The RAW Midcard Disaster

[Angle-plex 0]

After displaying somewhat decent mic skills and charisma Monday, Maven lost in a three second match not once, but TWICE tonight. Now in a time when WWE is really lacking in credible midcarders, this booking makes no sense. Where exactly are they going with this? Maven might not exactly light the world on fire with his workrate, but are the creative team so full of ideas for feuds for Shelton that they felt the need to throw Maven aside and throw in....who? Hassan? Simon Dean? Rosey? I know the world has been demanding a Shelton/Grenier feud for quite some time now, but did they really have to humiliate Maven?

[edotherocket 0]

I guess he's getting the "Matt Hardy" push where you get a lot of medium profile matches and get destroyed in every single one.

 

RAW has a pretty stacked upper mid card and I expect Shelton to join them next year (possibly at the expense of Benoit and Jericho) so he should be making quick work of Maven who, even with a push, wouldn't last very long hanging with Evolution or Faces Who Feud With Evolution.

[Fökai 0]

Despite what Shelton has done in the past three months, the Intercontinental title will be forced to be the No. 4 or 5 program on RAW leading into Wrestlemania (Batista/HHH/Orton, Edge/HBK, Kane's interpromotional feud, Benoit or Jericho's possible program). At that rate, Shelton has a match with a title contender at Mania - it is just a question of whom they want to elevate (or depush) to meet him.

 

With Wrestlemania quickly approaching, there's no need to elevate the lower mid-carders. The midcard scene on RAW is expected to be a mess, due to the amount of characters being built up for Mania (i.e. Edge, Batista, Orton, Snitsky, Kane). The WWE will focus on moving along the programs already above Shelton, while finding an opponent for him come April.

[humongous2002 0]

Shelton might be a decent wrestler but he has less charisma than Benoit and most likely he'll feud with the Arab guy for the IC title.

[bob_barron 0]

Shelton has tons of fire and charisma- and I think the crowd's are starting to come onto him. And he's more then just a 'decent' wrestler- he dragged a great match out of Christian.

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

I have no problem with Maven jobbing, but that was a fucking abomination of an IC match. Or should I say two abominal title matches? If there wasn't a concern for an injury that Maven or Shelton had then why wouldn't they just have a five or ten minute match? I understand that Maven's not exactly Bret Hart in the ring, but still.......it was basically them just screwing people out of a match that they paid to see(well, not JUST for this match)........

[CanadianChris 0]

Meltzer said in his NYR recap that he thought it was obvious that the bookers "clearly didn't trust Maven doing a match with Benjamin after their weak house show matches." Which begs the obvious question, "Well, why did they put him in that position to start with?"

 

I actually like that they didn't want to put Benjamin in a PPV match they knew was going to suck (which shows how highly they think of his potential), but couldn't they have come up with anything better than that?

[SuperJerk 0]

How long until Matt Hardy comes back?

 

He needs to come back as a heel (pissed off at Lita for staying married to Kane), then go after the IC belt.

[zyn081 0]

Despite what Shelton has done in the past three months, the Intercontinental title will be forced to be the No. 4 or 5 program on RAW leading into Wrestlemania (Batista/HHH/Orton, Edge/HBK, Kane's interpromotional feud, Benoit or Jericho's possible program). At that rate, Shelton has a match with a title contender at Mania - it is just a question of whom they want to elevate (or depush) to meet him.

 

With Wrestlemania quickly approaching, there's no need to elevate the lower mid-carders. The midcard scene on RAW is expected to be a mess, due to the amount of characters being built up for Mania (i.e. Edge, Batista, Orton, Snitsky, Kane). The WWE will focus on moving along the programs already above Shelton, while finding an opponent for him come April.

So very true, with Edge-HBK, Orton-HHH-Batista, Jericho-Benoit and Kane. That doesnt leave much for Shelton. Wasnt last nite utter crap.

 

Shame SD! doesnt have the stacked upper card that RAW has.

 

Also, a shame at the fall of Christain. To think that he was once a favourite of smarks. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I like the way that the WWE 'forgot' that E&C are brothers.

[Eclipse 0]

Funny part is, he was way over with the crowd in Puerto Rico. What would have the promo been if this was in the U.S.A? It would have been some generic heel rambling, and would have totally bored me. He used the location he was at to generate that heat.

[bob_barron 0]

I don't think Christian was a favourite of the smarks once he split from E-n-C. Even though there are still some deluded idiots who think he's better then Edge when he really clearly isn't

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I liked him during the breakup angle with Edge, but he didn't end up being as good as I thought he would be.

[Mystery Eskimo 0]

How long until Matt Hardy comes back?

 

He needs to come back as a heel (pissed off at Lita for staying married to Kane), then go after the IC belt.

Good idea, Hardy-Benjamin would actually be something I'd want to see. In the mean time, I don't know, send Charlie Haas over. It's not like he's doing anything on Smackdown, he may as well be a Raw jobber.

[Angle-plex 0]

I guess he's getting the "Matt Hardy" push where you get a lot of medium profile matches and get destroyed in every single one.

You mean the infamous "Losing Streak" gimmick that has shown time and time again to do nothing but hurt everyone involved? Marvelous.

[Angle-plex 0]

RAW has a pretty stacked upper mid card and I expect Shelton to join them next year (possibly at the expense of Benoit and Jericho)

That would be fine as long as Shelton, you know, is giving some kind of PERSONALITY beforehand.

[zyn081 0]

Ok, so maybe smarks saw Christians potential and thought that he could do well.

Is that better?

[Highland 0]

It has clearly been established that the whole of E&C is greater than the sum of its parts. Why WWE ever broke up such a good thing I'll never understand.

[Guest Coffey]

I don't think Christian was a favourite of the smarks once he split from E-n-C. Even though there are still some deluded idiots who think he's better then Edge when he really clearly isn't

I don't know if he's better than Edge, but he entertains me more. Does that make me a "deluded idiot" because I don't share your personal sentiments?

 

At least I like Christian's finisher...and his entrance. That's more than I can say for Edge.

 

Of course, I don't like Shelton Benjamin and I'm still a supporter of Muhammad Hussan, so maybe I am a deluded idiot.

[Guest Fook_Theta]

For whatever reason, Heel Hurricane was shot down a few months ago. Considering at one time Hurricane was the number three merch pusher right behind Stone Cold and I think Rock/Foley, it would be a good idea to shove him into a feud to get him out of that fucking mask/gimmick.

 

Suger Shane Helms as <insert old school legend> vs Benjamin as Sting. Benjamin as Sting vs a Vader type(Batista would have been great, but he's destined for other things) would be great as well. Bringing Haas over is a nice idea, but it just further hurts Smackdown.

 

Benjamin vs Samoa Joe could actually draw.. But it would require squashing the entire roster to make Joe's apperance and eventual win important.

[NoCalMike 0]

I don't think WWE even cares about the mid-card really. I mean their actions show it big time, as they put so much effort and air time into getting the ME monsters over. I dunno what went wrong because back in the day of good ol' cheeseball WWF, the midcard was mad over. I mean just watch some of those old Survivor Series tapes, the crowd is hot for every single match as everyone on the card had some type of compelling storyline the crowd could get into.

[Guest Coffey]

Yeah, but they had people like Mr. Perfect, Ted DiBiase and Rick Rude as the midcard heels back then. It was easy to get into the midcard feuds because they were so good at being heels, that you'd get behind anyone whom was going after them. You just cared because you wanted to see them lose so bad.

 

Today there aren't even any maineventers that people really hate. At least they don't hate them for the sake that they're heels. They usually hate them because they're on TV at all. If somehow a writer could take advantage of that....

[Angle-plex 0]

At first I though Christian was better than Edge, mainly due to Edge's first couple of singles feuds with Angle, Booker, and the unbearably bad feud with Regal which seemed to last 800000 matches. In the last few months however, Christian has become stale and Edge is (sort of) connecting to the fans with his new heel character, so I see Edge as being the more talented of the two.

 

As far as old school WWF midcard goes it was better because they actually had characters. Nowadays it's Shelton (Old School Face), Maven (Old School Heel), Christian (Old School heel) and so on. Not to mention that nobody (with the exception of maybe three people) could cut a promo to sell a match if their lives depended on it.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

I still think Christian is more entertaining on the mic than Edge, and he has a better entrance/finisher. The problem is he spends too much of his offense finding new ways to choke his opponent. Occasionally that works in the context of the match (such as in the beat the clock match when he was trying to draw the match out), but much of the time it's just bad.

[bob_barron 0]

I don't think Christian was a favourite of the smarks once he split from E-n-C. Even though there are still some deluded idiots who think he's better then Edge when he really clearly isn't

I don't know if he's better than Edge, but he entertains me more. Does that make me a "deluded idiot" because I don't share your personal sentiments?

 

At least I like Christian's finisher...and his entrance. That's more than I can say for Edge.

 

Of course, I don't like Shelton Benjamin and I'm still a supporter of Muhammad Hussan, so maybe I am a deluded idiot.

Somewhat. Christian was horrible when he was with the UnAmericans and all the guy seems to know how to do is chinlocks. I like his entrance and music too but I also like Edge's a lot.

 

Unless he's working with Y2J, I really can't get into Christian

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Christian/Y2J was really disappointing as a feud. They were pretty good as a tag team. Christian would be great in the late 80s when you could just stick him in a tag team and have him be the guy to take bumps and do his stuff while letting someone else carry the match. The death of tag teams have really hurt guys like Christian and Kenzo (another amusing character who can't wrestle in singles).

[razazteca 0]

Simple solution would be to end the split and merge the US title with the IC.