by Matthew Ditaliano

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Karma’s gonna get you every time.

A mere week (well, more like a day, give or take, as it was taped last Sunday) after I write my anti-Gowan rant, they have him come out and help Angle and form some sort of bond. If these two stay together, I might vomit.

Seriously, though, besides that one point (and maybe something else, that I’ll get to later) it was a great match, which really didn’t hurt anyone, and finally made Kurt Angle look like a world title contender. He’s been back for a month, and he’d done nothing but get beat up and take part in really bad segments until last Smackdown. It was nice to finally see him in a spot where he looks competent. We shall see how this progresses.

So, anyway, I just finished watching Raw, (okay, four hours ago, shut up) and a couple of things stood out. First of all, Kane has always had a bad tombstone, and having to protect Linda tonight didn’t make it look any better. Hopefully the WWF production team will mask that next week with better camera angles, because other wise, it was fi-diddly-ine. Moving to the unfine, however, is the continuous and inexplicable Randy Orton push. Without getting into my TSM Board nickname of him, I don’t think he’s ready for a push like this ringwise, and he most certainly isn’t over enough to warrant this push. The WWF keeps trying, but no one cares. They need to pull the plug. Finally, I noticed the AWFUL way they are treating this Booker T Intercontinental title reign. You need to make the champion look good in order to get people to care about the title. And they just won’t do that.

So, of course, in my unorganized way, this brought about my topic for tonight. It got me to thinking that in just about every single title situation, the champion is doing something to hurt the title. Presently, the WWF has seven belts, with one more on the way. In my not so humble opinion, I’d say at least five of the champions are doing something damaging. Basically, the WWF is slowly destroying its titles, and that can only end in disaster.

I’m going to annylize the belts on each show. This edition will be Raw, next Friday (or whenever) will be Smackdown! Fun!

In some ways, the Raw side of things is somewhat less of a mess.

The HHHeavyweight Title has the advantage of having perhaps the only real dominant champion. Yeah, we all know the story with HHH, and I don’t want to get sidetracked, so no need to mention it here. The point is, Triple H, at this point, looks like a guy who is better than anyone else, and should be the world champion. The problem, of course, is that he looks like a guy that is better than anyone else does and no one else should be world champion. To make this title credible, not to mention obtainable, Hunter has to drop it sometime within our lifetimes, and NOT to another absolutely unbeatable wrestler in Goldberg. Don’t get me wrong, the new champ has to be dominant, but not to the point where no one else can conceivably win the thing.

A good idea might be to turn Jericho face. Possibly have Evilution come out next week and brag about how they single-handedly caused Shawn to lose, not giving Chris any credit for the win at all. Have Shawn come out and run Evolution and Randy down, while in the process, giving most of the credit for the win to Jericho. This prompts a three on one, which continues until Y2J runs in with a chair, only to take Randy Orton’s head off and embrace Shawn. After Jericho and Shawn beat Orton and Flair (Jericho over Orton with the Walls) and HHH beats Goldberg at Summerslam, build to the big encounter. Make it as close to the one-year anniversary of the beginning of tHHHe Reign of Terror, September something or other, and let Jericho beat HHH clean, finally dethroning him.

The Intercontinental title is in much worse shape. Let’s face it, it had no prestige when they retired it, it came back in a horrible fashion, with a shady battle royal win, and was put on a guy that was built up like the Honky Tonk Man. All the while, Booker was chasing him, and we were expecting the big blow off win. We got a cheap win where Austin kind of stacked the odds against him, and the match itself had a stupid false finish and went on way too long. This is the guy Goldust beat clean, mind you. The next week, we had the rematch, which somehow made Booker look WORSE! He was pinned for a five count on a ref bump that Booker created, he was pinned for real minutes later, and he only won the match when Austin saved the day again. And then this week, he needed Scott Steiner and Stacy to distract the heatless Test in order to get a win.

This should NOT the way things should be going. The Booker/Christian feud should have ended in a heavily hyped match, with Booker picking up the clean, decisive win, and then beating him the next night in a rematch. From there, he beats heatless wonders like Test and Randy Orton clean. Totally clean. No distractions, no interference. They have no heat to kill, so don’t worry about it. As far as feuds go, I’d probably start him off on a multi-month feud with Rico, than maybe Goldust, before losing the belt in a big match and moving up to the World title bracket. After Booker’s done, I’d build a division around Hurricane, Rico, Goldust and maybe someone else. If we want to make it extra special, bring back the “number one contender is the IC champ” thing and have guys like RVD fight over it. MAKE IT WORTH SOMETHING.

The Women’s Title is, in a way, the best title on Raw and in a way, the worst. Yeah, that confused me as well. It’s a competitive title, with there being a chance of it changing at any time. Also, there are no absolutely directionless women. They are all aiming for the title, and no one is really “just there.” The problem is that, well, it IS a division of eight people, with about five real prominent ladies. It’s hard to do anything new when you can count the number of competitors on your fingers.

Of course, the present champion isn’t exactly great…well, good. I’m not going to critique her ring ability right now. I mean, she’s a bad champion. Winning the belt in a battle royal where the champ went out early in her first TV appearance was just SUCH a bad idea. No one knows who the heck she is, what she’s about, or why we should cheer her. She’s just the women’s champion, and the bad girls don’t like her. Er…

A better way to do this would be to have her debut as a friend of Trish, in tag matches and whatnot, to try and get her some heat. Eventually, if she is over, let her go over Jazz. Now, she had possible feuds with Molly, Victoria, and Jazz. But Personally, I’d have a jealous Trish beat the living hell out of her, turn heel, and cheat to win the belt, like the next week. Have Gail chase her, and finally defeat her after like three months. WHAM, new big face and the title gets elevated in the process.

The Tag Team Titles are just a mess. La Resistance is very green, and only kind of over. Their main competitors, the Dudleyz, are stale as croutons. Were either of these teams even on Raw tonight? If they were, I don’t remember it. Which brings up another problem. The tag champs live on Heat, where they get beat cleanly by jobber teams. What on earth? So, basically, this division consists of two teams, one of which is in desperate need of a make over, and the other one, the champions, lose to Garrison Cade and Mark Jindrak on B show.

Ugh.

Of course, the WWF’s solution is to just randomly make teams to go out there for one match and job. It somehow bolsters the cred of the winning team. Yep, they beat 40 something year old Sgt. Slaughter. Throw them a party. Of course, it also does nothing to help that there are only two teams in the division.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two tag teams that can, should, and might be added to the division. The first is Nash and Michaels.

::Ducks flying objects::

Hey, it gives HBK something to do, it brings in a established team into a division, and it makes the tag titles look semi-important. Plus, it keeps them both out of the main. I just realized, if they make Orton and Flair a more formal and real tag team, we could have a natural feud there that keeps them all out of the big matches. Go me!

The other team that I actually kind of like is Hurricane, and his S.H.I.T., Rosey. Yeah, it’s Rosey, but it could still be a lot of fun, and a little man-big man dynamic out there would work well. Plus, they certainly couldn’t be worse tag team champions than the Frenchies. I’d have them win the belts at Summerslam, and maybe even briefly feud with an evil super-villain tag-team of Lance Storm and someone. Come on, It would be fun! And like I said, it CERTAINLY couldn’t be any worse than the current champs.

Hey look at that, I’m done!

Damnit, only half-done. Well, that’s why I made this a two parter. That, and I’m lazy. Hopefully, I’ll be pumping it out on Friday. If not, you may get to hear me tell you what’s wrong with the US champion. Lucky you.

Before I go, I’d just like to recommend an author to my more cultured readers. Or something. Janet Evanovich and her Stephanie Plum books have had me rolling. I read One for the Money a couple months ago (Yes, before Lance Storm pointed them out) , and I am reading Hard Eight. Both are great, and you guys should love them.

But not as much as you love me, natch,

Ditaliano

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