Schmozzes & Screwjobs 05.01.07: Edge Screwed Cena (Part I of V)
Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 05.01.2007
"Edge has shocked the world!" - Joey Styles. And I saw Lita's boob.
Why waste time with introductions when we have a column to get to? Enjoy.
Curtain Jerkin'
-I'll say this now - John Cena will get a good match out of The Great Khali. Cena will sell his ass off to Khali's offense and make it look good. Cena will work harder than he's ever work before because he knows that people will be waiting to shit all over this match because it's Khali and Cena and people will be wanting to hate on Cena; this will give them the chance to do that. I'm not saying this will be like Cena/Umaga but it will be good. WHEN Cena gets a good match out of Khali at Judgment Day, he will officially become THE MAN. And credit on the E for holding off to the big blow off to Cena/HBK. Too many blow offs on one pay-per-view isn't good.
-Manchester United all but won the Premiership on Saturday with a 4-2 win over Everton which puts United 5 points clear at the top after Chelsea only managed a 2-2 draw at home to Bolton. United would need to lose two of the remaining three games left but with Chelsea visiting Arsenal next week, United could officially win it in the Manchester Derby against City if Chelsea fail to beat Arsenal. Of course I would prefer it if United went Stamford Bridge a week tomorrow and won the title at Chelsea. In other Man United related news, they fought hard to earn a 3-2 win at Old Trafford last week to take a slight advantage back to the San Siro against AC Milan in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final. All I can say is come on United!
-This past weekend I attended the 2007 Give It A Name festival in Birmingham with headliners such as Jimmy Eat World, Brand New, The All-American Rejects, The Used and my favourite band of all time, HIM. This was the second time I have attend GIAN as last year was headlined by the likes of My Chemical Romance, Lostprophets, Panic! At The Disco, Taking Back Sunday, Paramore, Gym Class Heroes and Angels and Airwaves. I would probably not have gone this year if it wasn't for HIM but I had a great time and enjoyed seeing some of the new bands such as Cute Is What We Aim For and Madina Lake. Now that I've seen Ville Valo and the rest of HIM performing live, I can cross another life goal of my list. In celebration, today's Top 5 YouTubes of the week are made up entirely of HIM music videos.
-Last Thursday I considered purchasing Mick Foley's Have A Nice Day and The Hardcore Diaries which were both going reasonably cheap but instead opted to save my money for a later date. Then on the same day I found Foley is Good lurking in a car boot sale for just a pound so I figured I couldn't go wrong and picked it up. I've only read just past the first half of it so far but I can say I'm really enjoying reading it. It's the first of Foley's books I've read and now I'm sure I'll be getting the rest as soon as I can afford it. On that note, if anyone knows which wrestling autobiographies are worth reading let me know. I've already got the autobiographies of Eddie Guerrero, Eric Bischoff, Ric Flair, Edge, Shawn Michaels, Lita and now Mick Foley but I know there are many more out there.
-The Top 5 Most Played of the Week
1. Wings of a Butterfly - HIM
2. Buried Alive by Love - HIM
3. Swing, Swing - All-American Rejects
4. Your Sweet 666 - HIM
5. House of Cards - Madina Lake
-Here are the poll results from last week's column.
Did Kurt Angle's 1st WWE Title reign have any credibility?
Yes – 74%
No – 26%
The Screwjob
Edge Screws Cena (Part 1 of 4)
January 8th 2006
New Year's Revolution
Albany, New York @ The Pepsi Center
Background Information: On a March episode of Monday Night Raw in 2005 Chris Jericho made the announcement that he had come up with an idea, an ingenious plan that would have huge effects on WrestleMania 21 which was fast approaching. Simply put this idea was sure to be "Money in the Bank." In the next few weeks we would find out that "Money in the Bank" was a six person ladder match with a briefcase suspended high above the ring. Inside that briefcase was a contract that guaranteed the winner a world championship opportunity any time they wanted within the next 12 months. Kane, Christian, Chris Benoit, Shelton Benjamin, Edge and Jericho himself would be the first six competitors to compete in Money in the Bank.
So on April 3rd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, these six fierce competitors stepped into the ring and battled it out for a championship opportunity. All six Superstars showed tremendously ability, including Shelton Benjamin's now famous ladder run and the clothesline that knocked Jericho off another ladder. In the end it was Chris Benoit who appeared to be the likely winner as the briefcase was just inches away from his grasp but Edge snuck back into the ring and used a steel chair to knock Benoit off the ladder. Edge then proceeded to ascend the ladder and become the first ever winner of Money in the Bank! From here Edge would go on an unprecedented roll that even saw him win the Gold Rush tournament in May to become #1 contender for the World Heavyweight Championship and along the way he revealed an alliance with Lita who helped Edge beat Kane in the Gold Rush final. Edge's title shot against Batista was an unsuccessful one as The Animal put Edge away with a Batista Bomb but Edge had proven that he could hang with the top talent in the company.
Video package - Money in the Bank Ladder Match – WrestleMania 21
Fast forward to the summer and WWE's second draft lottery. On Chris Jericho's Highlight Reel Jericho announced the first draft pick was the WWE Champion John Cena! The Champ would go onto to overcome every odd thrown at him by Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff include a triple threat match against Christian and Chris Jericho, and Jericho again at Summerslam. It was around the time of Summerslam that the first few boos began to emerge from the crowds and by the time Cena was feuding with Kurt Angle in the autumn, Cena was getting booed out of buildings across the country and it was becoming clear that the fans were rebelling against John Cena. Wether it was because he was booked against very likeable opponents, his unoriginal feud with GM Bischoff or just because it was the new cool thing to do it was becoming more and more apparent that fans did not want John Cena as the WWE Champion. Regardless, Cena continue to win his matches but his toughest test was to come in early 2006 as The Champ would defend the gold in his first ever elimination chamber match. Chris Masters, Carlito, Kane, Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle would all be gunning for the champion come New Year's Revolution and it was believed that Cena's title run was in serious jeopardy.
New Year's Revolution kicked off with an Intercontinental Championship match between the champion Ric Flair and his opponent, Mr. Money in the Bank, Edge. 7 minutes into the match Edge used his briefcase to batter the skull of Ric Flair causing a disqualification and Flair to retain the championship. These would seem questionable tactics for a man looking to win championship gold but Edge explained all in a backstage interview later that night. He said he wanted to save all his energy for later tonight because he still has work to do. The commentary team of JR and King assumed that Edge meant he and Lita would be getting busy in the bedroom after the show and made no further mention of it. Come main event time it seemed a mere minutes before a new WWE Champion would be crowned. Cena and Michaels were the first two men to enter the chamber which obviously was not good for the defending champion. They brawled for several minutes as Kane, Kurt Angle, Carlito and Masters all entered the chamber. It seemed Cena would be the first man eliminated as Angle cinched in the Ankle Lock on the champ, but Michaels out of nowhere hit Sweet Chin Music and Angle, many people's favourite, was gone. Carlito and Chris Masters worked out a plan earlier in the night to team together and let it come down to those two and their plan seemed to be working as the double teamed Kane and eliminated him. Michaels and Cena fought hard against the cocky young duo but eventually Carlito would be able to defeat Michaels to leave Cena alone with the aggressive pair. It seemed all but over as Carlito told Masters to lock in his signature Master Lock but as he did so, Carlito low-blowed his partner and pinned him with a roll-up. And then out of nowhere Cena caught Carlito with a roll up and retained the title! The crowd were pissed but the action was not over yet.
How It Went Down:
The Fallout: I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear that because of popular demand, the Fall Out Boy pictures will no longer be apart of this segment.
Anyway, the actual fallout from last night's shocking events was that I got to see Lita's boob. That's right, the next night on Raw the newly christened Rated R Superstar and Lita had a live sex celebration in the middle of the ring. And yes Lita's breast was visible for a few seconds which immediately made Edge's first title reign a success. John Cena however, interrupted the proceedings (boo!) and delivered a devastating FU on a scantily clad Lita while Edge ran like the proverbial scalded dog. The rematch was booked for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view where Cena forced Edge to tap out to the STFU and regained the WWE Championship.
No analysis this week, I'll save that till when I've finished the series and then I can talk about the entire Edge/Cena saga as a whole. Next we pick up where we left off with John Cena's miraculous win at Mania to his journey into darkness as he defended the title in front of a riotous ECW crowd.
The Schmozz Count:
Raw – None
ECW – 1, Lashley vs. Umaga
Impact – 2, Sting vs. Kurt Angle, Sting vs. Christian Cage
SmackDown – 1, MVP vs. Chris Benoit
Backlash – None
The streak is over! 14 weeks without a Schmozz in sight, and Umaga and Vince come along to ruin things. Scum. Impact was full of schmozzes this week which isn't much of a surprise.
The Schmozz Count: 43 + 4 = 47
Half Time
The Top 5 HIM YouTubes of the Week
5. Killing Loneliness (UK Version)
4. Solitary Man
3. Funeral of Hearts
2. Buried Alive By Love
1. Wings of a Butterfly
And now for some plugs;
Hidden Highlights
The Top Ten
Fink's Payload
Wrestler of the Week
The Independent Mid-card
Your News, Larry's Views
The Shimmy
WWE vs. TNA
Friendly Competition
And the rest.
False Finishes and Fan Cams
Backlash Thoughts
Before the show started I had high hopes for this show because of the two main events and what looked like a solid undercard. Let's start with the tag team championship match between The Hardys and The Redneck Wreckin' Crew of Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. This was solid tag team action and throughout the match I got more of a feeling that the rednecks walking away with the tag straps even though I knew it wasn't really much of a possibility. Lance Cade in particular busted out a few cool new moves including that swank sitout spinebuster. Murdoch hits his sloppy looking Code Red again and even though it looked better than last Monday, it still didn't look very effective. The Hardys knocked off the challengers after a fun 15 minutes of action and now they will probably move on to a feud with Haas and Benjamin, the World's Greatest Tag Team. **¾
The Women's championship match was about 10 times better than I expected. Past battles between Melina and Mickie have been stiff, sloppy affairs and more often than not had a botched ending that involved Mickie getting dumped on her head. This match, however, was fluent, flowing and very entertaining. They worked in a few new spots such as Melina's (for lack of a better term) scissors vice and the trading of punches while both in the splits position. The match got decent time too which is always nice to see for a women's match. I would say this is probably the best women's match in the WWE since Trish/Mickie at Mania last year. **¾
While MVP vs. Chris Benoit was a stellar affair, I was slightly disappointed with it. First of all with the pay-per-view finishing 20 minutes early I felt this could have got another 10 minutes more. They had 20 minutes on SmackDown a few weeks back and that match in my opinion, was a near **** match whereas this match barely made ***. They did some great mat wrestling early and then got to the cool spots but then it ended rather abruptly with the small package. Personally I think they would have been better off using that finish at Mania and had MVP going over here. WWE needs to be careful they don't miss the boat with MVP who has been on fire recently. If they don't give him the title at the next pay-per-view, MVP may have missed his chance to become a star. ***
I really don't want to talk about the 3 on 1 Handicap match because I hate Lashley, I hate Vince and every time I see Umaga with them it makes me dislike him more. I love Shane O but him being his dad's puppet isn't good for anyone. The match itself was really dull and Vince McMahon is a world champion again. I hoped that this whole thing with Lashley would be over but I doubt it is. It seems as if somehow the Vince/Lashley thing will somehow be mixed with the Originals/New Breed feud but we'll have to wait and see. *
The Last Man Standing match was just as good as their Mania encounter. It was typical Taker brawling until the finish which looked completely ridiculous with the gimmicked lights and stage set. One thing we can just about be sure of is that it will lead to the Hell in a Cell match at Judgment Day. ****
The four way lived up to the hype and then some. The last couple of minutes were superb. I would liked to have seen it get an extra 5-10 minutes but it was not to be. ****. Still overall this was a great pay-per-view and Mickie James looked hotter than ever. If you can, order the replay because there is nothing but good matches. OK, the handicap isn't great but it's not bad and I'm sure some enjoyed it, but everything else was great. I would even put this on par with WrestleMania 23. If not better.
Reader Feedback
I didn't get any this week. Let's just move on before anyone notices.
Taking It Home
Next week we'll continue our look at the Edge screwing Cena feud that would last several more months and I'll try and find some other fun stuff to talk about. Apologies for the shortish edition this week but I am really completely shattered after getting about 5 hours sleep all weekend but I'll make up for it next week so don't forget to come read me again!
