After an action packed Road to Wrestlemania, two major situations have arisen in WWE this week. One of them good, one of them completely dumb for the perpetrator of said situation. You probably know what and whom I’m talking about right now so let’s start off with what transpired mere days after Elimination Chamber 2013.
Jack Swagger had been given a renewed sense of purpose in WWE since his comeback on the Smackdown after Royal Rumble. Before he left WWE in 2012 he was continuously buried and used as a jobber for wrestlers with no future like the deplorable Brodus Clay. Defeats to men like Clay served only to diminish Jack Swagger in both the companies eyes and the valuation of the WWE Universe. There was no way that we could take Swagger seriously after the debacle that was his World Heavyweight Championship run in 2010 and his continuous losses to no manes on Raw and Smackdown.
The finger of blame can be pointed wherever you like, but in the end it’s WWE that finger must settle on. Many times has Swagger been compared with Kurt Angle and for good reason. He has the build, the athleticism, the talent and the ring presence. Jack Swagger has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he can go with the very best of WWE’s talent which begs the question why WWE made such a balls up and spectacle of his first ever World Heavyweight Championship reign. A question only WWE and Vince McMahon can answer and one I feel, they never will.
Behind the scenes, Jack Swagger was a running joke that the WWE staff and creative could have a good laugh at. Whenever someone in WWE needed a laugh they would turn to Jack Swagger and book him to lose to some overweight blob or a wrestler who couldn’t pin a paper bag that had been nailed to the floor, in ten seconds. You can’t blame Swagger for losing his patience with WWE and even though he didn’t take the approach that C.M Punk took when WWE thought it was a laugh to bury him, Swagger can blame himself a little because he didn’t take the bull by the horn and demand to be used in a more effective way. For anyone who has seen ‘C.M Punk: Best in the World’ DVD or Blu-ray, they’ll know the lengths Punk went to, to get WWE to take him seriously. From re-writing his television angles and taking them to Vince himself, to refusing to be someone’s television programme just to get them over. Jack Swagger did none of this and instead sat idly by whilst WWE tore his image apart.
It was best for Swagger to take an extended leave of absence in 2012. We could all see he was going nowhere fast and had he remained in WWE in 2012, then maybe he’d already have been released. A leave of absence isn’t always the best course of action for a wrestler to take. When you’re out of sight then you really are out of mind in wrestling and you run the risk of people either not caring or not remembering you when you return from your little vacation. On the flip side though, starving the company of your talent can have a positive effect if they can see what they’re missing. Not being around allows WWE to come up with something fresher for your character and a storyline that can lead to a main event push.
This is exactly what happened with Jack Swagger and upon his return to WWE he was immediately inserted into the World Heavyweight Championship picture, winning the Elimination Chamber match to book his spot in the World Heavyweight Championship match at Wrestlemania 29. That was the theory at least. And now we come to the real point of this little piece. Jack Swagger had everything he wanted when he returned to WWE, so the last thing you thought he’d do was jeopardise it so close to what would have been the biggest match of his career in the MetLife Centre on April 7th. I mean, who would be stupid enough to ask for a chance and then when given that chance, completely blow it? The answer is Jack Swagger.
For those who haven’t already heard the news, then days after Elimination Chamber 2013 and the resultant Smackdown taping forty eight hours later, Jack Swagger was pulled up in Biloxi, Missippi by police and arrested for speeding, drinking whilst under the influence (pissed out of his face for the British readers) and possession of marijuana. What an idiot. Swagger is expected in court on March 12th when he will find out his punishment. Knowing WWE’s stance on drugs and drink and Vince McMahon’s hatred of the pair, one can only imagine that Jack Swagger has blown his chance at stardom at his spot at Wrestlemania for good. After wanting a chance, and being granted his wish, WWE can only be apoplectic at Swagger’s blatant idiotic behaviour.
His punishment will be severe and rightly so. I don’t know what sentence these crimes carry in the United States but in the U.K speeding and drink driving combined are a prison sentence. One gets the feeling whatever punishment is dealt out to him court it won’t be as harsh the one that will come from Vince McMahon himself. Other wrestlers have fallen into the same trap as Swagger and been caught, punished and fired for less whilst other wrestlers were merely punished and then reinstated in their spot on the roster. Sadly, for Jack Swagger he’s not as big as some of those names. Randy Orton only escaped having his contract terminated last year for his wellness policy violation and possession and usage of marijuana because his name sells a hell of a lot of tickets. Jack Swagger isn’t as big as Randy Orton and now, never will be.
WWE will use Swagger as the lesson to all WWE Superstars. I don’t know if he’ll be fired but I certainly believe he’ll lose his Wrestlemania spot to either Randy Orton or Sheamus and serve a mammoth suspension for his actions. If Jack was to return to WWE after his suspension then it will be at the bottom of the card and possibly in a worse position than when he left in 2012. The worst thing is, Swagger doesn’t have cause to complain. He was given everything he wanted and blew it. The All American-American only has himself to blame now. He could have killed someone and that’s something WWE can’t and won’t overlook when considering what to do with the supposed next elect World Heavyweight Champion. What a waste.
A Brand New Championship
Cries of “At last” emanated from the WWE Universe when the Rock unveiled the new WWE Championship title the night after Elimination Chamber 2013. For years now, WWE have been parading the ghastly spinner Championship first introduced by John Cena after he defeated JBL at Wrestlemania 21 and it’s about time, nearly eight years after the debut of the monstrosity of the spinner Championship that WWE have done away with the design that sold literally millions of replica copies around the world and replaced it with something a lot more fetching.
The WWE Championship has had numerous designs over the years and many imitations. Edge’s ‘Rated R WWE Championship’, The Rock’s ‘Brahma Bull WWE Championship’, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s ‘Texas Rattlesnake WWE Championship’ all unique in design and looked much better then Cena’s gaudy piece of trash. Now though, its replacement has a lot more finesse about it and can be taken a lot more seriously that its predecessor. In the unlikely event you haven’t yet seen the new WWE Championship then a picture accompanies this blog at the end. If you have then you can already see the difference in how much more professional it looks.
Calls for the spinner Championship to be abolished followed rather hastily after it was unveiled. To look at it you could tell the Championship was created to sell replica copies. Those who plug millions into the John Cena machine were guaranteed to buy it whilst those who reviled Cena were guaranteed to hate it. Not many people know this, but I used to be a John Cena fanatic. I brought the t-shirts and the belts and the hats and the stupid little arm bands, hell, I even went the whole hog and brought a replica pair of shorts that Cena fights in. I used to believe in everything John Cena spouted but in the end I saw the light. My judgment of John Cena isn’t done out of hatred for him, but out of a dissolution sense of disappointment. After a while, John Cena began to wear on me. As a fan, when you see his true inability in the ring then you do begin to question what else about him is false. It’s something I went through and it’s something every Cena fan will go through at some point in their life.
I tell you this not out of background for your Wrestling God but because it has a lot to do with the subject at hand. For those wrestling fans who have only jumped on the bandwagon in the last five or six years, the WWE Championship has a different meaning. It’s become just another Championship that is defended by the top man of the company and during the last 6 years, John Cena has been that man for a good percentage of the time. For older fans like myself though, those who have been through the early 1990’s nostalgia fest and the attitude era and whose roots are planted firmly in the late 1980’s, the WWE Championship means so much more. It’s tradition, a ritual and no matter how many times the design changed over the years it always remained something which could be looked upon as vital and respected. When John Cena introduced the spinner Championship in 2005, it seemed to devaluate the history of the Championship, especially when it became clear that WWE had done away with the traditional design just for the sake of its bank balance.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes, change is good and it can be a breath of fresh air to get away from tradition. WWE though too it to a whole new level. The spinner Championship was vile to look at and even though it kept up with Cena’s image and his popularity it really did cast a shadow over the history of the Championship and those who had held it in the past. What’s even more frightening is that WWE were going pimp the World Heavyweight Championship and make that into a spinner Championship when Cena won that belt as well. But the reaction WWE got towards the spinner WWE Championship put them off of that idea. Thank god.
Now though, WWE have seen sense and regained their senses. Of course, the unveiling comes at a perfect time, as the Rock and John Cena will meet at Wrestlemania 29 for the WWE Championship and having something new replace what Cena introduced into the company eight years ago will serve as a basis to re-ignite the feud between the Rock and John Cena. Now the Rock has more ammunition to fire at Cena and all WWE have to do is find the ammo to reload Cena’s gun. The build up I’m sure will be phenomenal even if the match won’t be.
Before we wrap this up and go along with our lives, I’d just like to point out the man who is sitting in the shadows, probably foaming at the mouth at this very moment. C.M Punk. Word of the new WWE Championship design was first put our by the then WWE Champion, Punk at a comic con event he attended. Punk revealed that he had input in the new design even though WWE refused to divulge to him when the new Championship would be unveiled. I do believe that Punk thought he’d be the man to unveil the gold and rid the world of that hideous eyesore, how it must have stung when WWE informed him that not only would he drop the WWE Championship to the Rock at Royal Rumble but also the Rock would be the man to unveil the Championship that Punk helped design. In his defence, you can see why C.M Punk has such a grudge against Dwayne Johnson. A grudge that warrants a third match between the duo and one which would have been a lot more fascinating that the main event we’re getting at Wrestlemania 29.
Onward and upwards...
