theFRANCHISE

Watch some of The Rock's old matches with Triple H or his little-remembered gems with The Undertaker at King of the Ring 1999, against Chris Benoit at Fully Loaded 2000, and against Kurt Angle at No Way Out 2001; the man can work all styles and can even do a great bit of technical wrestling, as needed. His biggest strength (other than his mic work) has always been his ability to tell a story in the ring, and his timing and pacing is impeccable.

Rock doesn't even need to wrestle regularly in the build-up to a WrestleMania match with Cena, he just needs to do taped vignettes every other week or just something to keep in relevant enough in that time. Bottom line, ring rust or no ring rust, I just want my idol back in the ring one more time!

I don't care if it's a one-and-done angle, I want The Rock to come back and be the "savior"!!! Just because I want Rock back on TV that badly. I've been on a YouTube-watching binge lately, looking up clips of The Great One's highlights.

There's too many top heels right now and not enough top faces. They need to focus on pushing Christian as a main event face first before they turn him heel -- unless they were to take another top heel and turn them face.

See, I like Matt Hardy as a person, from what I've seen of his interactions with fans online. But that said, he's always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder because of how his brother has always gotten better opportunities despite having better matwork than Jeff. Irrespective of all that, Matt Hardy may have a large fan following, but how long can they keep using him in his role as the "most popular midcard talent ever" before fans stop caring? I've stopped caring about him ever since his botched heel turn against his brother and he's done nothing to really deserve a bigger push. His mic work is atrocious and is unlikely to improve, and his ring work is too bland for my taste. Jeff, meanwhile, is all about the high spots, which masks his deficiencies as a worker. I've always thought Jeff was overrated (even though I've enjoyed quite a few of his PPV matches) and never truly deserving of all the big breaks he got, especially given his spotty track record. The Hardy Boyz need to accept that they're better as a tag team than as solo stars, and that they need to remain a tag team for the rest of their careers or risk being pushed to the side sooner than they expect.

Jericho can make anyone look good, even someone as limited (but talented in his own right) as the Big Show. Therefore, you can't judge anyone's ability on the basis of their match with Y2J, as he has the Midas Touch in the ring. That said, I still see too much inconsistency with Danielson to really say he's everything that his Internet fans say he is. Flashes of talent, yes. But he's not the next great world champion like I've been reading. Sure, the WWE style is watered-down for many purists, but watered-down doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. I'm sorry that I'm not entertained by 6-hour tournaments like in Japan or that I can't watch a match with unknown stars and no storyline and say that I'll be entertained the entire time. This whole shift to PG was necessary, given that the Attitude Era's demographic has grown up and started their own families. People had outgrown the product. Therefore, if you can't push the envelope any further because of how desensitized people have become, the only course of action is to scale things back and go after a different audience. In time, things will become edgy again -- but as TNA is proving, edgy doesn't necessarily mean quality. I prefer these PG-era storylines because they're more focused on character development than before, and the wrestlers have to work harder to put on good matches and convey the emotions needed, as they can't say or do the things they used to do before.

They need to keep his character like this for as long as they can, as I feel as if it's an easy way for Orton to switch between heel and face without having to come up with a ridiculous reason for it. Will it get stale? Possibly, but at the same time, having a neutral character would be a great test of Orton's acting ability. That said, I always mark out these days whenever Orton does his signature pose since I've taken to doing it myself in public randomly.

Whenever I argue with someone about Bryan Danielson, I always get accused of not appreciating good matwork. However, that can't be the case if I'm a Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle fan and actually like William Regal's work even watered-down in WWE. Regal is the ultimate litmus test for any hardcore wrestling fan, as his style is an acquired taste and one where you have to appreciate the technical aspects of his work rather than the aesthetics. Though Danielson cites these guys as his idols and the ones who he molds his style after, he doesn't have their charisma or even their storytelling ability in the ring. One of the basic fundamentals of matwork is crowd psychology, and I'm not sure he knows how to work a crowd as consistently as the aforementioned guys. Sure, he has a hardcore following in Ring of Honor -- but that's not the same as getting a reaction on the level of Kurt Angle regardless of the audience he wrestles in front of. I've even had casual fans walk into the room during a Kurt Angle match and remark at how good he is. WWE's burial of Bryan Danielson is not as tragic of an event for the wrestling world as some smart marks have made it out to be on the Internet. And best believe, Danielson possibly signing to TNA wouldn't be the game-changer that some fans think it'd be.

I have mixed feelings about the angle, as I feel that the majority of those guys will fade into obscurity once the stable is broken up -- or, they could conceivably surprise me like Evolution did, when Randy Orton and Batista became mega-stars years later. Either way, I'm at least intrigued by where this is heading and they've got me tuning in every week. As for the hypocrisy of Bryan Danielson's firing compared to the gangland-like assaults on Cena and Ricky Steamboat, it all boils down to backstage politics. But in all honesty, I think WWE was just looking for a reason to get rid of Danielson and they found it. I've always had this feeling that Danielson took the chip that was on his shoulder for being a journeyman indy wrestler and turned it into a sense of entitlement when he hit the mainstream. Also, WWE didn't like that he was an Internet darling and made no bones about their feelings towards him. I'm not one of those smarks who prefers Indie wrestling exclusively to the mainstream stuff just because it's untainted by corporate culture, as I feel that is a bit elitist. I like the mainstream stuff because it's the right blend of entertainment and athleticism for me. Frankly, watching Danielson's matches, I wasn't too impressed, so I'd have to side with WWE in terms of how he wasn't anything that special. I'll take The Miz over Danielson any day, after how far Miz has come from when he started.

There was an injury angle done this week with one of the competitors (won't spoil it for you) so that list of entrants may not last into the PPV and there could conceivably be a surprise entrant up to that point.

I didn't get to watch all of RAW last night (and what I was able to watch, was muted because I was on the phone), but it looked like a pretty good episode. I also read that, despite the tease last night during one of the anonymous GM's announcements, the GM is NOT Stone Cold Steve Austin. Reports still point to Abraham Washington, but I'm still expecting him to be a big name OR Michael Cole; they can give Abraham Washington the role after the big name steps down.

I wouldn't mind Orton, but the problem is, there's not a lot of top faces on the roster right now. If they have a face take on Taker, that person would have to be so over as a face that they would be able to get the fans back on their side after the angle is over, or it'd have to be someone they're willing to turn heel, or it has to be an established heel. A face-vs-face program rarely works and there's very few exceptions in recent memory; the only two that come to mind are Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker the past two years and The Rock vs. Stone Cold in 2001.

As much as Undertaker-Cena would be a huge cash cow, I think it'd be more appropriate for Undertaker to finish his career against a quality opponent who is just as much of a legend as he is. In short, it has to be one of two people: Chris Jericho or Triple H. Jericho is arguably the very best in mainstream wrestling today, alongside Kurt Angle. Unless Angle somehow makes his way back to WWE by then (which he probably won't), it'd only be appropriate for one of the all-time greats in the Undertaker to finish his career against a man who can put on Hall-of-Fame caliber performances like Jericho. Alternately, Triple H would also be a fitting opponent; their careers have continually crossed paths, but they've rarely wrestled one another in a significant singles match. Their first meeting at WrestleMania XVII was much better than people expected for a match with such a short build. Also, Triple H is as much of a hallmark of the WWF/WWE as Undertaker is, and both men were at the peaks of their career in the Attitude Era. Though Undertaker-Cena is considered a dream match for the fans, I'm not convinced that Cena can keep up his end of the bargain in creating an instant classic worthy of the Undertaker's final match. Cena has had some good performances in the past, but he's mostly been inconsistent the past couple of years. I would love to see Cena get pinned and let 'Taker end with his undefeated WrestleMania streak intact, I admit. But I don't think that it's a match that purists and casual fans would both be pleased by.

I guess Titus O'Neil didn't make it a win. YouTube

That'd probably be the worst-worked match in wrestling history, just because of Khali.

Been there, done that. There was a time when the Undertaker "died," only to be resurrected and took out a ring full of wrestlers in the early '90s. I don't want to see WWE be like TNA and start recycling old '90s storylines again...

You have to keep in mind the attention span of the average television viewer, though. I love the slow build to feuds (recently, Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels comes to mind), but not everyone can take that kind of pacing. Given that a large portion of their demographic these days is young children and teenagers, they have to keep them constantly entertained, hence the short build-up to each PPV. If anything, I see the three-week build between PPVs as a healthy challenge for the writing staff and they've done a decent job recently. They have to be so much more succinct with each show's main event feuds, rather than waste time with filler as they had done even in the Attitude Era. I remember when there'd be times where a main event feud might be ignored for a week before being revisited again, and we'd be left wondering if we'd see a payoff at any point.

You have to keep in mind, though, that the brand-specific PPVs were flawed because they had to take brand-specific storylines and stretch them out for three hours. Now, I've heard the argument that a two-hour show for a reduced price would work, but the problem with that is there's no justification for paying for two hours of programming in the minds of viewers since the average PPV sporting event lasts three hours anyway. Additionally, even a match-filled two hours wouldn't give the proper time for each match. Furthermore, if you really look at the storylines on each show, there isn't really enough worthwhile material that could be stretched to three hours' worth of matches. Also, Backlash traditionally has had at least one WrestleMania heavyweight title rematch every year except in cases of injury, or some variation of a WrestleMania main event matchup expanded to include other participants.

Apparently, in an eerie moment where life imitates art, Ricky Steamboat was legitimately hospitalized last night after complaining of neck and shoulder pains. There had been early talk that he had suffered an aneurysm but that looks to have been debunked. This doesn't look to be a shoot angle, as WWE.com acknowledged the news but worded the statement carefully, saying Steamboat had participated in a "stunt" on Monday night but the hospitalization doesn't appear to be related to the "performance." In other words, without breaking kayfabe, they acknowledged that Steamboat was in the hospital for a legit injury. Hoping the man pulls through...also interested to see if WWE will simply drop all references to the Monday attack on the next broadcast and have Nexus move onto a different target.

McIntyre winning the match wouldn't be a lock since his push has been inconsistent as of late. Every time it looks as if they'll push him stronger, they pull back and do something to weaken his character. There's talk that he's rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with his arrogance backstage. Also, there's a sneaking suspicion that, if his real-life wife Tiffany wasn't popular backstage, McIntyre wouldn't have much of a push at all. As for The Rock being rumored to be the GM of RAW for the summer, that's not entirely true; The Rock was looking to come back and do something special in terms of maybe a documentary-style show or something on the side, not necessarily be the weekly host/GM of RAW. However, that idea might come to fruition for at least a month or two, given that Rock doesn't have to shoot another movie until September or October and I don't think he's doing much in the way of promotion for any other movie yet other than The Other Guys coming out soon. The writers have to be extra-careful with how they manage this Nexus group for the next month or so since they run the risk of making these group ambushes stale. There's only so many of these main event run-ins they can do before they start to lose their shock value.

I thought the MITB match at WrestleMania was running its course even before the PPV was announced; granted, I still looked forward to the match itself the past few years, but given the number of times that Edge had cashed it in or the numerous "swerve" moments where the winner would ambush the champ and win it shortly after WrestleMania, the payoff got stale and predictable. I'm all for keeping the match at WrestleMania while still having a themed PPV in the same year, but they need to add something to the WM match to make it special. Perhaps putting a secondary title on the line along with a future heavyweight title shot? That way, the winner (in theory) gets a sustained push as, say, the Intercontental/U.S. Champion and/or the Money in the Bank briefcase holder and/or the WWE/World Heavyweight Champion. They could book the winner to eventually lose the IC/US title and still have the briefcase, have the winner lose the briefcase in a stipulation but still have the US/IC title, or have the winner become a dual title-holder. That gives the writers flexibility in branching out the storyline while still giving the winner a strong push -- which adds to the weight and gravity of being booked to win the MITB match at WrestleMania, where stars are born.

Like most play-by-play analysts in the business, his job was basically to defend all the faces while the color commentator played the heel. So, really, you can't fault him for that. You can fault him for being a below-average commentator and still somehow having a job after all these years, though... I think Vince just keeps him around because he's the only one besides J.R. who's taken all his crap and still showed up to work the next day. I think that Cole could easily be a heel since the fans already hate him. They don't hide their hatred of him whenever he comes out, and they experimented with him playing a heel announcer when he was moonlighting as a color commentator on the first season of NXT. He still has a long way to go before he can be a truly good heel announcer, but he can at least get genuine heel heat...even if it's go-away heat.

Ohhhh, Maryse and Eve, how you both have my heart... That aside... I like the build-up to this anonymous GM on RAW, even going so far as to give Michael Cole a podium that said "General Manager" on it -- but he's probably a red herring. I would love for Cole to be a heel GM and to get away from announcing duties, but that probably won't happen. The writing behind this mystery is actually pretty well-done if you consider all the clues planted that point to Cole, but I hope the pay-off is certainly worth it if it's NOT him. I can't imagine it'd be Bret Hart (no logic there) so the only person that I would honestly be satisfied with (off the top of my head) is The Rock as a heel. Rock did say he'd do something special this summer with WWE but never said what. He hinted at a documentary series-type dealie, but nothing was ever announced. Additionally, even with Rock's upcoming film schedule, there really hasn't been much on the internet in the way of Rock's promotional appearances over the next couple of months (though I honestly didn't look too hard). Two months of The Rock making plenty of appearances on TV, even just weekly, should be enough to tide me over for a year...

Good stuff, man. I'm not really surprised that the wrestlers put on a good show -- the true professionals are the ones who use these house shows to experiment and develop chemistry with their opponents before they have their big match on TV or PPV. Sounds like most of them were consummate professionals. Rarely have I heard of any fan being disappointed by a house show. TV tapings and live TV events, that's a different story...I suppose the lack of a camera removes a lot of pressure for some of the talent, which brings out the best in them.

Even though I'm obviously a Rock fan, I have a newfound appreciation for his ringwork every time I go back and watch some of his matches. He wasn't the flashiest guy and was mostly a brawler (which many main eventers seem to be these days), he was able to work technically-sound matches when he had to. His WWF Title matches with Kurt Angle at No Way Out 2001 and with Chris Benoit at Fully Loaded 2000 are both prime examples of being able to keep up with two of the best workers in the history of the business. There was more than just brawling, Rock was able to actually take some moves that he normally doesn't take against his usual opponents; people don't realize that being a good wrestler isn't just having a wide repertoire, but also knowing how to take and sell your opponent's moves as well. If you don't know how to take and sell your opponent's move, then the move doesn't look as effective. The art of putting on a great match lies mostly in making your opponent look as good as possible and hoping your opponent returns the favor. Rock's matches with Stone Cold are probably some of the best-worked matches in mainstream wrestling history, as both men are masters of storytelling in the ring.