I agree with niceguyshawne that someone desperately needs to lose their MitB cash-in. Just my opinion, but the entire MitB thing is becoming tired, which has a lot to do with their insistence on not changing up the formula. Outside of Van Dam, all MitB victories have been the obvious 'catch a guy when he's down' variety, which is just lazy booking. Now, logically, that makes sense, but that only excites me for so long, especially now that it happens twice a year, with an all-time high of THREE different times the year before. If they keep it around, they either need to revert it back to WM, have enough people lose that it doesn't seem like a lock, or change the rules. Honestly, make it a guaranteed title shot, but it has to be for a *real* match.
It's also just a tool for lazy storytelling. You're telling me that Jack Swagger won for any other reason than Vince or someone else in power said "Hey, I want to see how Swagger does with the belt?". They didn't feel like writing a storyline for him to build to it (or afterward, for that matter), so they tossed him a briefcase and it was a done deal. If you can't be arsed to write a
ing storyline to give a guy the WORLD
ING TITLE, then just don't do it.
To me, Del Rio was the perfect guy to have failed at his cash-in, since he'd already been screwed over. It's sort of a re-do of the pre-leaving Jericho story, but hey. Instead of blathering on about his
ing destiny, have him slowly go insane because he can't manage to win the belt. The submission finisher is great for that, and have him apply that thing like the opening Anton Chigurh scene from 'No Country For Old Men' where he chokes out the cop. Insane Del Rio face will get him over. Guaranteed. Obviously, too, have him revert back to the glad-handing politician character when he's done with the move, like nothing ever happened. He does some great one-one matches to build him, and then he's a legit main eventer. But hey, why go through all the effort of getting him over, since it's WWE.
I worry, though, that Del Rio's title win right now has nothing to do with anyone being high on him, but that they feel like they owe him after being a good sport about the Edge thing. It's obvious that Del Rio was planned to leave either Mania or Backlash (
me if I know what the post-Mania PPV is anymore) with the belt, so I really get the sense this is more WWE making good on a promise than making good on him showing promise. I like Del Rio and think he'll be a major player in the future, but this was simply not the right time. I'm also afraid that this was simply a nice way of getting the belt back to Cena without having to job out Punk. Eh.
... off-topic, yeah, what's kind of embarrasing about having not seen The Wire until now is that I've actually owned the Complete Series set for like 3 years. Just never got around to it, but this is a nice side effect of not having cable... getting to finally go through stuff you missed. If nothing else, I'll definitely feel my two hours tonight will be better spent on that than Raw. Speaking of great TV, all three seasons of Breaking Bad are $14.99 each at Best Buy right now. Just a heads up, especially since that's a hell of a price for the only-been-out-for-about-4-weeks Season 3.
