"It's a tragedy for me to see the dream is over!"---Milli Vanilli, "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You", 1989.
I know it is a little disconcerting, using a line from a disgraced pop duo's hit song, but the line certainly fits, considering the events of Smackdown on May 6 (taped May 3).
It has come out in the wash after the tapings on May 3 that the plan all along was for Randy Orton to be the World champion, regardless of who came out of Extreme Rules with the title, be it Christian or Alberto Del Rio. In essence, Vince McMahon threw a bone to Christian as a favor to the just-retired Edge, and denied the fulfillment of Del Rio's "destiny" just a wee bit longer. Ironically, Orton was the last guy who talked about destiny as he approached his first world title match, nearly 7 years ago, against the late Chris Benoit, at Summerslam.
But in the face of all this, Vince McMahon and his creative staff ignored a developing storyline that broke right in front of them on draft night, when Mark Henry turned heel and attacked John Cena & Christian during a 6-man main event on Raw. This angle wrote itself. Christian would win the title, and Henry would be the first challenger.
The biggest difference between Henry & Orton is that, despite an ECW title run on his resume a couple of years ago, the Olympian has never had a real opportunity at the WWE or World title. The dirt boards have talked about Henry talking about retiring soon. As long as McMahon wanted to throw out bones, why not give Henry one? While Christian is on his 2nd tour of duty with the company, Henry has been there straight through for 15 years, and could've gotten the "good soldier" treatment, just as John Layfield did 7 years ago. Sure, Christian vs. Henry has probably been done, but they've never feuded over a title. Ditto for Sheamus, who also came to Smackdown in the draft.
Instead, the WWE is "shocked" by the negative reaction to the spoilers revealing what we saw on May 6. The fans are tired of Vince McMahon insulting their intelligence with these knee-jerk decisions. In commentary during the title match, Booker T, Michael Cole, & Josh Mathews, like trained seals, discussed Christian "just getting to the top of the mountain", while Orton has 7 (now 8) World titles to his credit. In truth, Christian has 3, but they'll never acknowledge his 2 titles won in TNA, although Booker will readily admit to winning 1 there to bring his total to 7. By the same token, they won't acknowledge the 2 that R-Truth (Ron Killings) won in TNA. Amd Vince doesn't see TNA as competition? Yeah, right, and chickens have lips.
Vince has only himself to blame. His myopia and tunnel vision, coupled with his over-reliance on his current golden boys, Orton & John Cena, only adds to the resentment cascading upon WWE. Even though Cena will get some fresh challengers, Orton won't. He's already feuded with Sheamus. Christian will get his rematch, likely at Over the Limit later this month, and that will be it for him.
It all goes back to the fact that those who've returned from TNA (Christian, Gail Kim, Truth) have not been given a fair shake. Oh, sure, Christian gets what will be referred to as a 5-day World title run to go along with 2 ECW titles, but if he turns heel because of losing the title, that would be an even worse creative decision, and, again, the fault would be placed at the feet of McMahon.
The way I'd have played this is have Henry be the first challenger, followed by Sheamus. Have Christian lose the title at the end of the summer, then let Orton chase the title.
Instead, we may yet get Henry teaming with Ezekiel Jackson to go after the tag titles. Vince can be, to an extent, so predictable, and that's why it's so irritating to see WWE remain so complacent. He doesn't want to be associated with the wrestling business anymore, and doesn't want to teach his writers anything about wrestling history. Face it. The man lost his marbles a long, long time ago. He's only fooling himself if he believes what he told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap 2 years ago, that he would never die.
The dream that was Christian's World title run ended in tragedy. If he should ever be trusted with the title again, no one will invest in it because of that, and it'd be a worse tragedy.
