I was on the forums over at wrestlingforum.com and there was a thread about what direction people would like to see the WWE take after Backlash, so I decided to share mine here (as well as there).
Backlash, as we all know, is usually just there to wrap up any feuds from Wrestlemania, and use up that pesky rematch clause (which I am not a fan of). That fact is definitely true of this year's event and it was pretty mediocre. So now that it is over it is time for the WWE to move forward, and this is what I would do if I were them.


I think that guys need to move around between Smackdown and Raw because they are pretty stale, but since there aren't really any clear lines between who is from what show I'm just going to assume that anyone can go anywhere.

I really like Shannon Moore and Jimmy Wang Yang, so I would have Miz and Morrison drop the tag belts to them and then Morrison can have a feud with Matt Hardy over the US title. Since MVP doesn't have the US title anymore he needs something else to do, he is definately ready for the big stage so I would have him feud with the Undertaker ultimately leading to a world title shot at Summerslam.

Next up, we need something to do with Shawn Michaels, Batista and Chris Jericho. I am pretty sure that something went wrong in that match last night so Michaels might actually be on the shelf for a while. I was fully expecting Jericho to have more involvement in that match and make a full heel turn. So moving forward I would turn Y2J heel and have him feud with Jeff Hardy over the IC belt, don't forget that hardy's suspension is probably up now. I would like to see Batista turn heel and have a feud continue with Michaels, assuming that is possible.

Next up is Edge. They teased a feud between Edge and CM Punk on Smackdown last week and it's probably a good thing to do with both of them. I have a feeling though that it will end with Edge somehow winning the money in the bank briefcase from Punk and using it to win another championship.

Now for Triple H, Randy Orton, John Cena and JBL. I would put Cena and Orton together for a while to feud over whatever, and since Mr. Kennedy is returning today, I think he will be in the title hunt. I would have Kennedy and Triple H feud over it. As for JBL, I would put him back in a commentator position, but since that is not happening anytime soon, I would have Umaga turn face and have him feud with JBL.

There you have it, that's what I would do. Let's see if I'm write about any of it.

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In the olden days, when the King Of The Ring was an annual pay-per-view event, winning it was traditionally an honor given to the person who was about to get the big push, and elevate them from a mid-carder to a headliner. As mentioned on Raw, some of the passt winners include: Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Triple H.

The man most ripe for the big push is MVP. The WWE is in need of more good heels in the top mix and that's exactly what MVP brings to the table. He's a good size and athletic - but not a slow unagile giant - and he can put together a good match. Not to mention that he cuts a wicked promo. In keeping with the tradition of old, MVP should win the King Of The Ring tournament this year. It's the logical choice.

But the WWE isn't always logical. I took a quick look at wwe.com to see if there was an official lineup for the tournament. There wasn't anything final but everything I saw was throwing out the names of all the guys in the top mix. Specifically the guys in the WWE Championship match at backlash: Triple H, John Cena, Randy Ortaon and JBL. The minute I saw this I realized that one oft hem would win it. Since I am expecting Triple H to win the belt at Backlash, I am predicting that Triple H will win the King Of The Ring tournament again. And it will be a black-trunks-black-boots boring show as usual.

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Well it looks like Batista is definitely the heel vs Shawn Michaels. I would like to see a longer run of Batista as heel, is character has been pretty stagnant lately and I think this change with really help him. Chris Jericho is also looking a lot more heelish and he is in dire need of a full fledged heel turn as well but I don't like how Jericho is going to be in the middle of Batista/Michaels match. It probably means that he is going to make the full heel turn and then work a program with Michaels. I thought that Michaels and Batista could work a good match, having Jericho as referee is going to take away from it a bit. So where does that leave Batista's heel turn? maybe they don't want to pull the trigger.

I thought for sure that Jericho would make a heel turn sometime around when Jeff Hardy gets back from his suspension - which should be a few weeks after backlash - and then they would work a program together. But maybe they will keep hardy in the dog house for a while.

Mickie James is the new Women's champion! She beat Beth Phoenix with an outstanding victory roll. I really don't like the matches in the WWE women's division, but this match wasn't bad. I don't like how they scream every time they do a move and most of them can't sell a punch or anything. But Mickie is actually my favorite Diva so i'm glad she won the belt :P. The women's division died when Candice Michelle got injured way back. And then they had a little feud with Beth Phoenix and Mickie James and it was a litle more interesting. But after Candice came back and then got hurt again it completely dead and it has just been stupid. I know that Beth can really work (much more than most of the divas), but hopefully this will breathe a little life back into the women's division.

Prediction: Cade and Murdoch are going to split up and then Cade will get a singles push.

I'm not sure what the point of the match between Randy Orton and William Regal was. Is Regal a baby face now? It looked like Orton also suffered a botched suplex. He landed right on the top of his head and went limp after for a second. They showed it about 5 times. He probably really injured himself.

I really think that Umaga should turn babyface. He can do some pretty incredible things and some fans are already cheering for him.

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I love how TNA has a match called 'X-scape' and then Don West is quoted as sayg "you can't win by escaping". Jay Lethal won the X-scape match as expected, the stage is set for Sonjay Dutt to turn heel. Will TNA pull the trigger? My guess is that they are going to blow it by waiting too long. Impact this week is the best possible time for them to do it. So let's hope that happens.

The knockouts get-in the cage then fight match was kinda a bust for me (no pun intended). It seems like any time anyone wins a match they get a title shot. It's pretty dumb. I would have loved to see either Rhaka Khan (assuming that she can work) or Angelina Love win that match and have it not be for a title shot. That way they could get another girl into the top mix as a strong heel. So now we have 3 baby-faces in the title picture against Awesome Kong. Just because of Khan's physicality she would be the prime candidate to work with Gail Kim or ODB, but maybe she can't work.

I really don't like the phony shoot-style interviews, but I actually have been enjoying the 'rough cuts' segments that BG and Kip James have been having. I think it's been a good way to promote this match. I actually looked forward to it a bit. At first I thought the finish was kinda lame. BG was supposed to be getting his revenge and he got a fluky win. Then they shook hands and Kip hit BG from behind and I thought it was alright. I guess we're gunna get a longer feud out of these guys. I'm looking forward to that. I've been a fan of both of them since the DX days.



Next up was the clash of dumb gimmicks. Rock and Rave Infection, Super Eric, and Black Reign and Rellik (that's killer spelled backwards) all in the ring at the same time! There were a few good teams in the mix though, the Motor City Machine Guns and LAX were there. There were a couple good high spots in this one. Kaz took a chokeslam off the top rope, then Super Eric came in (after running away from Black Reign and Rellik (that's killer spelled backwards)) anyway when he came in he did a huge crossbody off the top of the cage. And then shortly thereafer Super Eric won the match. Didn't care much about this one. It probably would have been better if this match had swapped places with the X-division match at the beginning and they had given the X-Division guys some room to do some crazy stuff.

There is a new girl backstage interviewing people. I wonder what happened to crystal.

Next up was ODB and Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed. I wish they had maybe had more of a backstory for Saeed. Maybe if she hit more people with chairs or something. There was really not much reason for us to care about Saeed being in a match. That being said was I ever impressed with her. Maybe she can be that other top heel that I mentioned earlier. This was a great match. Gail Kim did a sweet hurricanrana off the top of the cage. This match was really well put together. ODB and Kim got the win but Kong continues or streak of not being pinned. The TNA Knockouts division could very well be the best thing going in wrestling today. Bravo ladies.

Right after that match there was a short promo from Karen Angle. I didn't realize until right now just how refreshing it has been without her stupid love triangle being on the show for the last few weeks. I'm sure this is foreshadowing for how the Angle/Joe match is gunna end.

In the next match (Booker T and Charmelle vs Robert Roode and Peyton Banks) Charmelle got the pin on Peyton Banks for the win. After that Robert Roode blamed her for the loss and left her in the ring by herself. Maybe now we will actually get a one on one match with Booker and Roode without any silly stipulations.


Next up was the lethal lockdown match. Team Tomko vs Team Cage. In my opinion the feud between Christian Cage and Tomko/AJ Styles has been botched pretty badly. AJ and Christian could have had a great match back about three months ago when AJ screwed him out of winning the title from Kurt Angle. It's just another case of TNA not pulling the trigger at the right time. I really liked how they started this match. AJ got huge heat right off the bat after they made it look like Tomko was going to start the match and AJ snuck up behind Christian. As much as the gimmick and story behind this match was preposterous the crowd was totally into it (and so was I). But after the first 5 minutes the match went downhill fast. Christian did a cross body off the top of the cage like EY. If you noticed. James Storm was the very first guy to go to the top of the cage. Anyone remember how at the very last pay per view before his elevation X match they did those promos where they made it look like he was deathly afraid of heights? stupid. I know that wrestling isn't the most consistent thing in the world. But they can do better.

Holy crap talk about a big bump tho. AJ climbed up a ladder on the top of the cage and then christian got up there and started duking it out.. then storm pushed over the ladder and they went through a table on the top of the cage! oh man that could have been nasty. In the end though the match wasn't even really that special. It was basically just a goon fest with guys using weapons on each other etc. In the end Rhino got the pin to win the match.

The big match - Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe - was up next. I really how TNA promoted this match. They made it a bit more serious, but getting Karen Angle involved killed it. This match was weird. They basically did a worked MMA match with pin falls and rope breaks. I didn't like it. It's funny that TNA's slogan is 'we are wrestling' and they have a worked MMA match for their main event. This match was submission hold after submission hold. There were some little bits of wrestling here and there but it was pretty boring. Joe had Angle in a STFU at one point. And then a crippler crossface. The match wasn't very good. But I'm glad that Joe won. And that he won with one of his wrestling moves and not a rear naked choke.

For the whole pay-per-view I was thinking that this was one of TNA's strongest shows in a while and I would give it an overall good rating. But that last match really left a sour taste in my mouth. So I thought about it for a minute...

What did we really see here tonight? We saw a whole bunch of cage matches where nobody really used the cage. There were 3 big cage moments and 2 of them were pretty much the same thing. So what was actually good about this show? We saw a fantastic Knockouts match, and BG James and Kip James get to continue their feud.... and that's about it. TNA has once again missed the nail with the hammer. They don't seem to realize that people are buying their pay-per-view to see wrestling. Not a worked MMA match. Wrestling is about excitement. Not a series of phony submission holds. For me, this show was a disappointment at best.

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I got to see the first Yamma Pit Fighting (yammapitfighting.com) show that was on Friday night. If you don't know, Yamma Pit Fighting is the latest MMA franchise to hit the streets. It was founded by Bob Meyrowitz who is the man that originally founded UFC (and later sold to Zuffa and Dana White who made it what it is today). Meyrowitz has been hyping the promotion as having a "new fighting surface" which is supposed to revolutionize the MMA world. I was not a UFC (or MMA) fan until recent years, but I do remember when it was in the early days. It always looked super intense, but I was too young to be able to watch it. In those early UFC shows, they always had them set up as tournaments, where the fighters would fight more than one fight in a night. This sounds crazy by today's standards but I'm interested to see what it's like since I never got the chance as a kid. Yamma is bringing back this tournament style to crown their first champions. The MMA market is pretty saturated these days but I have to admit that I have succumbed to the hype about this "fighting surface" and the old-school tournament style shows of the older, more intense days and I've actually been pretty excited about this show.


This new fighting surfcace, The Yamma, is basically the same thing as the UFC cage. It is 24 ft wide and is a circle. The major difference is that there is a 3ft wide 'warning zone' on the perimeter of the circle which is on an incline. It is supposed to help prevent the fighters from clinching up against the fence. At first glance, it doesn't look like it will make any difference. I also noticed that there are no advertisements on the mat. That probably means they don't have any sponsors.

Pro boxing's ring announcer is Michael Buffer. UFC's ring announcer is Bruce Buffer. Yamma's ring announcer is a guy who's been smoking since the age of 4 and has probably had throat surgery. It's ridiculous. Who thought this guy was a good choice?

After the first fight it seems like the 'warning zone' in the Yamma only serves to help fighters get takedowns. Nothing too special. We also got another dose of the ring announcer. If you noticed, he didn't pronounce the second match's referee's name properly. He also took some liberties introducing the second fighter. They give you cards for a reason buddy. I think that is a little unprofessional and I hope he got reamed out for it. In fact, I hope they get rid of him altogether. I don't know how much more of his voice I can take.

I'm only going to comment on the Butterbean fight because it was the only one that got any significant hype. Man, what a travesty to the sport of MMA was that. Butterbean showed up at 416lbs, thats right: Four-Hundred and Sixteen pounds. What a knob. He looked like a rolly polly jolly ball with tiny little legs and arms. He tried to throw some kicks but it didn't look like he could get his legs around his belly. What a joke. He threw a bunch of punches but since he's so fat he couldn't get in close enough for any of them to land. His opponent, Pat Smith, simply outclassed him. Smith just kept moving and Butterbean couldn't do a thing. Eventually butterean tried to throw a fat-guy kick and fell down. He rolled around on the ground a bit and it looked like he couldn't get up. Smith was able to take his sweet time (it was about 5 seconds) and then jumped on top of Butterbean and pounded on his head until he submitted. Butterbean, you are a moron.

All-in-all, the show wasn't awful but it wasn't good. The two major selling points of this show were the 'revolutionary' fighting surface the old-school tournament show. Both were dissapointing. It seems that the new fighting surface did little to change the dynamic of the fights, and I didn't really like the tournament style - there were too many fights and they were all really short. Not to mention, the main event featuring Butterbean was a farse. It also seems like the show is lacking a little in production value. The ring announcer, Steve Ferrall, was pretty dumb. His voice is hideous and he is full of nothing but stupid things to say. It seems like he is trying to make jokes and ended up just being annoying. In any sport that has a ring announcer, the tried and true way to get people excited is to have a great ring announcer with a booming voice and a catchphrase. Keep it simple guys. Yamma may have been trying to do something different, and I can give them credit for that, but unfortunately for them it didn't pay off this time. My last point is if you look at UFC - which is the top MMA promotion - every event is promoted as a spectacle. There were no signs of this on the Yamma show. If you promote your show as second-rate, that's all it will ever be. I don't think I will be watching any more Yamma shows in the next little while.

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WWE Smackdown this week started with Khali making a peace offering to the Big Show. This whole Big Show and The Great Khali angle is getting plain weird. It started out nice enough. The Big Show said he was the best big man in the business then Khali comes out. BAM there we go. Big man vs Big man at Backlash. But what's the deal with Khali running away all the time? The first time he came out during Big Show's promo got in his face then walked away. Next Big Show came out during his promo and then Khali walks away. So now we have Khali offering peace to big show. The premise was a little strange but that's ok. Khali gave Big Show a bunch of stereotypical indian peasant gifts and then big show punched Khali in the face. In the end Khali looked like a gentle-giant moron and Big Show looked like a sappy jackass.


Does this mean that they are trying to make Big Show a heel and Khali a face? That sounds like a dumb idea to me. Nobody. And I mean nobody likes Khali. And Big Show is already over with the fans. Big Show being in this state of limbo between heel and face probably worked in the WWE's favor promoting his match with Mayweather at Wrestlemania, but it's actually pretty annoyng when you replace Money Mayweather with someone like Khali who everyone thinks is a clown. If they wanted to establish Big Show as a babyface, then this big man vs big man program with Khali is perfect. If they wanted to establish him as a heel then they should have put him in a program with someone else. Maybe Chris Jericho who is also arguably in a limbo state. Anyway, I hope this doesn't get any weirder. On with the show.

I really hope that Jimmy Wang Yang gets a push soon. I don't know if he'll ever make it to the top mix but he can do some pretty awesome stuff. I actually like his gimmick too. If they just make it a little less goofy it is actually pretty catchy. An asian cowboy? C'mon it's gold!

Why didn't Finlay and Hornswoggle get disqualified like 5 times over in that match vs Matt Striker? That was kinda stupid.

Out of all the angles right now, I'd say the Shawn Michaels and Batista program is the one I'm most interested in. I'm not entirely sure who is the heel and who is the baby face. It would seem as though Batista should be the heel, but he got a pretty good reception from the fans on Smackdown this week. It made me think that it would be pretty cool if they tried to make Shawn Michaels the heel on Smackdown and the baby face on Raw and made Batista the heel on Raw and the face on Smackdown. I'm not sure if that would really work well but it would be interesting and different from what we've been seeing of late. It would be best though if one of them turns heel and stays that way for a while. There is a distinct lack of good heels in the top mix in the WWE. There is Edge and Randy Orton and who else? MVP should be more in the top mix than he is but iwt might be some time. Umaga is up there but I sense that Umaga is starting to get over with the fans, so I could see him turning face eventually. So basically there are these 4 guys and a ton of baby faces.

Festus has the worst gimmick in wrestling. Hopefully the Undertaker's gogoplata will fix that stupid bell thing.

Throughout the show we saw a few vignettes with Edge and Vicky Guerrero at a spa (which looked an awful lot like a backstage area). Edge is the best. He's just so asinine. Without a doubt he is the top heel in WWE.

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So I just watched TNA Impact from last night. Right off the bat team 3d was out there cutting one of their shoot-style promos that they have been doing lately. I've gotta tell you I cringe every time they blame someone for killing WCW. And you know that Vince Russo is behind it. You would think that with people on your show talking about how people in the company ruined another company week in and week out you would sit down and re-evaluate those people's positions in your company. But the actual higher-ups at TNA don't seem to think that way.

We got to see the 'debut' of Consequences Creed. Although we did see him doing the job with Ron Killings filling in for Pacman Jones a number of months ago. But I'm glad that he's getting some type of push. I want to add that the Rock and Rave Infection has got to be one of the dumbest things on tv. Along with Black Reign and Rellik (that's killer spelled backwards) and super eric.


We also got a pretty good match with Scott Steiner and Petey Williams vs The Motor City Machine Guns. Man, that Canadian Destroyer (flip piledriver) is off the charts. It blows my mind every time little petey pump does it. I really hope that TNA is positioning him for a feud with Steiner after this. He really seems to be getting over with the fans and I'd love to see Big Pappa Douchebag get his comeupins.

The thing that seperates the 'guns from the other small guy teams is that they can pull off a whole series of quick moves and keep them from looking scripted. When you see a lot of these other teams doing similar things it looks way too phony.

I really like what they are doing to promote the Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe match getting MMA figters to make comments, but I think it is funny that they have a guy throwing out Floyd "Money" Mayweather's name. TNA really need's to get over this little brother complex that they seem to have and realize that they have all the tools they need to be a major player. They have to stop trying to milk the WWE.

I don't even want to comment on the Kevin Nash and Sting tag match for the main event. Nash is such a goofball these days. I'm surpised he didn't walk out mid-match and then pull a baseball bat on Sting telling him to make more money.

At the end of the day tho, it was a pretty OK show. Except for the fact that this sunday's pay-per-view Lockdown is an all-gimmick-match show i think TNA has done a pretty good job keeping things simple in promoting it. I'm actually looking forward to this one.

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