Thoughts From The Top Rope 7.16.08: TNA vs. WWE Concludes!

Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 07.16.2008

I make use of the term "card subject to change" because by popular demand, my fantasy booking fetish returns as I begin to wrap up the WWE vs. TNA War.

Thoughts From The Comments Section

Posted by b: Great Column Wilcox keep it up, I'm not one to normally see opinion pieces completely eye to eye, but I legitimately feel like you didn't miss a thing with your feelings and verdicts on these matches. One thing I always felt about Benoit was that his in ring crispness and intensity at times took away from storyline aspects of his matches. The best in the business at telling stories in the WWE and TNA is most definitely HBK. Lately HBK has made sure that every match this year has had some sort of twist in psychology that most fans haven't seen this day and age in wrestling.

Anyway reading this column also saddens me, knowing that those who were perhaps the best to ever lace them up have long passed us by whether through death, retirement, or perhaps even just knowing that someone like Kurt is so drugged up, injured, and mentally instable that it becomes unenjoyable to watch him go in there and beat up his body.... Nah wrestling is dying these days and while I truly believe HBK is the only one holding onto what once was, it will eventually go into darkness for the foreseeable future until we find another wrestling savior. However I don't see another Chris Benoit who spent 15 years paying dues, ditto with Guerrerro, or Flair, or Hart...I just don't see them anymore in the faces of Batista, Orton, Kofi Kingston, CM Punk and the likes.

Thanks for the compliments and I completely agree with you on Shawn Michaels being the best storyteller, probably of all time. I can't say I agree that the future of wrestling is as bleak as you seem to think it is. Saying that, I think the fact that Vince McMahon really has a monopoly on the wrestling business is detrimental to pro wrestling because it doesn't give allow people to create a name elsewhere and learn like the names you mentioned did.

Posted by jleff: Malenko & Storm vs The British Bulldogs..... Malenko & Storm vs The Midnight Express.....Malenko & Storm vs The Hart Foundation....Malenko & Storm vs Rock 'N' Roll Express.....Malenko & Storm vs The Rockers...This is possibly the greatest combo who never had the opportunity to pair up. They could have gone down as the greatest of all time.

Agreed. One of the reasons why I chose those guys was because as singles competitors, both were kind of bland even if they were immensely talented in the ring. But together, they would have been absolute gold.

Posted by Jason S:

Good stuff. While I think the HBK-Razor ladder match from WMX still holds up today, what killed it for me in future viewings was how clear both guys were calling their spots, particularly Michaels.

When you're trying to get into the "theater aspect" of wrestling and believing you're watching a blood feud, it kind of takes away from the impact when you can see the guys practically having full conversations with each other throughout.

This is a problem I've never had. I very rarely hear guys calling spots, possibly because I'm not listening hard enough. And I definitely didn't hear anything during the ladder match.

Posted by Joe Mastronado: Most "great" Triple H matches are incredibly overrated.

Congratulations, you win the award for "Most Wrong Comment of the Week!"

Posted by JLALRC: Could you at least give us an ENDING to the TNA/WWE war? Even if it's a rushed/dumb ending like "Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman team up and buy both TNA and WWE, fire McMahon and Jarrett, and renames both feds ECW and WCW."

When I wrote that stuff, I never had a plan in mind for how it would end and who would ultimately come out on top. But yes, I've spent some time this week and I've come up with a way I would have liked it to end. More on that later.

Hey you know what sucks? My lack of DVD player preventing me from carrying on with the Under Scrutiny series! But having read last week's positive comments and requests for me to look at tons more matches, I got to thinking and decided that instead of doing three matches a week, I'd do one match per week every week. That way, it doesn't prevent me about writing about other topics and I get to look at more matches. I was genuinely surprised as many people enjoyed last week as they apparently did. So thank you for that, and I will get back to that next week when I've purchased a new DVD player.

So that leaves today's column and me idealess. That seems to be happening more often lately. A few people commented about their disappointment of me dropping the TNA vs. WWE Fantasy War and as you might've read above, I was asked if I could at least give the thing an ending and I will do. In fact, I'll do that right now.


I make no apologies for going back to Fantasy Booking even though I know some people out there hate it. I'm stuck in a rut when it comes to coming up with good stuff to write about and this is my way of getting myself out of this corner I've backed myself into. Besides, this fantasy booking is about to get interactive!

The TNA vs. WWE War Concludes (Part 1)

For those of you with any sort of memory, you may recall that Triple H had just turned on the WWE after Jeff Jarrett had helped him win the WWE Championship against Rob Van Dam, despite help from a returning Jeff Hardy. Elsewhere, Ric Flair and Sting, despite being on different sides of the war, were aligned while Kurt Angle had just come out on top of a three month long feud with Chris Jericho. Robert Roode was reigning TNA Champion and a new stable had formed in TNA consisting over Abyss, Christopher Daniels and Kane, who had turned on his brother Undertaker (shocking, I know). Meanwhile, Team 3D and Rhino were engaged in a six-man war with Tommy Dreamer, CM Punk and Colin Delaney while Miz and Morrison were ruling over a promising tag team division, and Shawn Michaels was locked in a bitter rivalry with old pal Kevin Nash and finally, Edge was fending off his brother Christian who was chasing the World Championship.

TNA's No Surrender was coming up with the main event being a triple threat for the TNA title. Let's say Kurt Angle bested Samoa Joe and Robert Roode to win the title. Elsewhere, Team ECW beats Team 3D and Rhino in a Flaming Tables Match, Hurricane Helms beats Super Eric, LAX beat Chavo Guerrero and Rey Mysterio and AJ Styles beats Mr. Kennedy. The other key development coming out of the show is Jeff Jarrett beating Ric Flair when Sting turns on Ric Flair. Let's say they put him out with a near-crippling injury.

Where would I have gone from here? How would I have got to Mania? I had major plans for the stable of Christopher Daniels, Kane and Abyss. Daniels would lead the others into battle and they would become a dominant tag team. Daniels would only wrestle on rare occasions and would always be victorious. Undertaker would of course seek revenge, first injuring Kane in some brutal match and then having a final showdown with Abyss around Royal Rumble time. This would lead to Taker chasing Daniels for a while but never getting his hands on him. Abyss and Kane would be out injured, leaving Daniels vulnerable. The two would have a match at WrestleMania 25.

How would the wrestling world react to Triple H siding with TNA, as the WWE Champion? One man who would not be happy is Kurt Angle, because he was not privy to the info that Trips was jumping ship. There would be friction between the two of them leading into a Survivor Series 5-on-5 battle: TNA vs. WWE. Ultimately, Kurt would inadvertently cause his team to lose by accidentally nailing Triple H. He would respond by attacking Angle on Impact and Angle would respond by costing Triple H the WWE Championship to a WWE guy… John Cena. In retaliation, TNA would beat Angle down and strip him of the TNA Championship and kick him out of the company. But Angle would not join WWE either. Angle's last match would take place in late December.

In January, Vince McMahon and Jeff Jarrett would come to an agreement: only one company can survive this war. The Royal Rumble would be a battle for immunity and the winner would have a job guaranteed regardless of which company survives. That does take away importance from the Rumble, but Nevermind. The Rumble winner would likely be a heel like Robert Roode. The agreement would also mean that come Mania time, one of the companies would be gone for ever. The main event would be champion vs. champion.

Sting would be a dominant force for many months. He would be a favourite to win the Royal Rumble (TNA and WWE guys involved) until Ric Flair surprisingly returned in the Rumble match and eliminated him. Flair who plead Sting for a match, but first he would have to go through Jeff Jarrett and he would do just that. Sting vs. Ric Flair would be booked for WrestleMania. T

A new TNA Champion would be crowned at Final Resolution and that man would be… Christopher Daniels. He would hold it for a short while until Undertaker ends his reign by costing him a match with Samoa Joe, TNA's new World's Champion going into WrestleMania. Joe would have various feuds between the fall and Mania with matches against the likes of Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam and Shawn Michaels. Due to the prior agreement between McMahon and Jarrett, Joe would face John Cena at WrestleMania.

Shawn Michaels would overcome nemesis Kevin Nash and move on to feud with Robert Roode, and then Booker T. Heading in to Mania, a certain AJ Styles would turn heel by attacking Shawn Michaels. They would do battle at Mania.

John Morrison and Miz would continue to dominate the tag scene until Team 3D step up to challenge them for the right to be called the best ever. But Matt and Jeff Hardy would soon insert themselves into this battle. A Tables, Ladders and Chairs match would be set up for WrestleMania.

Going into Mania, Triple H would be without an opponent, so he would invade WWE shows and attack random superstars with his trademark sledgehammer. One man would step up to stop him: Vince McMahon. After the two had been torturing each other for the past three years, they would finally get their WrestleMania showdown.

Edge would defend the World Championship against various TNA stars for months on end and go unbeaten. Heading into Mania, familiar rival Christian would step up and earn his title shot for Mania: the final encounter.

Oh, and Trish Stratus would return to challenge the unstoppable Awesome Kong. Trish would dethrone Mickie James to become WWE Women's Champion.

Those would just be the main matches. The one thing I wanted to do with Mania 25 is turn it into a 3-show event to end the war; part one on Friday, part two on Saturday and part 3 on Sunday. And the company who wins the most matches survives. It would be obvious that going into the final match the scores would be tied, but it allows me to have many, many awesome matches and numerous main events. Here's how I think the card might have looked.

Night One:
X Division Championship: Kaz vs. Chris Jericho
LAX vs. MVP and Mr. Kennedy
Gail Kim, ODB, Roxxi Laveaux and Taylor Wilde vs. Natalya Neidhart, Victoria, Beth Phoenix and Katie Lea Burchill
United States Championship: CM Punk vs. Jay Lethal
TLC Tag Title Unification: The Hardys vs. Team 3D vs. Miz and Morrison
Lingerie Pillow Fight: Maria vs. Christy Hemme
Undertaker vs. Christopher Daniels

Night Two:
Beer Money Inc. vs. APA
Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, Michelle McCool and Melina vs. The Beautiful People, Rhaka Khan and Moose
Petey Williams and Scott Steiner vs. Jesse and Festus
Booker T vs. Umaga
Jeff Jarrett vs. Rob Van Dam
Street Fight: Vince McMahon vs. Triple H
World Championship: Edge vs. Christian

Night Three:
Xscape Match: Evan Bourne vs. Eric Young vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Consequences Creed vs. vs. The Hurricane vs. Sonjay Dutt
Motor City Machineguns vs. London and Kendrick
Women's/Knockout's Unification Match: Awesome Kong vs. Trish Stratus
Shawn Michaels vs. AJ Styles
Ric Flair vs. Sting
Champion vs. Champion: Samoa Joe vs. John Cena

That's 21 matches over 3 shows. I enjoyed coming up with these, so here's what I'll do. Over the next three weeks I'll book these matches as I'd been doing before but I'm giving my fantasy booking fans a chance to have a say on the outcome. You email who you want to win each match and those tallies will effect who eventually wins the war.

I'm short on time, so that concludes another weeks' Thoughts. Next week, I book night one of WrestleMania 25: WWE vs. TNA and the Under Scrutiny series continues with a look at Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin. Until then, here's a few items of mine around the site today;

For music fans, The Great Rock Report!

And here's my debut ECW report, The Palace Perspective!