The Shimmy 5.05.08: The History of the World Heavyweight Title (Part Four)

Well, well. Thought I’d never finish it, did you? I was considering making it a running gag that I’d continue the History of the World Heavyweight Title column every week and it would just keep getting put off, but in light of recent events I figured it might be a good time to knock this one out.

When last we left things Rey Mysterio had just become the smallest World Champion in WWE history by defeating Kurt Angle and Randy Orton at WrestleMania 22. While it was certainly a feel good moment a lot of people figured his title reign would not be a long one, and he would face his first test the Friday after he won the belt. The man he pinned at WrestleMania, Randy Orton, was coming for revenge, and considering that Orton was the favorite by many people at Mania, Rey’s status as champion was definitely in doubt. The Master of the 619 prevailed, however, and competed in what was probably the best match of his title reign.

Orton wasn’t the only one from the WrestleMania match that came back for another shot. The former champion Kurt Angle challenged Mysterio for the title, with United States Champion JBL waiting in the wings for the winner. Thanks to some unwanted assistance from Mark Henry Rey retained his title by losing via disqualification. That meant that Mysterio would now defend the title against JBL at Judgment Day. Again, Rey’s challenger was the favorite in the match, but the champion capitalized on JBL’s injured back (and used some help from his friend Chavo Guerrero) to escape with his title once again. On the next episode of SmackDown an irate JBL demanded a rematch when Rey cost JBL the United States Title to Bobby Lashley. SmackDown GM allowed JBL to challenge Rey for the title again…but only if he would put his career on the line. In front of a capacity crowd in Bakersfield, California, Rey Mysterio 619ed JBL to the announce table.

There would be no rest for the weary, however, as Rey would soon find his World Heavyweight Championship coveted by the newly reborn ECW. After turning down Paul Heyman’s offer to join ECW and take the World Heavyweight Title with him, he became the target of the homicidal, suicidal, genocidal, death defying maniac Sabu. At One Night Stand the two men engaged in a high flying dream matchup contested under Extreme Rules. After an incredible springboard DDT through a table both men were determined too banged up to continue and the match would be called off. This would continue the string of incidents where Mysterio would take a amazing amount of punishment as World Champion.

The punishment wouldn’t stop there, though, as he found himself defending the gold against the World’s Strongest Man Mark Henry. It would seem as if the big man would win the World Title, but that’s to some tricky Eddie Guerrero like tactics from Rey and Chavo, Mark Henry was disqualified for doing nothing wrong.

Rey’s next challenge would come from the recently crowned 2006 King of the Ring, Booker T. Now going by the King Booker moniker, the five time WCW Champion was rededicated to captured WWE gold. At the Great American Bash the two men fought for the title and for most of the match things were pretty even. As the match wore on Chavo Guerrero returned to ringside and looked to help Rey as he had in the past. With chair in hand it looked like he was about to hit King Booker…but instead he waffled Rey Mysterio with one of the loudest chairshots I’ve ever heard. That chairshot is all Booker needed as he rolled on top of Mysterio and scored the pinfall. King Booker was the new World Heavyweight Champion. Things proceeded similarly during the rematch on SmackDown when Chavo once again cost Rey the title.

Booker T’s first major hurdle as champion came at WWE’s second biggest show of the year, SummerSlam. Booker’s opponent was a man that had just returned from and injury and had never lost the World Heavyweight Title, Batista. Not only that, but the two men had actually gotten into a fight months earlier when filming the SummerSlam commercial. It was seemingly Batista’s destiny to regain his championship at SummerSlam but an interfering Queen Sharmell had other ideas. Intentionally getting her man disqualified Sharmell made sure that the gold stayed with the royal couple. A few weeks later the two men would engage in a rematch but this time it wasn’t Sharmell that cost Batista the match, but rather the Irishman Finlay. Finlay whacked Batista with his shillelagh allowing Booker T to become the first person to ever beat Batista for the World Title.

With Batista seemingly preoccupied with Finlay, Booker T turned his attention to his newest challenger, the man he had defeated to become King of the Ring, Bobby Lashley. Lashley had defeated Finlay in a No. 1 Contender’s Match to earn his shot against Booker at No Mercy, but SmackDown GM Teddy Long had other ideas. He added Batista and Finlay to the mix, combining SmackDown’s two biggest matches to make a Fatal Four-Way for the title. At No Mercy Booker once again sneaked away with a victory when everyone else had done the work for him.

Over the next month Raw, SmackDown, and ECW would start to try and one up each other so Mr. McMahon decided that there would be one way to settle things: a Champion of Champions Match pitting the World Heavyweight Champion Booker T vs. the WWE Champion John vs. the ECW Champion Big Show at Cyber Sunday. And since Cyber Sunday was an interactive PPV the fans could vote on whose championship would be on the line in the match. Well, seeing as you are reading about this match in the History of the World Heavyweight Title column, I think you can guess which championship was chosen. It seemed as if John Cena was going to continue his mastery of Triple Threat Matches but interference from Cena’s rival Kevin Federline allowed King Booker to successfully escape with his title.

On SmackDown Teddy Long congratulated Booker on his victory at Cyber Sunday and rewarded Batista, who had served as Booker’s security in the weeks leading up to Cyber Sunday, with a title shot at Survivor Series against whoever the champion may be. What does that mean exactly? Because right after Long made the announcement he forced Booker to defend the title against Bobby Lashley. Some thanks for beating the other two brands on PPV, right? Fortunately for Booker (and justice) the King defeated Lashley on this night and marched towards his Survivor Series date with Batista.

Now Booker did get some assurances for this match. If Batista did not win the title he would not get another World Title shot so long as Booker was the champion. At Survivor Series Booker looked to capitalize on that situation and intentionally got himself disqualified, denying Batista any more shots at the gold…or so he thought. Teddy Long, in response to Booker’s actions, restarted the match under the stipulation that if Booker got disqualified or counted out that the title would go to Batista. Following the restart Batista made short work of King Booker, waffling the champion with his own title belt while the referee wasn’t looking and once again was World Heavyweight Champion. On SmackDown Batista defended his newly won gold against Booker T and his hired gun Finlay in a Triple Threat Match but Booker and Finlay bickering allowed Batista to make his first successful title defense of his new reign.

Batista’s next defense came against a man that had recently won the Beat the Clock Challenge and a man that had beaten seven World Champions in the past year, Mr. Kennedy. Kennedy was the fastest rising superstar on SmackDown and was poised to win his first World Championship at the Royal Rumble. He came close to doing it too, but ultimately it was The Animal that walked away with the victory.

The Rumble was not only host to the Batista-Kennedy match, however. Undertaker had won the 2007 Royal Rumble Match and now had his pick of World Champions to challenge at WrestleMania. After toying with the idea of challenging John Cena or Bobby Lashley for their respective WWE and ECW Titles, he settled on Batista, a man that he had a simmering rivalry starting with on SmackDown. Mr. Kennedy had one last opportunity to play spoiler, though, as he got another shot at Batista’s title. Unfortunately for the loudmouth Batista was focused on his date with Undertaker and made easy work of his challenger.

And then came WrestleMania. Batista vs. Undertaker. The title vs. the streak. In a match voted by fans at WWE.com as the WWE Match of the Year, the Deadman walked away with his fourth World Championship and a 15-0 WrestleMania undefeated streak. The Undertaker was the top dog on SmackDown, but for how long?

To be concluded (for real this time!)…

PPV in Review: Backlash

First off, let me say that the theme song for Backlash, Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” is a great song. While not really appropriate for a wrestling show (hence the use of another song for the main event video package) once the Top 40 stations start playing it I’m predicting that it could be THE hit of the summer. Say what you will about Kid Rock but he normally produced quality singles. Well, perhaps quality isn’t the best word, but they’re catchy at least.

Now onto the show. We opened up with MVP vs. Matt Hardy for the United States Title which was a good match, but not up the high standards of their Great American Bash match last summer, the one that started it all. For a while there I was afraid they were going to go with a bullshit knockout ending (remember when they were trying to get THAT over as a legit finish last year?) but fortunately they went with a real finish. I’m glad Matt Hardy finally got a big singles victory and it’s cool it was treated like a big deal. I like that WWE is making their title matches seem more important with the super special ring introductions, I just hope they don’t overdo it because it will lose its luster. Then again I guess they just need to make sure that their title matches are always a big deal. Anyhow, here’s hoping that we’ve seen the end of this feud for the time being, because both men need to try their hands at something different.

Kane vs. Chavo was a decent little match, although Bam Neely proved to be the worst backup ever, proved by Mike Adamle of all people. I was entertained and really thought that WWE did more in the week of Backlash (the eight man tag on Raw, the beatdown on ECW, the match at Backlash) of getting Chavo over as a main eventer then they had during his entire championship run.

Big Show vs. The Great Khali. I was looking forward to this match and it certainly underperformed. I know most people expected it to suck, but it really didn’t have too. I place most of the blame on whoever booked this match. You have two giants in there, it should be a fun match but you have to play to their strengths. 1) You keep it short and 2) You don’t have any freaking restholds. I swear the match wouldn’t have been so bad if they would have scrapped all the boring submission spots. Give them six minutes and let them pound on each other. Khali could have even done that spin kick of his. I’m placing the blame on this match sucking solely at the feet of whoever laid out this match.

I’ve got mixed feelings on the Shawn Michaels-Batista match. It was good in parts and average in others. I actually liked Michaels working the arm of Batista and to his credit Batista did a great job of selling it. I don’t really see what the point was of having Michaels win, but whatever. For the record I bough the injury if only because the finish would have been cooler without it. I thought the better ending would have been HBK hitting the superkick after he reversed the Batista Bomb which it looked like was the designed finish. You’ve got people out there analyzing what leg he’s limping with now, but I’m going to go with that there was a non-serious injury that botched the finish that they have now turned into an angle.

I surprisingly enjoyed the 12 Diva Tag Team Match. It wasn’t a MOTYC or anything, but it was fun. Not bad considering half the women in the match can’t wrestle a lick.

I really, really dug the Undertaker-Edge match, probably better than their WrestleMania match. Now might be a good time to mention that Mick Foley is great on commentary. I loved his work at One Night Stand a few years ago (although many people didn’t) so I was looking forward to hearing him now, and boy was it a step up from Coach. I’ll even go so far as to say that Foley actual analysis is better than what JBL brought to the table. JBL was much better at projecting himself and he did a great job of putting people over (when he wanted to anyhow), but as far as actual in ring analysis I’ve got to give the edge to Foley. Foley also did a great job at trying to name the Undertaker’s submission the “Death Sentence,” which sadly didn’t seem to stick judging from this week’s SmackDown. I’m actually starting to think WWE is purposefully not giving the move a name to try and get it over as this mysterious invention that there are no words to describe.

I’ve really only got to say one thing about the main event: Congratulations, WrestleMania, now you know what it feels like to be fucked in the ass. Seriously, let’s look at this. For the second year in a row WrestleMania is ended by the wrong match, although at least last year there was a valid concern heading into the show. This year, not so much. There were only two matches that had any business ending that show this year, Flair-Michaels and the Triple Threat Match. The Triple Threat had three of the biggest stars in the company, including THE two biggest stars in the entire industry, both of whom were working off of their own form of a comeback story. You had a man that had held the WWE Title for six months, the man that won the Royal Rumble after coming back from an injury (caused by the current champion) six months early and never lost the title, and you have the guy that won an Elimination Chamber after still trying to get back in the mix after his own injury who was screwed over by the current champion months ago and has a history with both of the other men in the match. Whew. But THAT match gets put on the backburner because they decide to put the heel over in the match and they don’t want to send the fans home mad. Fine. But if you’re going to rob the fans of a WrestleMania moment with either Triple H or John Cena winning then you better make Orton’s title reign mean something.

So what happens? One month later, Orton loses the title to Triple freaking H. Why in the hell didn’t it happen at WrestleMania? Some people said that the Raw main event at Mania seemed like the main event of just any other PPV. Well, with that finish it now WAS just the main event of any other PPV. At least when Triple H retained the title in 2000 there was an attempt at a swerve and a shock ending and it got the main event spot. With the booking at Backlash you just made the entire match at Mania filler. Congratulations. The sad part is that it was a good match at Backlash. I’ve heard some people say that it was the best WWE match of the year and those people are clearly smoking the pot, but it was still a really good match. Guess what? It could have happened even if Triple H had won the title at WrestleMania like he should have. This is one of those times where Vince wanting to stick it to those that think they know everything has pissed off one of his most ardent defenders.

There, I’m better now that I vented. Now let’s see the comments section fill up with people telling me I’m taking this too seriously and that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Overall it was a decent show. It was definitely the worst WWE PPV of 2008, but that’s more so because the other PPVs have been good as opposed to this being bad. In many ways this show felt more like a Judgment Day (solid, but skipable) then it did a Backlash.

Andy Enjoyment Index: Backlash

1) Taker-Edge
2) Orton-Triple H-Cena-JBL
3) MVP-Hardy
4) HBK-Batista
5) 12 Diva Tag
6) Kane-Chavo
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7) Big Show-Khali

The Shimmy Likes It Raw!

What’s on tap for tonight’s show?

After turning the show off while a championship match was still in progress last week, what will William Regal do this week? And what will Triple H and Randy Orton have to say about their upcoming Steel Cage Match at Judgment Day?

Will WWE finally stop booking John Cena like a bitch and let him show up on Raw? Seriously, keep his off TV entirely to film the movie or bring him back full time. This every other week stuff, along with the fact he keeps losing, is diminishing the biggest start you have.

That does it for this week. Next week actually won’t be the last part of the World Heavyweight Title series because next week will feature my experience at the 5/9 ROH show in Manassas. This will be my second ROH show (Supercard of Honor being the first) and I’m excited. So next week is ROH, the following week is the FINAL installment of the History of the World Heavyweight Title. Whew. Until then, don’t die. Clark…out.