"What if?" isn't just a question to flesh out in total works of fiction. The world of professional wrestling and sports entertainment can also have lingering questions of how things could have turned out had creative decisions gone a different direction or outside forces hadn't interrupted well laid plans. With this post, I'm going to try a thought experiment and take us all the way back to 2005.
Before I talked about their comic book inspired appearances, John Cena and Batista walked parallel paths as rookie wrestlers in WWE that lead to both winning world championships at WrestleMania 21 in 2005. Two months later with the annual draft in perhaps the biggest shake-up to the brand separation yet, John Cena (and by extension the WWE Championship) was moved to Raw while World Heavyweight Champion Batista became the top star on SmackDown. However, what if these superstars and their championships remained where they were and how would this impact the WWE? For the sake of this experiment, I'm going to cover the pay-per-view events following the 2005 draft up to WrestleMania 22, which is kind of like the season finale to a year's worth of WWE programming.
To start, there's the question of who would fill Cena and Batista's draft spots. I believe the change would be John Bradshaw Layfield going to Raw while Chris Jericho would go to SmackDown. Not only were these the rivalries that played out in actual events, but JBL going to Raw would save us from another few months of his rivalry with Cena which already culminated in their "I Quit" match at Judgment Day 2005.
Going into the SmackDown exclusive Great American Bash, Cena would defend the WWE Championship against Jericho, but would end in disqualification for a Jericho victory. This would lead to a No Holds Barred rematch at SummerSlam where Cena would retain the title. At the same event, Batista would retain his World Heavyweight Championship against JBL.
Batista would then enter a rivalry with Kurt Angle over the World title that would last up until November. Their match at the Raw exclusive Unforgiven would end in a DQ in Angle's favor, Shawn Michaels would enter the fray for a triple threat match at Raw's Taboo Tuesday event where Batista would win, and Batista would finally put away Angle at Survivor Series.
Over on SmackDown, Cena would retain the WWE title against Eddie Guerrero at their No Mercy event (which would also be Eddie's last PPV before his untimely death). After that, Cena would become involved in the Raw/SmackDown feud that had been brewing in the last quarter of the year. Much like Batista did at Taboo Tuesday, Cena would face Raw announcer Jonathan Coachman in a Street Fight. Following that, Cena would lead Team SmackDown against Team Raw in a 5-on-5 Classic Survivor Series tag team elimination match, which the former would win. Another interpromotional match would occur at SmackDown's Armageddon event where Cena and Rey Mysterio would face Big Show and Kane in a tag team match but ultimately lose.
Going into 2006 with Raw's New Year's Revolution event, Batista would retain his World title in a grueling Elimination Chamber match. But much like the real event immediately after the match, Edge would cash in his Money in the Bank contract he won at WrestleMania 21 that guaranteed him a world championship match at any time of his choosing. Edge would defeat the weary Batista easily to secure his first ever world championship.
Aside from the JBL and Jericho draft picks, you've probably noticed much of this is just swapping Cena and Batista for where they were on the other show. But here's where things get murky and I get a little more creative. In actual events, Batista was injured in a cage match with Mark Henry in January 2006 and had to vacate the World Heavyweight Championship which Kurt Angle would win in a battle royal; Batista wouldn't return to in-ring action until July of that year. For the sake of this post though, and the fact that he's competing against a different set of wrestlers in this scenario, we're going to keep Batista around as if the injury never occurred.
We now head into the Royal Rumble event and the road to WrestleMania 22 beginning. Similar to the actual event, Batista would regain the World title from Edge while Cena would defeat Mark Henry to retain the WWE title. However, in my biggest deviation to events yet, Randy Orton would win the Royal Rumble match to earn a world championship match at WrestleMania.
Now I realize in actual events that Rey Mysterio winning the Rumble was a big moment on his road to winning the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania in honor of Eddie Guerrero's memory, being one of his best friends. On the WWE title side though, John Cena retained against Triple H, who got the title match after winning a number one contender's tournament. In this scenario of events, I wouldn't want to do a rematch between him and Batista immediately one year later; their rivalry played out the year before and I think it would take away from their eventual rematch years later at WrestleMania 35. I thought about Batista facing another person involved in that tournament, but each of them were already involved in a match at WrestleMania 22. For the sake of something different, I'd have Orton win the Rumble and move to Raw so he can challenge Batista for the World title; it does help that this was a match kicked around by creative before Batista's injury. And don't worry, Rey would still earn a world title match; he'd just probably win his own number one contender's tournament at SmackDown's No Way Out event for the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania.
Also at No Way Out, Cena would retain the WWE title against the Undertaker, partially due to interference from Raw's Kurt Angle.
And so WrestleMania 22 arrives and while much of the matches remain relatively the same, here's where my course of events would bring differences:
* After costing him the WWE title at No Way Out, Undertaker would set his sights on Kurt Angle and the two would have an interpromotional match that would be comparable to their bout at the actual 2006 No Way Out, but with Undertaker winning and continuing the streak.
* At the actual event, Shawn Michaels was in a feud with Vince McMahon and defeated him in a No Holds Barred match. But with Triple H out of the world title picture in this scenario, he would become involved in the feud and this would instead lead into a tag match with Michaels and Triple H against Vince and his son, Shane. As the two had been enemies for years at this point, Michaels and Triple H would go into WrestleMania seemingly as reluctant partners. But at the event, the two would surprise most everyone by coming out as a reunited D-Generation X (just imagine the crowd pop as the theme music would hit), something that wouldn't actually happen until the summer of that year. DX would go on to beat the McMahons in their grand return.
* As explained earlier, former Evolution teammates Batista and Randy Orton would go head-to-head for the World Heavyweight Championship. Batista ultimately wins as behind the scenes, Orton wasn't deemed ready for another world title run yet.
* Rey Mysterio would then take on John Cena for the WWE Championship in the main event for what I think would be a good match between friends that would also be in honor of Eddie. Rey would win the title and while it ends Cena's year long reign as champion, the two celebrate along with the crowd as the night ends.
And that's how I think things would have happened. At the very least, I think it would have made an already good WrestleMania even better. I had some fun thinking this through, so let me know if you agree with my creative choices or if you're happy with how things actually turned out.
No comments:
Post a Comment