[quote name='AdamInPlaidum']Edge was really getting over as a top heel, and let him run with it for awhile.[/QUOTE]
The treatment of Edge, ironically (or coincidentally instead; I've got a brutal High Life hangover today, so

you if I make grammatical errors) resembles what happened to Christian about this time last year. He was hot, he was a fresh new face that was getting over with crowds left and right, and, for the most part, the crowds always paid attention to these guys. It was clear that there was a fan movement that demanded these guys needed to move up higher than they were (just like there was a fan movement to get the belt off of Cena).
Christian suddenly became a good guy on Raw, belittling Cena (and getting cheers for it, before people developed ambivalence towards Cena) and seemingly moving into the upper card. He spent the year before in a solid feud with Chris Jericho and showed he was a very good, if not great, wrestler. It was time to give him a chance at the top.
Then he was traded to SmackDown!, never given a title shot, never given a major feud or storyline, and the WWE spent a lot of money building up a "talk show" set for him to see it used roughly 5 times; not to mention, talk show segments are so passe that it seems that all but the juniors have them, so getting a set and a segment isn't anything to be happy about.
Compare that with Edge, who became *the* guy to hate in 2005 as a result of Matt Hardy (funny how that one turned out, no?). That feud was totally hot (well, they

ed it up somehow, but the heat was there and the matches a lot of fun). Their cage match was excellent, and while Matt Hardy got *some* comeuppance, Edge totally won that angle; he took everything good from it, and Matt Hardy is just a bitch, upset because he's tag-teaming with mother

ing Chief Eats-Too-Much (or, alternately, Chief Too-Old-For-This-Shit) instead of feuding for the NWA world heavyweight championship. I don't think *anyone* can say Matt Hardy made the right choice in his career there. But this is about Edge.
So, Edge is hot off that feud, and he has a new,*ahem*, edge to his character; his interviews are top notch, full of fantastic barbs, and very, very believable. There's something about his promos that cut through the make-believe WWE world and tell you that Edge is for real. In a world of Boogeymen, midgets, mexicans on lawnmowers, Dicks, and BodyDonnas, Edge somehow convinces you that he is the real deal.
So he gets a run at the top, winning the title in the single most brilliant (that's not a compliment) booking decisions made by the WWE this year. Ratings go up, Edge as champ is awesome, and somehow Cena managed to parlay some of the crowd ambivalence toward him. All is well in the world of OZ.
Now Edge lost the title, HHH jumped in to stake his *yawn* claim at WrestleMania (it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "WrestleMania Rewind"), and Edge is in a meaningless feud with Mick Foley. Now I love Foley, and I (kinda) look forward to his matches (I'd rather he set an example for others and actually retire); however, we now have *two* WrestleMania matches whose outcomes are only unknown to the dead and mentally handicapped. Wresting is often predictable, WrestleMania should *not* be. Hogan/Savage? Hogan/Andre? Hogan/Warrior? Rock/Austin (1, 2, or 3)? Brock/Angle? JBL/Cena? HHH/HBK/Benoit? Batista/HHH? That shit wasn't predictable. This shit is, and shit it truly is.
What benefit will Edge get from handily beating a middle-aged fat

whose main purpose currently is to be one of those inflatable punching clowns? Edge *had* his heat; he's lost it now, and beating a man who has lost at the past three WrestleManias (or did he not work WM21, and lost at Backlash? Ah

, I dunno)? Not a damn thing other than a paycheck. Edge lost his chance when they pulled the trigger on him and shut it right off, putting the title on that merchandise whore hip-hop cracker Cena.
I'd say that the popularity of Edge and Christian (their rising, denouement, and subsequent fall into the morass of sheer boredom and being kept out of the title scene) parallel each other to an uncanny extent. The only thing that differs is that Edge got a taste of the gold for about two weeks, wheras Christian came close to getting a match, but never did (and by the time he was Batista's punching bag on SD!, he wasn't a serious contender anyway).
End rant. I tivo'd SD!, didn't watch much of it at all, but I did watch one match: Psicosis versus Gregory Helms. If you can, go watch that match. It is exhibit A in the case against WWE regarding that Jim Cornette quote that several people cited (How can a company with so much talent, so much money and so much experience promoting wrestling and producing television consistently put out crap on tv every week?). It was a cruiserweight match without a *single* cruiserweight move. It was hold for hold the same kinda bullshit that Booker T and Benoit wrestle every week, that Matt Hardy and Captain Dipshit (or whomever he wrestles on a given week). It was not the cruiserweight division, it was the "smaller guys, same bullshit" division. TNA will truly fly right past WWE much faster than we can imagine if they keep putting matches like that on TV. It made me yearn for the technical excitement of Lance Hoyt, or some other dumb musclebound

.
Poor, poor Psicosis; how good you are, and how little we would know it thanks to the WWE.