Lo-Down Wrestling Podcast: The Streak Playlist

As you're aware, I've spent the last few weeks doing a podcast series about the Undertaker's Streak. Due to the fact that I have not published all of them on this website, I've decided to do a playlist with links to them.

Part 1

Sawyer Paul from International Object joined me as we discussed Undertaker vs Superfly Jimmy Snuka at Wrestlemania VII as well as his debut at the 1990 Survivor Series.

Part 2

Scott T Holland was the guest as we discussed Undertaker vs Jake “The Snake” Roberts at Wrestlemania VIII.

Part 3

Scott T Holland became the first return guest as we talked about Undertaker's match with Giant Gonzales at Wrestlemania IX.

Part 4

Trey Irby, who contributes to The Wrestling Blog, was with me as we discussed Undertaker vs King Kong Bundy at Wrestlemania XI.

Part 5

Don Owens from the podcast Am I On The Air? joined me as we discussed Undertaker's match with Diesel at Wrestlemania XII

Part 6

Rich Thomas, who co-hosts the International Object podcast with Sawyer Paul, was the guest and we talked about Undertaker challenging Sycho Sid for the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania 13.

Part 7

Joe Drilling from the podcast What a Maneveur and I discussed Undertaker's match against Kane at Wrestlemania 14.

Part 8

Trey Ibry returned to the podcast and we discussed the Hell in a Cell match involving Undertaker and The Big Boss Man at Wrestlemania XV.

Part 9

Tom Holzerman from the Wrestling Blog was the guest as we talked about Undertaker's first match against Triple H at Wrestlemania X-7.

Part 10

Sawyer Paul returned to the podcast and we discussed Undertaker vs Ric Flair at Wrestlemania XVIII.

Part 11

Nick Gator joined me and we talked Undertaker taking on Big Show and A-Train, with a little (illegal) help from Nathan Jones, at Wrestlemania XIX.

Part 12

Corey Santiago was the guest and we discussed Undertaker against Kane at Wrestlemania XX, in which we saw the return of the dead man gimmick.

Part 13

Kevin Mahon, co-host of the Attitude Era Podcast, joined me as Undertaker faced Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 21.

Part 14

Bill Bicknell was the guest as we talked the casket match between Undertaker and Mark Henry at Wrestlemania 22.

Part 15

Bill Bicknell returned to the podcast and we discussed Undertaker challenging Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 23

Part 16

Sawyer Paul was back on the podcast and we talked about the World Heavyweight Championship match between Undertaker and Edge at Wrestlemania XXIV

Part 17
Corey Santiago returned to the podcast as we talked about Undertaker facing Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 25.

Part 18
Joe Drilling returned and we talked about the Wrestlemania XXVI match between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels

Part 19
Kevin Mahon was back on the podcast as we discussed Undertaker vs Triple H at Wrestlemania XXVII

Part 20
Don Owens, who was there live, and I talked about the "End of an Era" Hell in a Cell match between Undertaker and Triple H at Wrestlemania XXVIII with Shawn Michaels, for some reason that is never explained, the special guest referee.

Part 21
Tom Holzerman was the guest for Undertaker's final Wrestlemania victory as he took on CM Punk at Wrestlemania XXIX.

As you're now aware, the Streak has ended with Brock Lesnar defeating Undertaker this year. I will be doing a podcast about it but you have to wait til just before Wrestlemania 31. Until then, I hope you enjoy listening to these podcasts and there will be more published over the year.

Wrestlemania XXVIIII Predictions

It’s Wrestlemania baby! The Showcase of the Immortals! The Grand Daddy of Them All etc etc. The card for this looks stacked so let’s take a look.

Randy Orton will take on Kane in a feud that doesn’t really make sense to me. The reason that Kane is after Orton is because after a match between the two last July, Kane offered his hand to Orton. If that was the case, why did Kane attack Cena first when he returned? You know what, I don’t really care. Anyway, I expect Randy Orton to win this one.

Predicted Winner: Randy Orton

Cody Rhodes will be defending his Intercontinental Championship against the Big Show. This is the first time that the Intercontinental Championship has been defended at Wrestlemania in 4 years. I have loved Cody’s videos showing Show’s Wrestlemania lowlights. I would love to see Cody retain his title; however, I think that Big Show will become the Intercontinental Champion for the first time.

Predicted Winner: Big Show

Team Teddy will take on Team Johnny for control of both RAW and Smackdown. It’s a shame it’s not a Survivor Series type match as that could be an entertaining contest. I think that Team Johnny as I can’t see any value of Team Teddy winning. If he does, it looks like we will be having a lot of tag team matches, playa.

Predicted Winners: Team Johnny

Divas Champion Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres will take on Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos. Ok, I have a few questions about this match:

·         Who is Maria Menounos?

·         When the fuck did Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres join forces?

·         When did Natalya and Beth end the Legion Divas of Doom?

·         Why should I care about this match? Seriously, why should I?

Thanks to the WWE fucking the Divas around, I expect this match to last less than 5 minutes. Due to the fact that a celebrity is involved, Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos will win this one.

Predicted Winners: Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos

Sheamus will challenge Daniel Bryan for the World Heavyweight Championship. I think that Bryan has been an excellent Champion over the last few months and Sheamus has been looking strong since he won the Royal Rumble. This is a tough one to call but I think that Sheamus will be the first Royal Rumble winner since the Undertaker in 2007 to become World Heavyweight Champion.

Predicted Winner: Sheamus

It’s the End of an Era as the Undertaker will go for 20-0 against Triple H in Hell in a Cell. Even though I’m a big Triple H fan, I wasn’t looking forward to Undertaker vs Triple H III. However, the story going into it and the fact that it’s in Hell in a Cell has made this a very intriguing contest. Plus there is the Shawn Michaels factor as he is the special guest referee and it’s all down to him. Whilst Michaels has beef with both of them, I hope he does what Triple H did when he refereed the Cena/Punk match at Summerslam and stay neutral throughout. I think that this will be a great match and, although they may be times when you think Triple H will win the match, I fully expect Undertaker to win and to go 20-0.

Predicted Winner: Undertaker

The WWE Championship is on the line as “Best in the World” CM Punk defends the title against “Best in the World in Everything he does” Chris Jericho. I know a lot of people are going to Wrestlemania to see Rock vs Cena; however, this has the ability to be the match of the night. The feud for this has been ok with Jericho playing the personal card to get under Punk’s skin, which I don’t mind. However, I just don’t think it’s necessary. This is a really tough one to call. I would be happy with both these guys winning. I’m going for Jericho to win this and become the new WWE Champion.

Predicted Winner: Chris Jericho

The main event (obviously) will be The Rock taking on John Cena in the match billed as “Once in a Lifetime”. The feud has been slowly simmering for over a year and, whilst it may have dropped the ball sometimes, I, along with millions of people, am really looking forward to it. This will be an exciting match and John Cena has to win this, he just has to.

Predicted Winner: John Cena

Whilst I’m looking forward to this, I won’t get to see all of it til Monday night. I hope you enjoy the show and I’ll post my review late Monday night.

WWE TLC 2011 Preview

It’s the last PPV of the year and will WWE end the year on a high? Only 6 matches that have been announced, so let’s look at the card.

Randy Orton will take on Wade Barrett in a tables match and there’s a possibility that this might open the show. I know people might complain that a former World Champion shouldn’t open the PPV, but he did that with CM Punk at Extreme Rules and they both ended up winning Championships. This is quite a tough one as I can see both guys winning. However, I don’t see Orton losing two PPV matches in a row, so I think that he will win.

Predicted winner: Randy Orton

Zack Ryder, thanks to a petition and some help from John Cena, gets another chance for the United States Championship against Dolph Ziggler. If you’ve seen Ryder’s show Z! True Long Island Story, you would have seen this feud develop over the last few months. I’ve enjoyed Ziggler’s reign as US Champion; however, I think it’s time for Ryder to stop introducing himself as the Internet Champion and say “the United States Champion” instead.

Predicted winner: Zack Ryder

The Intercontinental Championship is on the line as Booker T takes on Cody Rhodes. While Booker’s commentary has been...interesting, I do prefer him as a wrestler and he might be the best person to help Rhodes push onto the main event scene. I can see this feud going past the Royal Rumble. Therefore, I think that Rhodes will retain.

Predicted winner: Cody Rhodes

In a “sledgehammer on a pole (kinda) match”, Kevin Nash will take on his former friend (and COO) Triple H. Even though, he’s one of my favourite wrestlers, I can see Triple H losing. After a bit of thought, Triple H has been out for a while thanks to Nash and I think he will get revenge at the PPV.

Predicted Winner: Triple H

Big Show vs Mark Henry III is the match for the World Heavyweight Championship. I’m not really looking forward to this one but with it being a chairs match, we are at least guaranteed a winner. I think that Henry will retain and then go on to induct a new person into the Hall of Pain.

Predicted Winner: Mark Henry

The WWE Championship is on the line in a triple threat TLC match with CM Punk defending against Alberto Del Rio and The Miz. It’s good to see The Miz back in the WWE title picture and Del Rio is always a joy to watch. However, I believe that CM Punk will remain the champion for the foreseeable future. Therefore, I’m going for Punk to win.

Predicted Winner: CM Punk

So there you have it. It’s a bit weird not having a PPV with John Cena in it so I expect that he will be involved at some point. Otherwise, it looks to be a decent show. I hope you enjoy it and a review of the show will be up during the week.

Night of Champions Review

Night of Champions was last night and, considering the last two PPVs have been really good, will it get to that same level? Let’s take a look.

The WWE Tag Team Championship was on the line first as Air Boom were challenged by The Miz and R-Truth. I’m a big fan of The Miz’s theme music but it’s very funny seeing him and R-Truth do their duet telling the Buffalo fans that they suck. The match was good but the referee Rod Zapata made 3 questionable decisions that annoyed Truth and Miz. The first was when the he was distracted by Truth missing the fact that Bourne didn’t get tagged in by Kingston. The second and third was when Zapata missed Miz tagging in Truth and while he was arguing with Truth, Miz hit the Skull Crushing Finale on Bourne and the referee didn’t get to make the count for a good 10-15 seconds, by that time Bourne had recovered and kicked out. At that point Miz spat the dummy (Scottish way of saying that he lost his temper) and shoved the referee, getting disqualified and giving Air Boom the win. Truth and Miz didn’t take that decision by Zapata very well and continued to assault him then went on ranting about a conspiracy against them. On the basis of the referee’s decisions, they kinda have a point.

Predictions: 1 for 1 (good start!)

The Intercontinental Championship was on the line as Ted DiBiase challenged the wrestler formerly known as “Dashing” Cody Rhodes. DiBiase throughout the match kept on attacking Rhodes’ mask. The end was when DiBiase took the mask off and tried to hit Rhodes. However, Rhodes countered it into a roll up for the win. Lawler was saying that Rhodes had a handful of tights, but it didn’t look like it and hey, what’s wrong with the bad guys winning clean occasionally?

Predictions: 2 for 2

Before the next match, Christian came out to demand a match against the winner of the World Heavyweight Championship. Christian, face it, you’re out of the title picture for now. Move on. Sheamus came out and struck a deal in that if Christian gets his match and wins, he will be the first challenger. Christian agrees and Sheamus proceeds to brogue kick his head off. I don’t know about you but I guess the deal’s off.

The next match is a fatal 4-way match between US Champion Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, John Morrison and Alex Riley. Riley tried to do a crossbody on Ziggler, which turned out to be a bad idea as Ziggler stepped out of the way and Riley hit the steel steps. The rivalry between Ziggler and Swagger flared up for a while, then Vickie helped out Swagger by putting his foot on the ropes after he got hit by Riley. There was a really good bit near the end where Ziggler had Morrison in a sleeper hold and Swagger had Riley in the Ankle Lock. I thought that it would have been interesting if they both tapped out at the same time, making Ziggler and Swagger co-champions. The ending had Swagger powerbombing Morrison, and Ziggler, who must have reading Edge’s manual on how to be the ultimate opportunist, pushes Swagger out of the way and pins Morrison to get the win.

Predictions: 2 for 3

Next was Randy Orton defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Mark Henry.  Orton had a strategy at the beginning of frustrating Henry and slowing him down. Henry managed to start to get the upper hand when he stretched Orton’s body round the ring post. Henry was quite dominant throughout the match, which started to make me think that Orton would probably pull a RKO out of nowhere and win it. Orton kicked out of the World’s Strongest Slam and then a bit later on tried to hit a RKO but Henry pushed him off, hit him again with the World’s Strongest Slam and got the win. Wow! I know that I have predicted that Henry would lose in his PPV matches and it’s nothing against him, I just thought that it was going to be another failed push. However, I’m so happy that Mark Henry is now the World Heavyweight Champion. It’s a shame that due to the fact he’s now 40 years old, he might not be the champion again. I hope that he has a bit of a run with it. With the exception of the Undertaker, wrestlers that are over 300lbs and look physically dominating in the WWE either don’t become champion or rarely do. Regardless of whether I enjoyed a match or not, if I got the prediction wrong, I would be a bit gutted. Not this time. It might be because I’m not really an Orton fan but I’m happy I got this wrong. So once again, congratulations to Mark Henry on becoming the World Heavyweight Champion for the first time.

Predictions: 2 for 4

Next up was the Divas Championship with Beth Phoenix in her home town of Buffalo hoping for second time lucky by beating Kelly Kelly. Beth Phoenix seems to bring out the best in Kelly Kelly and it was a decent match. There was a good bit where Natalya pulled Beth out of the ring to help her recover. Eve attacks Natalya and Beth grabs Eve’s hair and slams her to the floor. The ending had Kelly Kelly winning by reversing a powerbomb into a sunset flip. Normally, that would be fine. However, the fact that a) she did a similar move to beat Beth at Summerslam and b) Cody Rhodes won with a roll up over an hour earlier did annoy me slightly. A lot of people were thinking that Beth would win this but she didn’t so it could do in a couple of different ways. Either Beth will go for third time’s the charm and possibly go the way that the Orton/Christian feud went earlier this year; or maybe Natalya will get a chance basically saying to Beth “if you can’t beat Kelly, then I will!” The fact remains that if the Legion Divas of Doom want to save the Divas division; their plan’s going to fail at the first hurdle if they can’t defeat the fucking Divas Champion.

Predictions: 2 for 5

The final title to be defended was the WWE Championship, John Cena (yet again!) challenging Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio walked out to the ring with Ricardo Rodriguez announcing him as usual. Wait; hang on, what’s wrong with this picture? Isn’t Del Rio supposed to come out in a luxury car? Well, he would have if Cena haven’t stolen it and drove it in himself. Ok, then, that’s more heel behaviour but you’re Cena, you can do what you want. This match was pretty good and then Del Rio had Cena in the cross armbreaker. Normally, that would be great and thought that it was over but this is Super Cena we’re talking about here who never submits. Ever. It was pretty cool how Cena got out of it by basically lifting Del Rio up in the air into a modified powerbomb. Cena then put Del Rio in the STF and he tapped out, making Cena a 12-time champion at the age of 34. Ok, really?! Really?! Really?! What. The. FUCK?!?!?! It’s shit like this that the WWE Creative department pull that fuck a lot of people off! I’m going to stop for a second before I go on another rant like I did at Summerslam. Give me a minute...

...Ok, I’m back. As you can tell, I don’t think that (along with the fucking majority of wrestling fans) Cena should have won the WWE title. I’m not a big Cena fan and it’s because of shit like this. Due to the fact that the WWE are going to Mexico in a couple of weeks, it was generally thought that Del Rio would still be the champion then. Anyway, I could go on and on but I need to focus on the rest of the article so, congratulations to John Cena, the prick.

Predictions: 2 for 6

Now to the main event of the evening, CM Punk versus Triple H in a no-disqualification match, which seems ironic that the main event of Night of Champions is not a title match. This had an interesting beginning with Punk attacking HHH during his entrance. Punk, I know I’ve recently become a big fan of yours, but you can’t do that to my favourite wrestler. The match went in and out of the ring. Punk managed to elbow Triple H through the Spanish announcers table, and start to get the upper hand. This is where the match becomes a massive clusterfuck and a lot of shit happens, so read this carefully and try to keep up. The Miz and R-Truth come out and take out both Triple H and Punk, draping Punk’s body over Triple H. However, HHH kicks out and, understandably Miz and Truth get into it with the referee Scott Armstrong and beat the crap out of him. John Laurinatis comes out and Triple H and Punk temporarily join forces to get rid of Miz and Truth. Triple H hits the pedigree on Punk and when another referee comes out, Laurinatis gets him to tend to Armstrong instead of making the count. However, when Punk recovers and hits the GTS, Laurinatis gets the referee to make the count, in which R-Truth stops by pulling Punk off him. Yes, you read that right. R-Truth, who 2 minutes ago, tried to get Punk the win then does the complete fucking opposite. That makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Punk then kicks out of another pedigree. Laurinatis decides to stop tending to Armstrong and starts texting someone on his phone. Gee, I wonder who that could be? Yes, you guessed it; Kevin Nash comes in through the crowd and attacks both Triple H and Punk. Nash goes after Triple H again and gets hit by a sledgehammer to the head. Triple H then hits another pedigree on Punk and gets the win.

Predictions: 3 for 7

I was enjoying this PPV until the Divas match then it started to make no sense to me. Firstly, hometown gal Beth Phoenix loses another chance to become Divas Champion; Super Cena becomes a 12(!!) time World Champion, and the main event became more similar to TNA main event with the amount of interference that was going on.

After Money in the Bank and Summerslam, they have gone a massive step backwards with this one. There are only 2 weeks until Hell in a Cell in New Orelans, and the question has to be whether they can bring it back up to that level again.

Night of Champions Preview

Night of Champions will be this Sunday and like the last two Pay-Per-Views, I’m quite looking forward to it. Six (maybe seven) matches are on the card and, after Summerslam; I hope I do a lot better in my predictions. Let’s look at the card:

Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne, also known as Air Boom, defend their Tag Team Championship against The Miz and R-Truth. I like the team of the Miz and R-Truth and, while I would love them to win it, I don’t believe that they will. Therefore, I think that Air Boom will retain their titles.

Dolph Ziggler will defend his US Title against John Morrison, Jack Swagger and Alex Riley in a four corners match. Dolph has been an enjoyable champion and I think it’s time for a new champion. While the push has been stalled slightly, I think that Alex Riley will win his first championship.

Beth Phoenix has a second chance to win the Divas Championship against Kelly Kelly. I have nothing against Kelly Kelly because I keep on predicting that she will lose and she goes on to win. However, it’s time for the Legion Divas of Doom to rule the roost and I think that Beth Phoenix will win.

Randy Orton will defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Mark Henry. I’ve been impressed with Mark Henry over the last few months and, if it wasn’t for Christian continually getting rematches, he would have probably had his chance a bit sooner. However, I don’t think that he will win and while I’m not an Orton fan, I think that he will retain although I won’t be too gutted if he loses.

John Cena will be challenging Alberto Del Rio for the WWE Championship in what will most likely be the main event. This is a tough one to call and I see Cena being WWE Champion again (yawn) but I don’t think that will happen and I’m going for Alberto Del Rio to still be the champion.

And now the match has been the main focus on RAW for the last few weeks, CM Punk vs Triple H in a no-DQ match. This is also a tough one to call. There is no doubt in my mind that Kevin Nash will be involved. However, he could go out to help Triple H or hinder him making him an X factor in this match. I’m a big fan of both these guys but I did say in an earlier article that Triple H will win and I still think that. Expect the Game to win and continue this feud for a bit longer.

While it’s been not announced when I wrote this, I think that Cody Rhodes will defend his Intercontinental Championship against Ted DiBiase. It wouldn’t be Night of Champions if all the titles were not being defended. I like DiBiase, however, his attempt to be the 21^st century version of the Million Dollar Man failed miserably when they could have done something different with it instead of rehashing the same gimmick that they did with his father. I think that it’s too soon for DiBiase to be champion so I think that Cody Rhodes will retain.

The last two WWE Pay-Per-Views have been thoroughly enjoyable and I hope that this one will continue in that vein.

CM Punk: We’re Still Talking about Him

The summer period is sometimes a time when the WWE would experiment with new things with the Nexus being a recent example. This year, we have had one of the most exciting storylines in recent memory with the feud between CM Punk and John Cena. The main thing that I have liked with the main storylines on RAW over the summer is that they seem to have gone in a really good direction involving so many people and it seemed so organic the way that they have gone with it. It has now slightly branched out with the feud developing between Cena and Del Rio having its origins in this storyline.

Now that Punk is focusing on what happened to him at Summerslam, I have been seeing people talk about the fact, while Punk has been talking about change, it hasn’t really happened. The personification of this has been John Cena, who has been involved in every PPV main event this year, and is at Night of Champions will be involved in his 7^th consecutive WWE Championship match as champion or challenger on PPV.

While I agree with some of that, Cena is not the main storyline on RAW despite the fact that it involves the WWE Championship. RAW has started over the last few weeks with the aftermath from what happened at Summerslam between Triple H, CM Punk and Kevin Nash. That has been the main storyline and they are still articles being published about Punk all over the internet.

Night of Champions on Sunday is the only event of the year where all the championships in the company are on the line. However, the main talking point of the event is not any of the title matches, it’s CM Punk vs Triple H, which has no title on the line. That shows to me how highly the WWE regard CM Punk in that he can be in a storyline that has no championship to fight over with two of the best storytellers in wrestling. Yes, CM Punk is not involved in the WWE title picture for now but he doesn’t need to be to be what everyone is talking about and that shows what a good wrestler he is.

It's Not Over Yet

Last Monday on RAW, Triple H managed to find out, via security footage that the Staples Center people had forgot about, who had texted Kevin Nash on Triple H’s phone with orders to “stick the winner for me”. That person was...Kevin Nash. Yeah, Kevin Nash texted himself to beat up the winner of the CM Punk /Cena match. Does that make sense? Of course it doesn’t. I find it bizarre that, after Triple H gave him tickets to Summerslam, that Nash decided to “make the WWE cool again” by carrying out this plan. Therefore, Triple H fired him and CM Punk wished him luck with his future endeavours.  Kevin Nash’s firing was also reported on wwe.com.

However, two things make me think that we have not seen the last of Nash. The first is that John Laurinatis is still supporting Nash by the fact that they left the arena together. There is still the possibility that Laurinatis will find some way to keep him and Nash in the picture.

The second thing is you didn’t see the security footage and the whole crowd are basing it on Triple H’s word. While I agree that Triple H has been a good guy as the COO so far, let’s not forget that this is the cerebral assassin that we are talking about here. This could be a ploy between Triple H and Nash to get at Punk for all the things that Punk has done to him. For those people that think that Nash’s firing was real because it was reported on their website; don’t forget that Punk’s suspension was reported on their website as well. The WWE are using their website to help build their storylines as they are doing with the Legion Divas of Doom.

This has made Triple H’s match with Punk at Night of Champions all the more interesting and it seems to have more hype to it than all the other matches on the card. A lot of people are thinking that, with Triple H’s COO position on the line, Punk will lose. However, the last two PPV matches involving Punk have had stipulations added to it that make you think that WWE are going the safe route with Punk losing and he won. I think Triple H will still win, not because of the stipulation of his job, but because I can see Nash coming in to help him.

Wasn’t it Supposed to be CM Punk vs Kevin Nash?

The events of last week’s RAW determined the main event of Night of Champions with Alberto Del Rio defending the WWE Championship against John Cena. Cena defeated CM Punk to become the No.1 contender. However, the way that Cena wasn’t exactly a clean win with Cena taking advantage of CM Punk being distracted by Kevin Nash to get the AA.

With Nash costing Punk the WWE Championship and then the chance to become the No. 1 contender, you can understand that Punk wanted to get revenge. Unfortunately, Nash was not (in storyline) a WWE employee until it was revealed on RAW that John Laurinatis gave Nash a contract. Punk was thinking “problem solved” and it seemed a match between Punk and Nash was on the cards.

At least that’s what we thought. At the end of RAW, Triple H said that he would face Punk at Night of Champions instead. Wait, what?! As a big Triple H fan, I was looking forward to seeing him wrestle again although I didn’t think that I would see that for another month or two. However, I was struggling to see how we had gone from Punk vs Nash to Punk vs HHH.

Luckily, instead of waiting til Friday to see Smackdown, we only had to wait 24 hours instead at the contract signing between Punk and Triple H, which hoped to explain things. Triple H explained that he made the decision after speaking to the board of directors. Then he goes to explain that he’s not happy with the way Punk has been acting towards himself, his family and the comapny. That seems fair especially since Triple H could have told Punk to get out when he gave him the contract before Summerslam. It seems to go down to the basic fact that Triple H, after all he’s done to try and make it work, is feeling a bit unappreciated by Punk, a fact that the crowd seem to understand judging by the reaction.

There are rumours going round that Nash might not be ready for a full-on wrestling match. That may be true since he hasn’t properly wrestled for almost a year (the Royal Rumble doesn’t really count) and he’s 52 and will be wrestling against a man 20 years younger.

When it was going to be Nash vs Punk, it was obvious that we would cheer Punk and boo Nash. Now it’s different. I think that Triple H is one of those few people (Ric Flair is another) that, it doesn’t matter if he’s a good guy or bad guy; you’re not really going to boo him.

What about Nash, you wonder? Well, he will be a X-factor in this match. I have no doubt that he will try to interfere but will he be stopped by Triple H, or will he let it happen in order to get the win? Only time will tell but I, for one, will be really looking forward to this match.

The Summerslam Conspiracy

The ending of Summerslam with Kevin Nash attacking CM Punk and then Alberto Del Rio cashing in his MITB contract to become the WWE Champion was one of the most unpredictable endings to a Pay Per View in ages. The following RAW, despite Triple H’s denials, Kevin Nash said that he received a text message from Triple H asking him to “stick the winner for me”. It looks like there are conflicting stories going round and I can’t see this being solved for another couple of weeks. So, how are the suspects in asking Nash to attack CM Punk?

Triple H

It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it? Kevin Nash received the text message from his phone. He may have intentionally missed Cena’s foot on the rope to make sure that Punk won the match. However, while he can be angry at CM Punk for effectively holding the company to ransom; if it wasn’t for Punk, Triple H wouldn’t be the COO now. I don’t think it’s him and he’s being used as a scapegoat, but there are rumours going round of a Punk/HHH feud going into Survivor Series, so you never know.

Alberto Del Rio

Alberto Del Rio was the RAW MITB contract holder. However, each time he tried to cash it in, it didn’t go well. Del Rio probably needed to make sure that the next time he would try to cash it in, his opponent wouldn’t be in a position to recover. The best way to do that is to get a hired gun (Nash) to do that for him. It would be something different. Each time, except for Rob Van Dam, the MITB contract has been cashed in, it has been when the holder has taken advantage of an attack on the champion. Del Rio has the money to hire someone to take out the champion and then he can come in and pick up the pieces. However, I believed him when he said that he saw the opportunity and took it. It’s possible but unlikely.

Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley

Stephanie probably wanted revenge for what happened to her father and she has the ability to get access to Triple H’s phone (being married to him and all). It’s a long shot but more likely, it wasn’t her.

John Laurinatis

John doesn’t like either Punk or Cena. He could have gotten access to Triple H’s phone and it could be that he could use this situation to his own advantage to get more power. It’s possible but unlikely.

And the most likely suspect is...

...Vince McMahon

If you think about it, it’s perfect. Vince has beef with Punk, Cena and Triple H. Punk held the company to ransom, Cena got the match at MITB back on while Punk was suspended when he threatened to quit, leading Vince to employ desperate measures at the Money in the Bank PPV to ensure Punk didn’t win. First, he tried to get Laurinatis to ring the bell when Punk was in the STF, which was foiled by Cena. He then tried to get Del Rio to cash in his MITB contract, which Punk foiled before running off into the sunset. Vince’s actions meant that the board had to get him to step down from the day to day operations and let Triple H take over. If Vince let all of that slide, then I would be very surprised. Vince probably wasn’t there but he could have got Laurinatis or even Stephanie to send the text message to Nash on Triple H’s phone, creating a scapegoat.

So, there are the suspects. We will find out soon enough who the culprit is.