They're saying the title match is gonna be Orton v. Jericho.

Jericho returns to become RAW champ and the Indians advance in the playoffs on the same day? Happy times!~

F-, wwe.

HHH as a face champ does 0 for the brand. He's already been fed the entire roster multiple times over, and unless he's gonna be a cheating heel, there's no way for him to hold the belt and make anyone else look good in the progress. Guys like Carlito get 0 rub at all from wrestling him at this point, and when the guy can single-handedly destroy all of RAW's tag division... why isn't he the champ for 700 years?

I mean, if you get right down to it, he killed months of Orton buildup and then all of Umaga's buildup in the span of a 3-hour show. Umaga is billed as unstoppable (unless you're Cena) and HHH pulls off a win in 6:00? Orton *did* get a win over HHH later in the night, but it's tainted by HHH's supposed injury, so does that count as killing a legend?

I know HHH is a student of the game, and will be around for years due to his marital status and all of that. But he needs to be RAW's version of the Undertaker imo. A big name who you know can beat anyone whenever he wants, but is always putting out fires rather than chasing a champ. His quads won't last forever, and this wave of injuries has shown that there's basically very few future stars getting a shot at anything. A fluke win over HHH isn't gonna hurt HHH's name at all, but it'd be a huge thing for someone like Kenny or Cody Rhodes.

Just my take on it.

Knyte wrote:

They tried that before. Remember Shelton Benjamin beat HHH 3 times in a row? Sadly, he's still a going-nowhere mid-carder. I would love to see him go up against Orton for the belt.

It helps if you take someone who actually is going to put effort into his character. Shelton's probably the current best example of wasted potential.

If HHH is staying face, which I assume is now long-term with Cena out, he doesn't need to be in a title picture. The people he'd beat for the title now would do nothing to elevate his status. Suppose he beat Orton tomorrow night. Big deal, he beat him tonight as well. Aside from Undertaker, there's really no one on the roster that you can put HHH with and create a "big match" feel, because he's already done it all. So you have him in co-main event matches for stuff like the Hornswaggle angle or something, and let the belt make someone else into a star. Just obviously not Shelton Benjamin. :p

I'm not a big fan of his character so much, but Umaga is a good example of how to write a character. He's got a gimmick, and he's stayed true to his gimmick for well over a year now. He doesn't cut promos, and to set him up, AAE was his mouthpiece, who did the heel manager thing perfectly while he was there.

I know that they say that the best personas are created when you take a guy's real personality and turn the volume all the way up (Rock, Austin, etc), and that's true to an extent. But when you get someone like a Shelton Benjamin who... I guess has no personality, or not one that will connect with fans, he needs a gimmick. A guy like Nailz needed his gimmick, because no one cared about "Larry who is gonna hit Vince and get fired."

I'm of the belief that not everyone can be a heel, and the problem is that they're so worried about keeping x amount of stars on the face side of things, that they don't use the true talents as heels. HHH is at his best as a heel. HBK was goddamned stellar as a heel in 97. Cena was great as a smacktalking heel. There's enough guys on the roster who can do the smile and wave thing and get over that way, but the title matches in the last few years have been like, "Cena beat [interchangeable names], so what?"

I look at a guy like Cena, and his long title reign is long, but I was honestly more excited for a Cena match back when he'd FU the Big Show, than when he makes so and so tap out. But they act like if he's not kissing babies or something, people won't buy his shirts. They sell to young kids and teen girls. He could probably rape Hornswaggle and still sell the same amount. The whole "grey area"/anti-hero thing is tired imo.

The first Cena-free raw in ages, aside from a video interview thing. I probably have my hopes too high for it, but I'm actually looking forward to it tonight.