lunch

I’m sitting here and accomplishing nothing except planning out an early lunch, so I thought I’d type a few more dumb ideas I have in my head. Lucky you.

– Any hope of the title match for this SD! PPV died somewhere around the time Bradshaw was named #1 contender; it possible it could’ve been saved after then, but it wasn’t very probable.

At that point, resigned to the fate that Judgment Day wasn’t going to work and it was too late to do anything about it, the logical thing would’ve been to start setting a plan in motion for next time, because there’s a quicker turn around to the added Great American Bash PPV in July.

There’s the real problem – it’s not just that there’s no good challenger this month, but there’s not going to be a good challenger next month either. It’s way too soon to try with Dupree, Angle’s too hurt, a match vs the Dudley is not exactly a PPV caliber, and they obviously didn’t want to do Eddie vs Booker or a face this time (when they arguable needed it more), so what’s left?

In most situations, you’d just come back with a stipulation rematch (and maybe even a title change) between Eddie and Bradshaw, but if this thing has flopped as bad as it seems, there’d be no gain in it.

What I’m guessing they’ll do is make it Eddie/Booker, especially if Booker beats the Undertaker somehow – but if they’re doing that, wouldn’t it have more sense to swap the challengers? Give Bradshaw a midcard face to establish the new gimmick as a build to his title match and use the pre-exisiting “Booker hates SD!” stuff to do that title match. Everyone would’ve better off besides the Undertaker, and he’s really getting the same bit no matter which heel he faces. Maybe they’re just not planning it out the same way I am.

Maybe they bail on Eddie and bring someone over to feud/win the title? I dunno.

– To me! (a guy who’s only barely watching SmackDown!), there’s been a lot of filler this PPV cycle, so as long as I’m thinking completely unrealistically, you know what would’ve been a great way to fill some of that space a lot more entertainingly? A WWE Super Junior Tournament.

You get lots of matches (which have the side effect of being good) with plenty of time to either stretch the tournament out over the 7-8 weeks between PPVs here, and maybe sprinkle some important stuff on house shows. The Cruiserweight Division has gotten bland; the newer guys (Akio, London) are faceless, the established guys haven’t been more than Challenger Of The Month for a while, but all having a common goal could give fans new motivation to care about them. And you should be able to come out with 2-4 different storylines. Since I’m being completely unrealistic, if (an alternate universe) SD! did do this, they’d probably even want to bring in outsiders to spice up things.

Two brackets of
– Rey
– Shannon
– Kidman
– Akio
– Ultimo Dragon or someone from Toryumon that’s not busy
– Ultimo Guerrero (CMLL)

– Noble
– Nunzio (THEY’RE COUSINS)
– London
– Chavo (New)
– surprise return of Spanky! or maybe TAKA or some outsider here
– Atlantis (CMLL)

It’s not quite up to NJPW’s version, but it’d be fun TV. In an alternate universe. Where I’d die after getting my Noble/Atlantis match.

Funaki doesn’t get in because I want him and Shannon or him and London having a qualifying match with the Drama of “the glory of the tournament versus the depression of repeated Mark Jindrak matches.” It gets no bigger than that.

– RAW getting bad ratings the last two weeks is a horrible sign for anyone who like the show the last two weeks, I’m thinking. You don’t have to be Evil Triple H to notice ratings are down when Evil Triple H is kept to a minimum.

– I thought WWE stock would be way up today, because they were releasing the skewed quarter numbers (any quarter that has an extra PPV and both Rumble and WM included, is going to look super), but I guess Vince dumping his stock clued people in to the bubble, because they were down for the day at last check.

I wonder if Bradshaw sold his shares?