Another week and the Granddaddy of them all draws ever nearer, there are still some questions to be answered and match-card space to be allocated so several rising stars in the WWE with no current chances to have their Wrestlemania moment might still have a shot. This week though there was little to no real significant events in the lead up to ‘Mania so I think we can class it as a filler week. TNA on the other hand are on the countdown to Lockdown, an event which is usually well worth the money and has rivalled Wrestlemania for its entertainment value in the past, but can it do the same this year? We’ll just have to wait and see, but for now let’s just get on with the report…

Weekly Top Ten:

1st Place: Michael Cole (10/10)

It’s happened, hell has finally frozen over and a jumped up, little tool of an announcer has made it to the top of the heel report. The simple fact is that Cole’s heel presence is being pushed so hard in the lead up to their match at ‘Mania that he has eclipsed all others through constantly getting one up on Jerry Lawler and so far never getting his comeuppance.

2nd Place: Jack Swagger (9/10)

The same goes for Cole’s trainer in second place, less annoying mic promos but an easy win against R-Truth on Smackdown gets Swagger into second place. While I still think that Swagger’s career prospects have gone down since last year, this opportunity to help Cole at ‘Mania really has been an opportunity considering that in the last few months Swagger has had little to do until now.

3rd Place: Wade Barrett (8/10)

The English Rose has become the new intercontinental champion. I’m happy that Barrett has won some singles gold but it comes at the expense of Kingston after zero build. This pre-Wrestlemania shuffle with the mid-card titles is not an encouraging sign for things to come, even just before the biggest event in the WWE’s calendar things seem to be being booked from week to week.

4th Place: C.M. Punk (7/10)

The lone Straight-Edge Saviour managed to get one over on Orton for once, as well as face the ridiculously hard to beat underdog (a terrible contradiction in terms); Rey Mysterio, without actually losing the match. This gets him back into the upper half of the heel report and a good job to as the Miz was closing in on the top spot of the overall report before this week.

5th Place: Sheamus (6/10)

It was payback time for the new United States champion this week as he squashed a still injured Evan Bourne after his victory over the Celtic Warrior on Raw a couple of weeks ago. A quick kick and the Ginger Giant continues his renewed winning ways before Wrestlemania, despite not having any real storyline to play off of going into the Granddaddy of them all.

6th Place: The Miz (5/10)

A far fall for the Chick Magnet Champion this week as all he does is unveil a very uncontroversial belt on Raw that has Cena’s spinner design turned upside down. It was lazy and clearly designed just so that Cena could mock it, which means that the Miz was being used as a tool to put over Cena, which means that he can fall back down the chart to somewhere outside of the top five. So there.

7th Place: Abyss (4/10)

The return of the Monster this week brought a sudden chaos to the world of TNA. It’s good to see Abyss back again but I am a little concerned with the removal of A.J. Styles from Fortune since the group isn’t anywhere near as impressive without him, and with the Monster returning they need to be as impressive as possible at this point.

8th Place: Cody Rhodes (3/10)

A sneak attack on Mysterio gets the former dashing one onto the chart this week, although his whole facemask attack thing looks a little too much like a bird pecking at a worm to truly be taken seriously. Hopefully their match at Wrestlemania will see Mysterio being put on the shelf for awhile and taking a more relaxed role like the Undertaker, who only comes out for the big pay days.

9th Place: The Pope (2/10)

Developing his preacher heel persona and schooling a terrible rip-off of a sidekick gets the Pope back in the chart. The Pope has a world of potential and looked to be on track for awhile there while A.J. Styles was the heel champion, but then Hogan, Bischoff, Hardy and RVD came into the picture and knocked him off alignment, even now it looks like he has a far way to go to get back on top.

10th Place: Vicky Guerrero (1/10)

Excuse me, who did Morrison have to piss off to get put in the position to be pinned by the former assistant GM of Smackdown. This again is a bit of a letdown after Morrison looked to be on such a high a couple of months ago. I’m not really sure how he lost his momentum but at least he is still going to Wrestlemania, even if it is in a novelty match to get the event media attention.

Overall Top Ten:

1st Place: C.M. Punk (89/120)

2nd Place: The Miz (86/120)

3rd Place: Alberto Del Rio (72/120)

4th Place: Wade Barrett (37/120)

5th Place: Jeff Jarrett (34/120)

6th Place: Dolph Ziggler (33/120)

7th Place: Michael Cole (30/120)

8th Place: Jack Swagger (28/120)

9th Place: Sheamus (18/120)

10th Place: Bully Ray (16/120)

Weekly Filler:

The Face-Off: Face Champions

In the space of two weeks, two lighter-weight face champions; Kofi Kingston and Daniel Bryan, have been taken out by bigger, heel contenders. Both of whom had barely any reason or build for their title matches. I will rant about that later but for now let’s focus on why the champions lost the belts. Personally I believe this is for two reasons; first is the emphasis on the main event picture as of late, letting the other divisions slip into near trivial status. The second is the limited storyline potential of a face champion in a PG orientated company. The emphasis on the big money drawers is nothing new but I don’t believe it’s ever been as unbalanced as it is now, we’ve seen the Hardcore and Cruiserweight titles disappear, never to be replaced. As well as the IC title go and then be brought back again. The tag team and women’s title has been spilt and then reabsorbed, and yes this happened with the world and WWE titles, becoming the undisputed championship and back again. The problem with all these lucid championships is that they will always distract from the integrity of the belt because changing the format or position of a belt means that the company feel that something isn’t working and needs to be changed, when really all that needs to be done is give the belt a stable champion. ROH had a running theme a few years ago of Samoa Joe trying to bring prestige to the ROH world title by defending the belt and remaining champion and it is that simple; if you have a champion who takes on all comers and defends the belt in an impressive fashion then your belt will be worth something and the division should in theory flourish. This is all dependant on whether the writers choose to utilise this fertility in the division but that is a given if it is there. The WWE’s problem is to them having a guy simply carrying around the title without ever defending it is a proper way to legitimise the wrestler and the belt, when really it just causes both to stagnate.

This is the second problem, in this PG era, while all the focus is on the main event scene, the WWE has allowed its belts to be attached to faces who just keep the belt for an age without ever defending it. I think this is because in a PG era when you are appealing to children you can write yourself into a corner by making an up-and-coming face champion as the kids want to cheer them and they can’t really understand that sometimes a face has to lose, so therefore you have to let them win to keep your target audience happy. But also at the moment the WWE they are building up a bunch of mid-card heels to the main event so you can’t keep on having them losing to these faces, therefore the belts just don’t get defended for ages to avoid anyone losing momentum, until that is creative get bored and just make the faces drop the belt with no build, thus cheapening the division further. It’s not a good system and that’s why at the moment heel champions do more for the belts, because they can retain unfairly and no one loses any momentum. So long-standing heel champions are the way forward, although this will also get tiring in awhile, but possibly not for the kiddie fans that the company are trying to please, just like Power Rangers.

Face the Facts: The Network in TNA

I’m split on this one because while it is kind of a cheap gimmick just to make sure Immortal doesn’t have ultimate power, even though they are now claiming they do, it also works to at least a degree. I liked that Anderson questioned who the ‘Network’ was because if you just blindly accept it as a device then it can lead to sloppy writing because it will be something used to justify any type of match or swerve that TNA wants, and that is the worst thing that could happen. Better to use it sparingly like the WWE’s board of directors back when Mr. McMahon was in charge, mostly he got away with things but occasionally if he was going too far the board of directors would step in and mess things up for him, pretty much the way he does with GMs now. It just works.

Flat-Footed: Pointless Title Changes

Let’s forgo any positive heel comments this week for another rant, yay! I’ve discussed what I think is wrong with the champions of the midcard title switches that have occurred these past two weeks and now I will discuss the challengers. Now I have no problem with either Sheamus or Wade Barrett becoming champion, I think they will both be good as mid-card champions, but again it just feels like they were given the belts as props going into Wrestlemania. “Oh two of our biggest rising stars have nothing to do for Wrestlemania: Give them the belts that will sort them out.”

There was no build, there was no storyline, and there was no real reason for either man to get a title shot in the first place. It’s a hard road to be seen as a legitimate champion when someone just hands you the belt, especially when you aren’t really allowed to defend it clean. I just hope their reigns don’t turn out to be arbitrary like the very belts they have won.

That’s all for this week, apart from the lazy title changes of the past two weeks there seems to be little else the WWE is doing to prepare the roster for their biggest event of the year. It seems like the company is more concerned with getting in outside stars and attention rather than actually pleasing the already existing fan-base with properly formed feuds and enjoyable match set ups. Still there is everything to play for and either company could pull off a major PPV event, it’s only a question of who will be better in the end, although right now, my money’s with the WWE. This is James Wight signing off.

Source: wrestlingtruth.com