That Was Then, Is This Too? 02.09.10: Royal Rumble Returns

Posted by Jasper Gerretsen on 02.09.2010

It's the week after the Rumble, and it seems that Edge has plotted out his course on the Road to WrestleMania. Will he succeed where a fellow main-eventer who made a similar return failed?

Welcome to yet another installment of That Was Then, Is This Too?, the column that looks for parallel lines in all the right places. As usual, we have comments:

I absolutely cannot imagine what mental state you'd have to be in to see the Straight Edge Society, and be reminded of THE TRUTH COMMISSION.

I clicked the link thinking I would be reading about one of the most under-rated and under-pushed stables of all time, Right To Censor. Certainly they'd make a better comparison than a heel GI Joe stable?

Posted By: Cactus (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 01:09 PM

Don Callis' run with the Truth Commision was very short, as well as with Faaroog and Bradshaw, and ICP were really the mouthpieces for the Oddities (which I loved since their ranks included the my favorite women wrestler, Luna Vachon). I think to compare Callis to Punk is a disservice to Punk. And, yeah, The Truth Commission? They were barely a thing, much less worthy of using as an example of something besides how not to make a gimmick. RTC does have way more parallels.

Posted By: ThePants (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 05:08 PM

Reading the headline I thought this would have been about Right to Censor. I mean they changed the Godfather a damned pimp around, much like Luke Gallows who was a drugged out idiot in a thinking man again.

Posted By: Guest#1513 (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 08:10 PM

The Truth Commission? Really?

What about Right to Censor? Or better yet- RAVEN'S FLOCK?

Posted By: Really? (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 11:07 PM

I actually enjoyed being reminded of the Jackyl and the Truth Commission, but, as others have suggested, perhaps you could do another article comparing the SES to the Right to Censor or any/all of Raven's followers?

Posted By: Guest#2831 (Guest) on February 03, 2010 at 02:43 PM

The reason I decided to compare Callis to Punk was because they seem to share the role of gifted speakers portraying leaders of a borderline sect. While the Right to Censor stable is quite puritan in its own way, it seems to differ strongly from the Straight Edge society in both its goals and the character Stevie Richards portrayed. I might actually end up doing an article comparing RTC to The Network though. Also, I have to admit, to my shame, that I don't know enough about the various incarnations of Raven's Flock to write a proper article about them.

Don was criminally underused in the role of the Jackyl. He could have been amazing. (I'm required to say this, as a Winnipeg homeboy, Callis' hometown :-) ) More seriously, Heyman (not shockingly) used Callis much better.

Posted By: Iain (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 01:48 PM

I agree that Heyman used Callis much better, but he let his personal dislike of TNN color the booking. "The Network" was the catchall villain, but the good guys rarely if ever got one over, and certainly not for an extended period of time. WCW could get away with this with the NWO because the NWO was insanely over, but the Network was never that over--and even began to draw "Xpac heat" by the summer of 2000.

Posted By: Michael L (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 03:34 PM

Thank you for posting that Jackyl video... one of my favorite moments/promos from the Attitude Era. I LOVED The Jackyl. Callis was criminally misused by the WW(F), but I understand part of that was his fault for drawing nuclear heat for himself backstage.
Also, it's amazing to see how Chris Jericho's current character is so influenced by The Jackyl.

Posted By: Tom (Guest) on February 02, 2010 at 07:53 PM

While I'm aware of some of the rumours surrounding Callis' departure (I seem to recall JBL pretty much admitting to bullying Callis out of the WWF, with the Hardy Boyz doing most of his dirty work), I don't think I've ever read anything about Callis actually having deserved the heat. It certainly wouldn't surprise me though. As for the Network generating X-Pac heat, I never really got that vibe from them.

That leads us to Banner 2.0!



Last week I discussed CM Punk's appearance at the Rumble, and the progress he's making as a cult leader. This week we cover the most important development in the Rumble: The surprise return of the previously injured Edge, who came in at number 29, in one of the most star-studded final five in Royal Rumble history, with at least two dozen world championships between them. He stormed a ring currently occupied by perennial rival John Cena, former tag team partner Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels.

As the crowd went nuts, Edge started throwing Spears, and he soon ended up eliminating former partner Jericho. It was at this point that he was joined by former rival Batista, who stormed the ring like a man possessed. HBK was next to be eliminated, falling victim to Batista, which caused him to take out several officials in his rage. Back inside Cena and Batista countered each other's finishers, and Cena ended up scoring the elimination. That left Edge with Cena, and Edge ended up eliminating him in somewhat anticlimactic fashion, pulling down the ropes to send Cena tumbling out.

It was the glorious return after almost seven months, following a severe injury to his achilles tendon, which he suffered while throwing a chop thrown in a house show match in San Diego. This was disastrous, as the Canadian Egomaniac team of Chris Jericho and Edge, which had come together completely out of nowhere in 2009's The Bash PPV, had just won the unified tag team champions, and was poised to bring the titles back to prominence after years of neglect.

While we were robbed of this dream tag team by this injury, WWE managed to find an adequate replacement in Big Show, who was surprisingly entertaining as Edge's replacement. The team reigned for about six months, mainly taking on the teams of Cryme Tyme and the Hart Dynasty before losing it to D-Generation X, who finally claimed their first tag team titles.

Edge made his return to WWE television on Monday Night Raw, in what was probably the best episode of the guest host era. He cut a promo that was mostly on the babyface side, announcing how deeply insulted he was by Jericho's remarks about him at last year's Slammy Award show, and how it motivated him to work harder than ever before to rehab his achilles tendon, vowing to himself that he'd never miss a WrestleMania again. Most importantly though, he announced his intentions to wait until after the No Way Out Elimination Chamber PPV to announce the champion he intended to challenge at WrestleMania. At that point Edge was interrupted by current WWE champion Sheamus, who obviously had a problem with Edge running his mouth. The inevitable brawl was won by Edge, and Sheamus beat a reluctant retreat.

This wouldn't be his only television appearance this week, as he returned to his home brand of SmackDown to host an episode of his old talkshow, the Cutting Edge, with his guest being none other than the Undertaker. Before all this could take place though, he was confronted by Jericho, who took offense at the way Edge returned. Naturally the talk show broke down into a brawl, with first Jericho and then CM Punk entering to voice their opinion before the Undertaker even arrived. The Deadman arrived on the scene, and a vicious brawl between SmackDown's main event scene errupted, with Undertaker chokeslamming Punk and Edge spearing Jericho. As the show went off the air, the two men stared each other down to set the tone for the coming weeks.

All in all, it looks like the road to WrestleMania is off to an exciting start, with the return of Edge opening a whole slew of interesting options for the main event of the biggest show of the year. Edge is definitely playing it smart, waiting until after the Elimination Chamber PPV to make his choice, which is definitely the smart thing to do when either championship can be held by six differnt people following Elimination Chamber. It seems that he has learned his lesson from the mistakes of another main-eventer who made a similar return just two weeks earlier...

That Was Then...

When a botched hip toss from Mr. Kennedy tore John Cena's pectoral muscle clean off the bone, it meant the end of the longest WWE championship reign in over 20 years. Luckily Cena was scheduled to get beat down by Randy Orton later that night, a beating which he took like a trooper considering the condition he was in. He was scheduled to be out from anywhere between eight months and a year, which meant that he would be back in June at the earliest, with SummerSlam still ahead of him.

In the end, it would only take him four and a half months to return to fighting fitness, and, in a moment that's pretty much impossible in this day and age, surprise everyone by being the final entrant in the 2008 Royal Rumble. He quickly cleared out the riff-raff, until it was down to Triple H, Randy Orton and John Cena, who had formed the core of the Raw main event scene for the past two years. In the end Triple H managed to toss Batista, only to be eliminated by Cena.

In typical gung-ho marine fashion, Cena proved to impatient to wait for WrestleMania. Orton had put an end to Cena's unprecedented thirteen month title reign, and for that he would pay. The match between the two was announced for No Way Out, and in a rather anticlimactic finish, Cena would end up winning by disqualification, which meant that Orton would retain the title.

They would clash again at WrestleMania, this time with Triple H added to the mix to create a triple threat main event. Orton won the match in rather typical fashion, hitting the skull punt on Triple H, who had the match won after hitting Cena with the Pedigree, allowing him to steal the pin and walk out of WrestleMania as a member of a very exclusive clubs: the heels who managed to retain their world championships in the main event of WrestleMania.

Cena meanwhile had joined an equally exclusive club: the Royal Rumble winners who failed to capture the championship. At the moment, over two thirds of all Royal Rumble winners have gone on to capture the title on the grandest stage of them all. In his hurry to get his hands on Orton, Cena became the first Royal Rumble winner since The Rock in 2000 to fail to capture the world championship with his Rumble title shot. Will Edge succeed where Cena hasn't?

...Is This Too?

It seems that Edge will be playing it much safer than Cena, who couldn't even wait until WrestleMania to claim his title shot. With the seemingly new annual tradition of the double elimination chamber at the February PPV, this is definitely the smart choice. After all, no matter which title he chooses to compete for, he'll have no way of knowing which of the six men in the Elimination Chamber main events he'll have to face. By waiting it out, he'll be able to fight whatever champion he wants on his own terms.

This seems to be a classic move from the ultimate oppertunist, but judging from the promos he has cut in the past two weeks, he actually seems to be returning as a babyface. This will take some getting used to, as Edge had been one of WWE's top heels for the past five years. Still, this was to be expected. The pop he got as he made his return wasn't quite on par with what John Cena received in Madison Square Garden, but people were still thrilled to see him.

Of course having Edge return as a babyface would make sense, since he has a natural feud waiting for him with Chris Jericho, and with all of Jericho's promos during Edge's recovery, the only way the feud would work is for Edge to turn face. Like Cena, it seems that this feud will lead up to WrestleMania. With Jericho as part of SmackDown's Elimination Chamber main event, it seems like the most straightforward way to book things would be for Jericho to win the world heavyweight championship, with Edge challenging him at WrestleMania and Undertaker moving off to the rematch with Shawn Michaels.

Like Cena, Edge has returned from injury surprisingly early, managing to catch the IWC dirt sheets completely off guard. They also managed to improve the believability of basic Rumble mechanics by highlighting the importance of a late entry, with Cena becoming only the second wrestler to win as number 30, with Edge doing the same for number 29. They both returned as babyfaces, although Cena was playing the role in a far more obvious way than Edge currently is. As it stands, Edge could easily turn heel as early as the day after WrestleMania, but we shouldn't forget that Edge has been a strong babyface during his singles run on SmackDown following WrestleMania X-8. I have to admit that, despite the fact that I don't dislike Cena nearly as much as seems to be mandatory for IWC membership, I'm definitely looking forward to Edge's road to WrestleMania in 2010 than I was for Cena's road to WrestleMania in 2008.