Wrestling Rumblings #111
February 19, 2011
By: Jose Marrero of Wrestleview.com
What a week it has been with me, first I have been busy like crazy with work and then thanks to some bumbling around by my girlfriend I lose my main desktop PC. So here I am after digging out my spare laptop (which admittedly I had to do anyway) I am writing this column a day late. An extra day means of course another day to plot out some thoughts and well we all know how much I love to play fantasy booker so after watching Smackdown tonight I decided to rebook the Edge vs. Dolph Ziggler feud for you all…this is “Wrestling Rumblings”.
It’s no secret that one of the reasons we got this Edge vs. Dolph Ziggler feud is because of the big edict from up high that WWE needs to create newer younger stars. I agree with that edict but thought this feud was a cheap way to do that and as a result there will be no creation of any new star by it. After all you can’t just throw a title on someone, especially in such a cheap manner and expect fans to respect that talent. Respect in wrestling is just like respect anywhere else it has to be earned. So I would like to go back and start this over from scratch so that maybe Dolph Ziggler could be a little bit more salvageable than he is right now.
This angle all started the moment Dolph Ziggler won his title shot on Smackdown in a battle royal. That didn’t bother me as much as it was the same Smackdown in which he lost not just once but twice to Kofi Kingston and as a result also lost the Intercontinental Championship. So the first thing I do is go back and change that and Dolph doesn’t lose the Intercontinental Championship at this point of the feud. Dolph needs all the credibility he can get and I have him go into the feud as the champion instead of the guy who lost twice on the show and then got lucky. The one thing Dolph has going for him in this whole thing is that Vickie is a heat magnet so from the onset I take advantage of that which is why I don’t even bother to go back and erase the first few weeks of booking where Dolph kept getting over on Kofi Kingston since I think it should stay established that with Vickie in his back pocket Dolph just might be able to pull off the victory. I don’t want to kill Kofi off yet either so maybe I do some sort of injury angle with him on the show where Dolph wins the title shot to get him off of TV for a month this way he can come back and resume things with Dolph and keep him on ice while Dolph has his world title program.
Actually in thinking about this I could do a bit better. What I want to do is go back to that little mini feud Dolph had with Daniel Bryan and instead of have him putting over Bryan so much I think I’d let Dolph win two out of three of those matches. This would probably tick off the Bryan fans but the truth is Dolph needs the wins more since he is the one with the world title program and Bryan could do exactly what he has been doing anyway without this win.
OK so I kept the title on Dolph and have even given him a bit of steam with wins over Daniel Bryan and Kofi Kingston now I just have to go back and see how to reward him with a world title shot. As I said before, I liked the idea of having him win the battle royal and I think I would keep it that way except maybe what I would do is have Dolph be a last minute entry in that battle royal and sort of pick up the pieces and throw out a babyface for the win. As a matter of fact after writing that maybe I could have him injure Kofi Kingston right here. This way it adds heat to their angle, gets Kofi off of TV and sets up the program between Dolph and Edge.
One of the other things I really couldn’t stand about this program was the fact that Dolph lost to seemingly everyone when being built up for Edge. I go back and change that, I am not saying I have him beat Randy Orton on Raw but I just wouldn’t put him in that position to begin with. For months we have seen Alberto Del Rio beat up on R Truth on both Raw and Smackdown. I am not saying I have Dolph beat up on Truth for a month but basically the point is he doesn’t have to be in there with main eventers he just has to look strong beating whomever I put him against. It’s kind of funny because as much as I’ve bashed him in the past this is the kind of a spot I would have given to Matt Hardy and well I don’t have him around to do that with. Christian would’ve been great for this too but of course he is out on injury and in writing this I am seeing why WWE went with R Truth for matches with Alberto Del Rio as he is the only respectable mid card babyface left which says a lot about the depth of Smackdown talent. So what I really have to do is give Dolph the scraps here and have him beat talent like Chris Masters, Trent Barretta and maybe even one week for some extra heat and just cause well I’m annoyed with the gimmick I do something with him and Hornswoggle. All the while doing things to showcase that Dolph does in fact have a ton of influence in the absence of Teddy Long (Yeah I would probably leave that angle alone).
That brings me to the Royal Rumble match where I have to say Dolph is still not the strongest challenger he could be but is way stronger than the way WWE built him up to be and given the talent on Smackdown it’s the best I could do with him. Now WWE just had Edge beat him and well considering that he lost to everyone else it wasn’t the best thing WWE could do if they wanted to keep this angle going since Edge beating a guy who has lost to everyone doesn’t provide anymore interest in rematches. In leading up to this match I have had Dolph on a little bit of a winning streak, he has been Intercontinental champion for months, plus he has the acting GM in his pocket. So he looks a bit stronger, after this match I want him to look stronger so while I have Edge beat him I put some doubt into the minds of everyone and actually have a point in the match where I do a ref bump and give Dolph a visual pin of Edge so that everyone can see that he can beat Edge he was just a victim of bad circumstances. We bring down another referee who of course counts to two because Edge has had sufficient time to kick out and Dolph in a fit of anger takes that referee out which brings us Vickie Guerrero in a referee’s shirt. She refs the match for a bit and at some point Dolph hits Edge with a chair and Vickie counts to three and the announcer names him the new champion. Of course at this point I’ll have had the original referee see everything that had just transpired and ask that the match be restarted. Vickie and Dolph will be arguing with this referee and during the argument Edge will bump Dolph into Vickie and get a quick three count to retain the title. I like this finish better since you saw Dolph visually pin Edge and even had a moment where he had the title and it was only due to dumb luck that Edge retained since he didn’t really get that spear and pin win yet so I could justify another match between these two.
Of course we have the Elimination Chamber coming up so this is going to be a TV feud from here on out but unlike what WWE has done there is no reason that this couldn’t be better used to hype up the chamber match right? I have only three TV shows in which to do this before the chamber and the first thing I want to do is take the Intercontinental title off of Dolph at this point. I can have him come out at the beginning of Smackdown and complain about how he was screwed at the Rumble and how he wants to beat someone down at this point and have him do the open challenge gimmick at which point we would get a recovered Kofi Kingston who would go onto challenge him for the title at that point. We have a point in the match where maybe Dolph is going to cheat or something but gets distracted on the big screen from Edge and gets hit with the Trouble in Paradise leading to a Kofi Kingston title win and effectively ending that program while giving a bit more extra to the Dolph vs. Edge program. Even though Dolph has lost twice in a row at that point they haven’t been solid finishes so he still somewhat maintains credibility since he is now a hard luck challenger instead of a loser who can’t buy a win.
I realize in changing the finish of the Royal Rumble that I have totally ignored the Kelly Kelly involvement which probably hurt what was going on with Drew McIntyre and I have to fix that somehow so what I have to do going forward is get her involved somehow. I think what I do is maybe have that first Smackdown be a match between Edge and McIntyre where Drew loses because he is distracted by Kelly. This of course angers Vickie Guerrero who intended for the match to soften up Edge and she orders some sort of mixed tag the following week between herself and Dolph vs. Kelly and Edge which the babyfaces win and in a fit of rage she tells Edge how she can’t do anything to him since he is the champion but fires Kelly just because. Now Drew is pisssed with Edge for getting the girl he is interested in fired and he has more animosity towards Edge going into the chamber match.
This brings me into the last Smackdown in which I will finally have the Edge vs. Dolph Ziggler rematch in which I’ll actually ban the spear. They will have a good match in which after a lot of craziness Edge will have hit the spear and get the win only to have Vickie come down and announce him as being DQ’ed and getting ready to strip Edge of the title only to have Teddy Long come down and pretty much do something along the lines of what he did this past week. I’d have him say how while he can’t change a match outcome (in other words Dolph beat Edge) he will not let a title change hands on a DQ and instead he thinks there should be a rematch right now. Edge and Dolph have another match and Edge finally hits the spear but instead of getting the win gets attacked by Kane who is in the chamber match. Dolph goes to team up with Kane but Kane being the loose cannon that he is beats up Dolph too only for Edge to wind up spearing him. During this confusion Drew comes down and nails him with a chair and Rey Misterio comes down and nails Drew only for the entire membership of the Corre to leave everyone laying and the image of a triumphant Wade Barrett is what I leave my audience with on the go home show since I feel the Corre needs something to get over.
So now we have the PPV in which Edge will win and last eliminate Dolph Ziggler with the spear and end that program. In doing it this way I never really let Edge beat Dolph one on one convincingly and meanwhile have given Dolph two months of TV build up in which he actually came pretty close to beating the champion. After this I can do pretty much whatever I want with Dolph (I’d probably throw him in a Money in the Bank match) and he looks ten times more credible than he looks now. It’s not the prettiest program but it’s definitely better than the one I just saw and it only took me about a half hour to come up with. Imagine if I had the same amount of time WWE did?
Well that wraps up this weeks column but of course before I go I have to give you all something to do and that is in fact watch this Sundays’ WWE Elimination Chamber as the Road to Wrestlemania makes it last stop on PPV and I expect things to get pretty interesting going forward from this event. I did have two editions of “The Eye Gouge” that were pretty close to done for you this week but of course they were in the computer that got trashed and well I’m going to have to sit down and redo those pieces for you but rest assured I am trying my best to get those out as soon as possible.
Want to email me? Sure you do and you can. All you have to do is email wrestlingrumblings@hotmail.com and let me know your thoughts, comments, and questions. That’s it for this week, next week I will try to do better and until then I am out.