The most interesting match here for me is Cena vs. Sabu. Sabu has looked great over the past few weeks, hitting all his big spots perfectly, including that awesome table spot last Monday night. I'm happily surprised by how much the WWE has been willing to protect him lately; besides RVD, he's the only real ECW guy who hasn't been treated like a tool. Cena, for his part, has been a good sport about the whole thing--I doubt any of the other WWE main eventers (with the exception of Edge) would have been willing to let the ECW guys get over at their expense the way he has.
This pay-per-view is worthles without King Booker. All hail King Booker!
I watched the Summerslam 2004 DVD the other day, and Eugene used to be...rather further up the card. What happened?
The joke wore thin. Simple as that.
I don't think Eugene's gimmick wore thin. He injured his knew and by the time he returned his partner, William Regal, was gone to Smackdown and his momentum was gone.
Edge isn't the last guy to have a shot at bringing the WWE title back to Raw. Cena should have a rematch clause.
I expect Kane/Kane to continue on. It had a rough beginning but it's become more popular, especially after they decided fake Kane was simply an impersonator, nothing supernatural. I expect it to and hope it goes one.
I don't think that Flair/Foley has been to based on what goes on behidn the scenes. They explained where it came from with the Stuntman comments.
I'm not sure what the actually school of thought on Nicky and Mitch's potential is, but from what I understand both are only a few years into their training. And Mitch was actually hurt in the four on one match.
Since I'm from Edmonton, I loved Edge's comments about the Stanley Cup. I can't figure out if that was scripted or if the guy just ad-libbed it, but either way it was great.
Wasn't there something about Eugene having a spell in rehab too? Painkiller addiction I think?
Yup, he (Nick Dinsmore) collapsed in a hotel lobby back in November and was taken to hospital. Then it turned out that he had a painkiller addiction, to Somas I believe, and, since this was in the aftermath of Eddie Guerrero's death and the company needed to be seen as taking a hard line on such matters, he was 'suspended indefinitely'. This really just meant going to rehab, since he came back at the Royal Rumble in January.
And the prospect of a Eugene, Duggan, Doink and Kamala stable just reminds me of the Stereotypes bowling team from The Simpsons.
And way-too-early prediction for WrestleMania 23's title matches - Edge/Cena and Batista/Lashley.
Nick Dinsmore's drugs incident was only a few days after Eddie Guerrero's death, plus it was in public, so it's hardly surprising he was packed off to rehab. But the gimmick was months past its peak by that point anyway. There's a very limited number of stories you can tell with Eugene, since he can only triumph over adversity a limited number of times before it stops being adversity any more.
From what I hear, Nick Dinsmore is actually an excellent technical wrestler. (One dude even compared him to Bret Hart. I doubt he was a rabid Eugene fan (since I doubt there are any) so who knows.) It's be nice to see him change his character and show people what he can do. Maybe turn him heel and have him claim he's been playing everybody all along or something.
That's what they should have done with him back when Triple H was trying to dupe him into getting the title off of Benoit. Instead the 'Cerebral Assassin' just had the grand scheme of trying to convince the mentally handicapped guy to hit someone with a chair. Riiight...
Re: Wrestlemania 23 matches
Batista/Lashley, quite possibly. But I expect that HHH will want to appear in the Wrestlemania main event (and win this time, for that matter).
I'd bet that Shelton Benjamin will win the Money in the Bank match in 2007.
Nick Dinsmore was the OVW Champion for a while and is, by all accounts, very very good indeed. However, he doesn't look like a typical WWE wrestler, and that's why he's doing a "mentally handicapped" gimmick instead. In fairness, I remember reading somewhere that the gimmick was Dinsmore's idea.
A lot of people in the WWE seem to get a kick out of winding up OVW by bringing up their top guys and then burying them with bizarre gimmicks, which is why Eugene's hometown is given as "Louisville, Kentucky" - OVW's headquarters. He's actually from Indiana.
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