No Way Out Shaping Up; Mania News and Notes
The WWE's final PPV before their biggest PPV of the year will take place a week from Sunday in Los Angeles at the Staples Center - No Way Out. This will be a SmackDown PPV, but of course has a lot of RAW star power behind it as both John Cena and Shawn Michaels will be on the card in the main event taking on SmackDown champ Batista and #1 contender Undertaker.
The card currently has the following matches set with one that is pending:
Undertaker & Batista vs. John Cena & Shawn Michaels
Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs. MNM vs. Hardys vs. William Regal & David Taylor in a ladder match for the tag titles
Finlay vs. Boogeyman
Kane vs. King Booker
The pending match that I think will be a go is Chris Benoit vs. Mr. Kennedy for the US Title.
The card really relies on the two huge matches - that being the tag title match, which will likely steal the show again like it did in the December PPV, and the main event, which I think will see mostly stares and tension between the four competitors as they will face each other at Mania.
It's interesting to note that with that PPV on 2/18, they will not have another PPV for six full weeks, by far the longest stretch between PPV's for the year. I like that fact, as it gives them tons of time to build up the storylines for WrestleMania in Detroit. Not that many should care, but you can expect there to be an announcement of the ECW Championship Match for Mania within the next two weeks, and my early pick is that they will go with Elijah Burke as part of the "New Breed" of ECW to take on Bobby Lashley. I know it sounds like a bit of a longshot, but come on, what other contenders are there? They blew their shot this last week at Hardcore Holly vs Lashley, as Holly lost clean, and if you think they are going to throw out Gene Snitsky vs Lashley, I just don't think they are desperate enough to do that - yet.
The other Mania match that will be set in the next few weeks is Edge vs Randy Orton. These two battled many times in the past, including Edge as a face taking the IC belt from Orton a few years back on a PPV. This time the dynamic will be totally different, as the crowd will have to side with someone as they are both going to come into the match as heels. I think long term Edge gets the nod as who the fans will root for, and I can see a change to face for the Rated R Superstar in the near future.
One final note, WWE is releasing a special edition WrestleMania III DVD on March 6th (my B-day!). The two-disc DVD will of course have all the matches along with interviews with a lot of the stars that had something to do with the mega event that had over 93,000 in the Silverdome in March, 1987.
WWE.com's ShopZone has a special where you can pre-order the DVD along with a WrestleMania 23 T-Shirt for about $35 bucks. I wish they would release on a few DVD's the special WrestleMania recap show they did that was about eight hours back before WrestleMania 16 aired on PPV in April 2000. There were some great insight interviews and highlights of the first 15 Manias. I think they did some of that on a DVD that was included with a WrestleMania book that came out the following year, but I think a complete two-three disc set of that day would be cool to relive.
The card currently has the following matches set with one that is pending:
Undertaker & Batista vs. John Cena & Shawn Michaels
Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs. MNM vs. Hardys vs. William Regal & David Taylor in a ladder match for the tag titles
Finlay vs. Boogeyman
Kane vs. King Booker
The pending match that I think will be a go is Chris Benoit vs. Mr. Kennedy for the US Title.
The card really relies on the two huge matches - that being the tag title match, which will likely steal the show again like it did in the December PPV, and the main event, which I think will see mostly stares and tension between the four competitors as they will face each other at Mania.
It's interesting to note that with that PPV on 2/18, they will not have another PPV for six full weeks, by far the longest stretch between PPV's for the year. I like that fact, as it gives them tons of time to build up the storylines for WrestleMania in Detroit. Not that many should care, but you can expect there to be an announcement of the ECW Championship Match for Mania within the next two weeks, and my early pick is that they will go with Elijah Burke as part of the "New Breed" of ECW to take on Bobby Lashley. I know it sounds like a bit of a longshot, but come on, what other contenders are there? They blew their shot this last week at Hardcore Holly vs Lashley, as Holly lost clean, and if you think they are going to throw out Gene Snitsky vs Lashley, I just don't think they are desperate enough to do that - yet.
The other Mania match that will be set in the next few weeks is Edge vs Randy Orton. These two battled many times in the past, including Edge as a face taking the IC belt from Orton a few years back on a PPV. This time the dynamic will be totally different, as the crowd will have to side with someone as they are both going to come into the match as heels. I think long term Edge gets the nod as who the fans will root for, and I can see a change to face for the Rated R Superstar in the near future.
One final note, WWE is releasing a special edition WrestleMania III DVD on March 6th (my B-day!). The two-disc DVD will of course have all the matches along with interviews with a lot of the stars that had something to do with the mega event that had over 93,000 in the Silverdome in March, 1987.
WWE.com's ShopZone has a special where you can pre-order the DVD along with a WrestleMania 23 T-Shirt for about $35 bucks. I wish they would release on a few DVD's the special WrestleMania recap show they did that was about eight hours back before WrestleMania 16 aired on PPV in April 2000. There were some great insight interviews and highlights of the first 15 Manias. I think they did some of that on a DVD that was included with a WrestleMania book that came out the following year, but I think a complete two-three disc set of that day would be cool to relive.
