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August 10, 2007

Just as we thought we were going to get a break from anything named McMahon on WWE TV...HE'S BAAAAACK!!! If you have been under a rock the past few days, Vince made his return on Monday night on RAW. He took shots at Congress, the media, the IRS, and anybody else that made him mad. I was waiting on a shot at Ted Turner or any of his other enemies. The break was good but he once again dominates anything else going on. The HHH-Booker match got a little buildup, enough to tease a Triple H return on Monday. The WWE Championship match got a little buildup, but not enough to make it a must-see match. I've always believed you should build your PPV as much as you can each week without making people sick. Right now, you could make a case for a Triple Threat match because Carlito could honestly say he's the #1 Contender. But, did we get the buildup we needed this week? No. Every time you turn around, there was Vince taking another shot at his critics. I know Vince has a lot of stress on him, but he could have had a Byte This! special like he did on the last episode of the show. But, on RAW, there was hardly any build up.

The buildup for the ECW World Championship match has been better than the WWE Championship and Vince should see that as a slap in the face. The week after Orton got the #1 Contender spot, he defeated Sgt. Slaughter. This week, they should have had him defeat Hacksaw Jim Duggan or some other legend. Instead, they had him run in twice on Cena and pick Cena's opponent, who ended up turning on Orton & Carlito. The buildup so far for the title match has been lack luster. This upcoming week, the tag match will be fine. They really can't do a "hope they co-exist" deal because they did that before Wrestlemania. They could do a "Pick Your Poison" series of matches. They could do a deal where Orton wasn't allowed to touch Cena until Summerslam, kind of like what they did before Wrestlemania 21 with Cena & JBL. They could have Cena pull up in a car and Orton destroys it with a bat later on. Quite frankly, we don't see many wrestlers' cars get destroyed by their opponents anymore. If Orton was the champ, he could make Cena run a gauntlet before he faces him. If Cena ends up facing the tag champs, Cade & Murdoch, he'll run over them because he already has once in the Champions Challenge match. If that's the case, Cena should face the Highlanders because they're part of the 18 guys on RAW that he hasn't run over yet. The whole point is the buildup for the supposed title change hasn't been good at all.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is Smackdown needs a new face to challenge for the title. I know Batista is over with the crowd, but he's about as bad as Cena as far as being around the title picture is concerned. At Summerslam, it will be a full year that Batista has been around the title picture. He challenged for it until he won it at Survivor Series. He kept it until he lost at Wrestlemania. He stuck around until Edge came over and he challenged him for a while. Then, whenever Edge got hurt and Khali won, he was thrust back into the title picture. Right now, there's not many people that can challenge for the belt as a face other than Batista. Matt Hardy is more than ready for the challenge. Kane is long overdue for a title shot & reign. Rey Mysterio will be back soon, but it's already been discussed that even though he drew well as the champ, Vince doesn't want to put the title back on him. I think it would be a good thing. Finlay could turn face and challenge for the title. It all remains to be seen, but Batista needs to drop out of the title picture as soon as possible.

ECW has gotten stale. I'm not just talking about the title picture. I'm talking about how the same guys fight the same guys each week. It's a given that each week, we'll see a Punk-Morrison segment/match, an Elijah Burke win over an ECW Original, a Big Daddy V squash match, a Miz bore-fest, and maybe a match between Richards-Thorn-Nunzio-Mahoney-Dreamer. It's the same guys every week. ECW needs some fresh blood. If ECW is the breeding ground for future stars, they need some future stars. My whole Invasion angle I proposed last week could work this out. They could redo the rosters and send guys to ECW or RAW or Smackdown by having them "defect" to the show. Some guys that could go to ECW would be Santino Marella, Kenny Dykstra, Super Crazy, Val Venis, and Snitsky should have stayed in ECW. ECW needs some fresh stars, whether it be guys that haven't gotten over yet or fresh guys from developmental.