A note to all television executives: when your product gets stale, don’t try to examine the source of the problem and brainstorm new ideas to keep things fresh. Instead, follow the WWE’s lead and make deals to feature random pop culture figures on your weekly program. That way, you can boost ratings for that week without all the hassle of being creative and producing a sensible program.

Boy, has the WWE done a total 360 in the last two months. It wasn’t that long ago that the company led fans into thinking it would deviate from its current formula with good storytelling (and matches) that weren’t in simple accordance with the face/heel formula, but that is now a distant memory.

This reversion is strongly exemplified by Sunday night’s results at Night of Champions, where seemingly every match had a safe result that would go along with simple storytelling. But by trying to be safe, it’s gonna be really hard to get some new guys over.

It seems like the outcry over John Cena winning the WWE title from Alberto Del Rio is universal, so I’ll spare you what you could easily read from some jerk on a message board. The problem with giving him the belt so soon after Del Rio won it is that in order for a face to be compelling, there must be a compelling heel. If it’s generally assumed that Cena is going to come out on top, it makes it really hard for any heel to capture your attention, making it hard for guys like Del Rio to become regular main eventers, but this also takes away from established stars like Cena. The last thing this product should be is boring and predictable, and that’s what happens when people know the WWE is going to rush to get the title back around Cena’s waist.

The pay-per-view as a whole left a sour taste in my mouth. First, the entire premise of the event is to highlight all of the championships (as the title would suggest), so it is questionable as to whether or not a non-title match should even be on the card, but it sure as hell should not be the main event. The WWE has done a poor job as of late making people care about a title other than the WWE title, so an event like Night of Champions should lend itself very well to putting all the other titles in the spotlight. But when you have superfluous promos starting AND ending Raw that are focused on CM Punk and Triple H, it’s gonna be tough to make people care about a fatal 4-way match for the United States title that lacked sufficient buildup.

And despite all the buildup towards the main event, it wasn’t a great match. I mean, it doesn’t help that the writers tipped their hat off by adding the stipulation that if Triple H were to lose, he’d resign as COO, making it clear to avid fans that H would win. The buildup to this match also felt botched. We were being set up for a Kevin Nash-Punk match, but Nash reportedly failed a physical, so the writers seemingly improvised with a match that was rumored to be down the road at WrestleMania.

But perhaps more than any other factor, the highly excessive outside interference from The Miz and R-Truth really prevented this match from fulfilling its potential. I understand that the WWE is trying to keep these guys relevant and injecting them into the main event like this certainly does, but it’s totally unnecessary. The elongated outside interference hurts the flow of the match and there are other ways to keep these two relevant, such as not having Miz lose every pay-per-view match he’s been in since WrestleMania.

Mark Henry beat Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight championship in what is the most bland main event push in recent memory. I know Smackdown could use another star and giving a veteran a push seems like a welcome change, but not if that veteran is Mark Henry. He can’t cut a promo and his matches are stale. There is nothing remarkable about the guy, not even from a marketing standpoint. At least Cena will sell t-shirts and garner ratings. But does anyone really think giving Henry such a huge push will boost Smackdown’s house show attendance, which hasn’t done well for a while, or actually make the product more fun to watch? If they wanna get more people to attend Smackdown, they should move underutilized guys on Raw to Smackdown rather than feature Smackdown superstars on Raw or make a guy like Henry the focal point of the show.

Raw wasn’t half-bad. Hugh Jackman’s guest appearance was done well and I kinda wish that this is how those special guest hosts for Raw were implemented. Jackman did come out and promote his movie, but he had good chemistry with Dolph Ziggler, tied the movie into the show and appealed to the city Raw was in this week (Cleveland, OH) with the underdog angle. The match between Ziggler and Zach Ryder was also pretty good.

Two matches have been announced for Hell in a Cell: a triple-threat Hell in a Cell match for the WWE championship between Cena, Punk and Del Rio and a rematch of the glorious Orton-Henry match, this one taking place inside Hell in a Cell. Orton-Henry II could very well be the worst Hell in a Cell match ever, beating out the Hell in a Cell match between the Undertaker and the Big Boss Man at WrestleMania XV.

The biggest news from Raw is the “firings” of the Miz and R-Truth. I don’t quite understand how keeping these guys off the air will help maintain interest in either or why both were fined an hour before being fired, but I doubt either will be off the air for long (after all, Punk only missed one episode of Raw after Money in the Bank).

To end this otherwise stereotypically negative Wrestling Rambling, I’m gonna cautiously conclude that in some way, all these different storylines on Raw will be brilliantly tied together leading up to the Rock’s return at Survivor Series. Until then, will the real Sin Cara please stand up?

When the average fan of professional wrestling thinks about the industry, two main brands come to mind: WWE and TNA. Why are these, the only two recognized brands? Well, that comes down to many things: corporate sponsorship, primetime air time on television stations, pay-per-view time, pyrotechnics, ratings, merchandise, appealing to a broad spectrum of an audience, and other issues.

Think Pro Wrestling; think Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Andre the Giant and Stone Cold Steve Austin

But ask a wrestling fan who the best performer is of all time, and the answer will likely be the one and only Shawn “Heartbreak Kid” Michaels.

As a young man of humble beginnings, I would have never thought that I would have had the opportunity to interview such an influential individual to the wrestling business as Eric Bischoff.  As a fan, I can remember seeing Bischoff in a variety of roles: being power-bombed through a table by Kevin Nash, as an announcer, being aligned with the NWO, and having the hottest wrestling program in the Monday Night Wars.

To say this opportunity wasn’t a chance of a lifetime would be a complete and utter lie.  

Considering how successful Bischoff’s been in business, I had no idea he did not graduate college.  The idea that he could have majored in “partying” while an undergrad did not fully surprise me, but it did seem to give Bischoff more of a human element instead of the character that he portrayed for so long on cable.  

In his early days in front of the camera, Bischoff happened to be the only person in the office with a suit on. His bosses were in need of an announcer and placed him in the role.  Although he was a green announcer, Bischoff had great potential.