barring some Cruiserweight-based miracle at Judgement Day. I thought the same thing at Backlash, and got proven wrong again, and No Way Out had the worst card in years. So now I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt. When they do me wrong, I'll bitch again. But one thing you have to agree on, the PPVs this year have so far delivered. I'm considering retiring from watching wrestling, but I might just quit the free shows and watch PPVs only instead if they can keep this up (they can't.) Well except NWO had a Main Event between a GREAT worker and a good worker, Backlash had two GREAT workers and an average worker who can be carrried. Everyone knew those matches would at least be good, if not great. The Main Event for JD is between a great worker, who is working injured, and a TERRIBLE worker, who hasn't had a 15 minute match in his life! Who are you talking about here? I'd personally say HHH and HBK are both better workers than Lesnar, especially in big PPV matches. Anyway, you basically made the point I was going to make, i.e. that both No Way Out and Backlash each had two matches that you could see reasonably hitting ***-****: Rey/Chavo, Eddie/Brock, Foley/Orton and the Triple Threat. What does Judgement Day have? So far there's been, what, 3 matches booked - and I'll be surprised if any of them hit **1/2. Right now, I'd rather just watch an episode of Raw than JD.

I have a feeling that particular run will be broken fairly soon, barring some Cruiserweight-based miracle at Judgement Day.

That's what I thought when I first read the news. I briefly thought it might be Burchill going by another name... surely Vince must be interested in getting him? Never heard of this Snatch guy. Burchill's standing SSP is sweet as a nut. That moonsault that goes the whole way across the ring ain't half bad either.

Those are some top answers. Quite a few had me laughing out loud. Spanky seems to have a pretty unconvential view on life for a wrestler.

That's a great idea. Send one Smackdown's top 2 faces down to OVW. Cena isn't great in the ring but he can be carried to a good match, and like it or not is extremely over right now. There is absolutely no good reason to send him to OVW. I just wish he'd stop pandering to the crowd so much, and doing the 'deez nuts' line.