I have like 5 posts stuck in my head and no time to get them at least to my fingers, which is doing nothing to make them timely – do your really want thoughts on the ROH show that’s not a week and two shows ago? – but I found time to get THIS done. Priorities are all messed up, what can I say.
Heat 11/04 – nothing makes you want to buy a PPV more than seeing unrelated preliminary matches from previous shows. Do they think these shows are selling anything? They’re poor hype – the only time they even went over the lineup for the show were the post match commercials (and no one watches those but me.)
On the other hand, the show was generally amusing – as if all these studio shows have driven people besides me crazy – and I’ve decided the cameo was a shout out to me, and you can’t convince me otherwise. HI.
Since it doesn’t be seem to be used elsewhere, my PPV picks for Cyber Sunday follow.
John Cena vs Booker T vs Big Show
winning stip: Booker T’s title on the line
winner: John Cena (new champion)
I believe this is the only match where the chosen stipulation will actually affect who wins. The safe guess is the guy who puts the title on the line just retains the title by sneaking in a pinfall after some questionable act, but that would be horribly unfun and defeat the point of the stipulation. WWE is certainly capable of that, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about here (that’s not new either!) SmackDown needs John Cena, even for just a short time, and RAW still hasn’t set up another challenger – beating up Jim Duggan and Eugene doesn’t seem like a direct springboard to main eventing a PPV. Why not? If Show’s title on the line, I guess they could try the same thing, but it seems a little less likely. If Cena’s title is on the line – are you kidding me? No chance for that.
Edge & Randy Orton b DX
Winning Stip: Vince
Winning Team: Edge & Randy Orton
They’ve tried to tell people who to vote for on all the championships, and I guess the idea is they want us to vote for Vince here – but I couldn’t tell you why. Certianly, it’s an obvious choice for Vince and those close to him, but I don’t they’ve made any other case than “He’s Vince McMahon.” (Well, maybe “You hate Vince slightly less than the other two.”) I would not be the least bit surprised if Eric wins this, and I’d actually be thrilled with that outcome because of how insane it might make WWE go. Anwyay, the refs are all heels, they’re all going to screw over DX the same, we should be rooting for DX to overcome it all and win anyway, but they’ve built the reverse way and Edge & Orton have to win, or DX is out of people to face.
IC Title match
Winning Stip: Carlito
Winner: Carlito
Carlito winning is the easiest prediction on the whole show. It’ll be interesting to see what Shelton gets, since he’s the guy doing nothing here – not hanging with K-Fed, not having odd conversations with Torrie – and hasn’t done anything since he and Coach had discussions about race in today’s WWE. He won’t win, but I wonder how close he’ll be to being this year’s Matt Hardy. Whoever faces Jeff wins the title. The title means nothing, and this is their yearly attempt to show Your Votes Mean Something by having a meaningless title change hands.
Ric Flair & partner beat the Spirit Squad, win the tag team titles
Winning Stip: Roddy Piper
Winners: Ric Flair and partner
I guess they could put off the title change here, and do it on Monday night with Cryme Tyme, but I think they want to sell this as a thing where a lot of things happened, and another pointless title change gives it that impression. I think Piper’s stronger with the fans who are going to be voted – who’ve at least seen him and Slaughter around – though I get the impression they’d prefer Dusty. If they take the titles, they probably lose them Monday.
Umaga vs ?
Winning Stip: Chris Benoit
Winner: Umaga
Who wins the stip is much more interesting than the match – I’m thinking no more than 8 minutes and some Estrada cheating to keep the winning streak intact, especially since they can’t be going to a feud from here. Kane is the pick they surely want us to have, but if you’re putting a vote up on the internet, and you’re putting Chris Benoit’s name in it, Chris Benoit’s going to win even on WWE.com.
Lita vs Mickie James
Winning Stip: No DQ
Winner: Lita
The annual match with stips no cares about. There’s not even a reason for them; they’re just there because that’s what has to be done and no one thought ahead to build to something. Since it’s now perfectly obvious that the faulty idea of a tournament was to stall on doing the Lita/Mickie match for seven weeks, it makes you wonder why they just didn’t cut out the completely worthwhile first round stuff (if not the whole tournament), and actually built to something here. Heck, with the right setup, they could’ve put “Loser Leaves Town” as one of the stips, and if the fans happened to vote for it, Lita just goes home a month early, and the fans votes actually do mean something. Maybe they could’ve also squeezed in time for Mickie to actually turn face, instead of the announcers just pretending it happened when weren’t looking.
ANYWAY. A submission match here would be fascinating. A no DQ match sure should mean a repeat of the Candice/Lita match, if they can think that far back. I think they’re betting on a lumberjack match, and it’d be a definitive statement about what the Cyber Sunday voter is looking for a women’s match if that’s the pick. I’m picking No DQ for no good reason, and I’m picking Lita so Mickie can win it later on.
Tag Team Turmoil
Winning Stip: Texas Tornado
Winner: Cryme Tyme
This is probably going to be confused selection of the night; if they feel the need to explain how you win a bra and panties match every time they have one, I don’t think the average voter is going to know the difference between the three types of matches offered here. I’ll guess Texas Torando, and the newest pushed team, though Cade & Murdoch winning to set up a title change the next day wouldn’t surprise me. I’d guess this happens before the tag team title match, but the result there is going to be the reverse of this match.