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WWE
World Champion CM Punk had a big week, first scoring a clean win over JBL to retain the World Title at Summerslam, but then going on to lost a non-title match to Chris Jericho the following night on Raw when Lance Cade distracted Punk, allowing Jericho to sneak in and hit the Codebreaker for the win. Despite the loss to Jericho, I'm not ready to jump on the “WWE is burying CM Punk†bandwagon just yet. I think that since Punk won the title, people have had this expectation that he's a hair's breadth away from getting squashed for the title and bumped back down to the midcard. It's true that he's not dominating everybody he's put in the ring with, but all his losses have been in non-title situations, and he did beat JBL clean at Summerslam. I'm not all that worried about him, and while I do think he's being portrayed as riding a wave of luck, the fact it that he's been champion for two months now, and I have a feeling he'll keep “getting lucky†for another few months before he's in any serious danger of dropping the title.
As for the loss to Chris Jericho, I expect that this will be used to build to a Punk-Jericho PPV match somewhere down the line. Jericho obviously has his hands full with Shawn Michaels for at least the next month or two, and I wouldn't expect Punk to lose the title in that time. I actually think that the Punk-Jericho match, whenever it happens, would be the earliest I expect Punk's title to be in jeopardy. I think after the Michaels feud, Jericho will be in a great position to be World Champion, better than he was when he made his return last year, and also better than anyone else on Raw right now. I would be okay with Punk dropping the title to Jericho, and they can then build to a rematch at Wrestlemania.
Speaking of the title picture in WWE, Brian Kendrick won a battle royal on Smackdown, and earned a berth in the scramble match for the WWE Title at Unforgiven. This is easily the biggest match in the career of Brian Kendrick, who has received a monster push since getting traded back to Smackdown. The match is full of young talent being elevated, and even though I highly doubt Kendrick will get the title, just the fact that he's in there is more success more quickly than I think anyone expected, and a good showing will go a long way toward people taking him seriously at that level.
Mickie James lost the WWE Women's Title when she and Intercontinental Champion Kofi Kingston were defeated by Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix at Summerslam in a match where both titles were on the line, but then teamed with Kelly Kelly to defeat Jillian Hall and Katie Lea Burchill the next night on Raw. I don't expect Mickie to jump right back into the title picture even though the Raw women's division is basically built around her and Phoenix, but I'd be surprised if she isn't the one Phoenix eventually drops the strap to.
Jamie Noble suffered a pretty humiliating defeat to JBL, who hit him with the Clothesline From Hell over and over until the referee stopped the match. I've been pretty upset with WWE signing up Noble and not using him for anything important for almost three years, but since being traded for Raw, he's at least been getting a healthy amount of TV time, and even though he's been getting his butt handed to him on a weekly basis, I'm hoping it will eventually lead somewhere and Noble will start picking up wins over the behemoths he's been picking fights with.
Over on ECW, Evan Bourne teamed with Super Crazy and Tommy Dreamer to lose to the team of the Miz, John Morrison, and Chavo Guerrero. This didn't hurt Bourne at all, and was a good way to kill time while building to the eventual Bourne-Guerrero rematch.
TNA
One week after defeating Kurt Angle for Angle's Olympic gold medals, Styles faced Angle in a rematch, but this time the medals were on the line in a ladder match. TNA World Champion Samoa Joe was at ringside for the match, but was taken out by Booker T, who hit Joe from behind with Sting's baseball bat. Styles and Angle were fighting at the top of the ladder, but the lights went out and Jeff Jarrett's music hit, and when the lights came back up, Styles had a guitar in his hand which he used to bash Angle over the head. Angle tumbled off the ladder and Styles was able to grab the medals for the win.
The Motor City Machine Guns looked like a million bucks, but lost to BG James and Eric Young. The teams shook hands after the match, but James patted Sabin on the head, prompting Sabin to slap James, leading to a short brawl. I've only in the last week discovered how awesome a team Sabin and Shelley are (I'll talk more about this in the next pROHfile), and if this leads to them coming back to squash James and Young next week, I'm all for it.
Hernandez of LAX picked up a pretty easy win over Robert Roode in the opener of Impact this week. Homicide is still out of action, leaving Hernandez to overcome 3-on-1 odds. He had help from Salinas, who took out Jackie Moore, and then got by both Storm and Roode, hitting Roode with a torture rack bomb to pick up the win. Word on the street is that there's been talk about breaking up LAX, and even though the idea was downplayed by TNA, it seemed strangely like this was TNA trying out Hernandez as a singles wrestler. I really hope they don't break up LAX because even though I'm sure both men have the talent to be top stars, I think Homicide's small enough that he wouldn't get the big push I feel like he's capable of.
Jay Lethal attacked Sonjay Dutt during an edition of Karen's Angle, as Karen interviewed So Cal Val. Sonjay came out and asked what it would take to get Val to pick him over Lethal, but this prompted an irate Lethal to come out and attack Dutt on the couch he and Val were sitting on. Unfortunately, Lethal accidentally hit Val while going after Dutt, and Val suffered a concussion and facial bruising. I hate to sound jaded, but this kind of thing is as clear a telegraph as there is that Val's going to come back and turn on Lethal and join up with Sonjay instead. Of course, they could know we know that and decide to swerve us by having Val stay with Lethal, but either way I really don't feel like I'm going to care which way Val goes.
And that's it for the debut edition of Life After ROH. This was a highly experimental format, so let me know what you thought and if you think it could use more/less opinion or anything else you'd like to see in it. Feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon!
