Judgement Day is coming

I’m going to cover a lot of ground this week so fasten your seatbelts and pull that chin strap tight in case I get a little loose coming out of turn 3.

First off, if you didn’t catch the FTW show at Mega Market Saturday night go ahead and smack yourself (I’ll wait). You missed what was probably the best house show I’ve ever seen in Warren County, period.

We had a 450-pound vampire walking the top rope and breathing fire. We had a kid from Alaska who thought he could fly taking a leap of faith into the crowd. We had a girl beat the slobber out of a big guy. We saw the tag titles change hands due to use of a foreign object (referees never see anything). And we had their answer to Rey Mysterio (Ronin) do a 720 shooting star press (yes, that’s two flips in the air from the turnbuckle onto his opponent). You even missed yours truly getting in the squared circle.

To say I was extremely pleased with the show would be an understatement as it was probably the best show I’ve seen them do. I was also impressed with the very vocal crowd which was hot all night.

However, the best may be yet to come as the bad blood from Saturday has prompted a return visit to town as they will again be at the Mega Market, this time at 7 p.m., on Saturday, June 7, with the feature bout being Bad Company Inc. defending their newly won belts against Promo and Lord Frost, better known as ELE, in a dog collar match. More details on the card to come.

In the meantime we’re heading at breakneck speed into WWE Judgment Day where I think we’ll see the culmination of a couple of feuds, namely Triple H and Orton, and Undertaker and Edge. Cage matches generally signal the final match of a feud and I suspect this Sunday will be no different as I look for Trips to finish Orton inside the steel cage. I also look for Taker to take care of Edge and perhaps get hold of that horrible Vicki Guerrero.

We will also be able to see how the JBL return is going to go when he takes on John Cena this Sunday. Cena has had a limited TV schedule lately due to his shooting of his upcoming movie ’12 Rounds’ (which is scheduled to premiere the same week as the Rock’s ‘Race to Witch Mountain’ this summer). In the meantime he has been the personal jobber to Orton who has pinned him, by hook or by crook, the last three matches they’ve been in. So, there’s a good chance they don’t want to job out their golden boy again unless they plan to give JBL a title push.

If JBL wins Sunday night look for him to be the main-eventer over the summer and visa versa for Cena, who I feel is more likely to be the No. 1 contender alongside the new babyface turned Kennedy.

I think, and I have no solid evidence aside from Internet chatter to back this up, that we are coming up on a shuffling of the rosters in a draft lottery like we had last summer. I noticed Jeff Hardy in his return Monday night go over Umaga easier than normal. I’ve been saying for weeks that Umaga will be changing brands and his loss to Hardy kind of confirms that for me. The Samoan Bulldozer has been underused lately and a changing of brands is just what the doctor ordered, not only for him but also to freshen the feuds.

As the last order of business today, I’ve spoken to a lot of people both at the match Saturday night and around the community asking me what the deal is with Lord William Regal turning out the lights at RAW, the Mike Adamlee walk out of ECW, and the stripping of the title from Undertaker. What this all amounts to is a fishing expedition by WWE to change the regular shows into ‘must-see TV’ where there are dramatic turns in each show. On RAW you have a GM drunk with power, on ECW you have a loose cannon announcer, and on Smackdown you have a GM who is in love with the top heel.

What WWE is doing is seeing if these twists, outside the ring, will bring in bigger ratings by bringing in fans more bent on drama than in-ring action.

If, per chance, they see a bump when Regal turns out the lights, then look for more of the same weirdness. If you will recall, years ago WCW used to go off air on Monday night with a match in progress and then ‘interrupt’ the following show for look-ins at key points of the match. That didn’t work too long and I’d say the killing of the lights will find the same fate eventually.