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BOOKERMAN'S CORNER #3: HEADING 2011 OFF AT THE PASS BY REWRITING WWE POST-WRESTLEMANIA X-8

By Mark E. Mark on 11/29/2011 12:29 PM
Welcome back to the third edition of Bookerman's Corner! I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and thanks for coming back to check out my latest rebooking project. Just to bring newcomers up to speed, this is a column where I rewrite history by changing something significant and rewrite it in a way that will hopefully pan out better than what actually did. That brings us to the subject of this edition of Bookerman's Corner, as I rewrite the WWF/WWE between Wrestlemania X-8 and Wrestlemania 19.

Just a bit of background: the WWF did big business during the Attitude Era and, in March of 2001, found itself standing alone as the sole wrestling superpower in the wrestling business when both ECW and WCW folded within weeks of each other. What happened afterward was nothing short of a disaster: Steve Austin was turned heel to form an alliance with Vince McMahon, the WCW InVasion was completely botched, so was a second InVasion of former ECW stars, and then the aftermath of the WWF vs WCW/ECW feud (which was blown through in six months) saw Chris Jericho unify the two World Titles only to lose them at Wrestlemania to Triple H in what really amounted to a feud between Triple H and Stephanie McMahon with Jericho as a bit player. The Undertaker was turned heel for no real reason, the once proud tag division was gone and in its place stood teams like Billy & Chuck who would end up having a fake gay wedding on Smackdown later in the year, and the NWO had been brought back and, while it produced a famous and very good Hogan-Rock match at Wrestlemania, was not something the WWF fans wanted to see given the blame the NWO took for the destruction of WCW.

Wrestlemania X-7 had been both one of the greatest shows in WWF history and the celebration of the WWF's victory in the Monday Night Wars, but Wrestlemania X-8 told us what kind of effect that victory really had on the business. Interest had dropped off sharply and, other than Hogan-Rock and Triple H-Jericho, most people probably couldn't name one other match on the show. Wrestlemania X-8 was the show a lot of people point to as the moment when they knew the Attitude Era was over and was never coming back, and indeed they have yet to recover in creative terms almost a full decade later.

But could it have been saved? Yes, absolutely. There were a million and one chances over the last ten years when they could have steered things back on course, but ended up choosing not to and left us with the family action adventure drama we now watch on Monday nights. But forget all that, because I'm going to try and nip this in the bud before it gets that far.

Rewriting this mess wasn't an easy task, because I had a few things working against me. First of all, even though I tried to come up with as much good stuff as I could, there were just so many damn people on the roster that I couldn't find something for everyone. I know creative is supposed to come up with something for the entire roster, but a)there's something to be said for not having a bigger roster than you need, and b)since we're going to be doing the brand extension, each show is going to need midcarders. So I'm sorry to some of the guys like Booker T, DDP, and X-Pac, but you'll need to cool your heels and just work hard underneath and hopefully I'll be able to give you a shot in 2003. Oh, and Rey Mysterio doesn't get a job in my company.

And that brings us to problem #2: the brand extension. I really tried to come up with some creative ways to play with it, but in the end I decided it would just be simpler to make it two shows with separate rosters and storylines and split everything I write below between them, and it really doesn't matter who's on what show since I actually would try to make them equal entities. There is going to be one storyline where the brand extension becomes important, but otherwise it's going to be a hard split except for the champions: they'll all get to travel between the shows as much as they want. Also, no separate World Titles or Tag Team Titles, because it diluted the meaning of the existing titles as we've seen.

Speaking of champions, here's my championship roll call coming out of Wrestlemania X-8: Triple H (World Champion), Rob Van Dam (Intercontinental Champion), Lance Storm (European Champion), Maven (Hardcore Champion), Jazz (Women's Champion), The Dudley Boyz (Tag Team Champions), X-Pac (Light Heavyweight Champion) and Tajiri (Cruiserweight Champion). Also, I know that Edge had to disappear to get neck surgery, and other injuries/firings/hirings happened, but I'm coming up with this plan right after Wrestlemania X-8 and, since I don't have a crystal ball and can't see the future, I don't know any of that's going to happen but will change my plans accordingly should they come to pass. Off we go!

Unified World Title

Triple H is the Unified World Champion coming out of Wrestlemania X-8, and one of the first things I do is get rid of the Unified part and just call him the WWF (or about a month later, WWE) Champion. I'm trying to sweep the massive failure of the WCW/ECW InVasion under the rug at this point, and calling him the unified champion is just going to draw attention to it. So he's the WWE Champion, and I'm going to have him defend against Steve Austin and the Rock in a three way (the match we were supposed to get at Survivor Series 1999 and never did) and then the Undertaker the following month to re-establish him as a strong champion. As if he needs it, right?

In the meantime, I'm going to build Kurt Angle back up as his next big challenger who has a shot of actually taking the title. I'm still going to do the Team Angle thing, except I'll bring them up right after Wrestlemania and also add Brock Lesnar to the group for reasons which will become clear in a moment. They're going to become my dominant faction of 2002 because Haas & Benjamin are going to be my top team and Lesnar's going to be the muscle of the group, while they're all really there to support Angle in his quest to regain the title. I set up Triple H vs Angle for the title at Summerslam, but then I will blatantly steal the Rob Van Dam/Bam Bam Bigelow/Sabu angle from ECW where Angle sets Lesnar up with a match against Triple H on Raw so he can soften him up for Kurt, except that Lesnar goes out there and beats Triple H for the title.

Instead of switching to Angle vs Lesnar for the title, we go ahead with Angle vs Hunter in a non-title match at Summerslam, and Lesnar's match (doesn't matter who it's against, Lesnar gets a squash win) becomes the WWE Title Match. I build this uneasy tension between Angle and Lesnar where Angle pretends to be okay with Lesnar having the strap because it's for the good of the group and all, but we can tell that Angle's jealous of Lesnar's success and is just waiting for his opportunity to cut Lesnar's legs out from under him. Lesnar beats the Rock and Steve Austin in title defenses at the September and October PPVs (something I'll dig into a little more later on), and then this leads into a Triple Threat match at Survivor Series where Triple H finally gets his rematch, and Angle gets the title shot he was supposed to get at Summerslam. Lesnar gives Triple H the F5, but then Angle dumps him out of the ring and swoops in to get the win himself and regain the WWE Title.

Lesnar is understandably upset by being robbed of his WWE Title by his own mentor, and he confronts Angle on Raw the next night and is summarily beaten down by Team Angle and tossed out of the group. Angle goes about his reign as WWE Champion while Lesnar takes the long road and wins the Royal Rumble to earn a title shot at Angle at Wrestlemania 19.

Chris Jericho

While he did beat Rock and Austin in one night to unify the titles, he had an otherwise crappy World Title run that wasn't properly built to, and he wasn't presented as a true main eventer so much as cannon fodder for Triple H's return. I have to take him out of the title picture for now, but want to keep him in a high profile position and find a way to present him as a serious challenger for when I build him back to the WWE Title down the line.

So here's my plan: I have him unify the Intercontinental, European, and Hardcore Titles and get rid of the last two similar to what Rob Van Dam did in real life, and I'll also have him go over Tajiri for the Cruiserweight Title and X-Pac for the Light Heavyweight Title just to get rid of them. I love cruiserweights as much as you do, but Vince has final say and even as the booker, my boss never saw the small guys as marketable, so I'll just save myself the aggravation and dump them. So now, I'm going to put over what an accomplishment Jericho's pulled off by winning all those titles, and play up the lineage of all the titles that have now been merged into the Intercontinental Title, which includes the European and Hardcore titles, the WCW US Title, WCW Cruiserweight Title, WWF Light Heavyweight Title, Georgia National Title, WWF North American Title, WCW TV Title (I don't count Jim Duggan finding it in a trash can, he never won it and never lost it), and UWF TV Title. I have the announcers put over the history of all those titles and the men who have held them in the past, and have Jericho come out calling himself the Unifier (referencing the World Title run and now this) and saying he holds the history of the business in his hands or something like that.

Jericho's technically going to be my secondary champion, but I'm going to play him up as being almost on the same level as the World Champion since the Intercontinental Title badly needed to be rebuilt after the Godfather/Prince Albert days. Jericho's going to hold the title for the full year going into Wrestlemania 19, and have him defend against World Title level challengers in addition to the usual midcard/lower level guys. Chris Benoit's first feud back from the neck surgery is going to be against Jericho, and I'm going to make it a hard fought feud where Benoit's all refreshed from his time off, but comes up JUST short of beating Jericho time after time. I'll do 2/3 falls, Ironman, all the goodies like that, but have Jericho squeak out ahead time after time and do it clean, then blow the feud off by letting these two (and the Intercontinental Title) main event a B-show PPV in a submission match where Jericho taps Benoit out clean.

I'll probably throw Jericho a title shot at the Royal Rumble saying that he wants to unify all the titles but then have him lose a really close match to Kurt Angle (just because I think it would be a fabulous match with some interesting implications), and then build to a title defense at Wrestlemania against Edge, who I'll have spent the year building back to the title he lost the year before, except it's so much more meaningful now after what Jericho did with it, and winning it would mean Edge is a World Title-level player.

Triple H vs Shawn Michaels

Shawn Michaels made his return to the ring in 2002, and I'm going to bring him back in my version of 2002 as well, except I'm going to go about it a little differently. In the midst of the angle revolving around Triple H, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar for the title, I'm going to have Hunter bring back Shawn to watch his back and, after a month or so, set up a tag match on Monday Night Raw where Shawn will make his return to the ring to tag with Hunter against Angle and Lesnar. I'm doing it on Raw instead of a PPV because Shawn's not really going to do anything and I don't want to bait and switch my paying fans. He spends the entire match out on the apron while Hunter gets beat up, and when Triple H makes the hot tag, Shawn comes in like he's going to be a house of fire, but superkicks Hunter and walks off to leave him twisting in the wind.

Shawn comes out the next night on Raw to explain his actions: when he went down with the back injury after Wrestlemania 14, Triple H couldn't wait a day to kick him out the door and take over DX. Shawn eventually returned as the commissioner and tried to watch Hunter's back regardless since he was clearly just being young and dumb, but Hunter left him by himself to get beaten up by a group of thugs and thrown through a car windshield. Even still, he came back as a guest referee and intentionally made biased calls in Hunter's favor in matches against the Rock, but Triple H didn't care because it was always all about the Game. Hunter has spent the last five years doing everything he could to steal Shawn's spot, but Shawn finally decided that Triple H needed to be put back in his place, and that's exactly what he's done. Now that he's made his point, he's going home to San Antonio and staying there while Triple H has to live the rest of his life knowing that no matter how hard he tries, he'll never be the Heartbreak Kid.

Hunter, of course, will want to get his hands around Shawn's neck and tells him that if he really wants to prove he's better, to get in the ring and face him like a man. Shawn refuses because he has no reason to get back in the ring and is happy enjoying life after wrestling, but then Vince McMahon comes out and tells Shawn that he's been under contract for the last five years while he's been sitting at home because Vince was of the understanding that he was nursing a career ending back injury suffered in a WWE ring. When Shawn agreed to do the tag match, he had to take a physical before WWE would allow him back into the ring, and Shawn passed it. So from Vince's point of view, Shawn's been collecting a free paycheck for all this time under false pretenses, so he's going to give Shawn a choice: get in the ring and face Triple H, or get sued for everything he's got.

Left with no choice, Shawn makes his real return to the ring at the December PPV and beats Triple H clean. Shawn comes out the next night on Raw gloating about his victory because he thinks he's done what was asked of him and he won't need to wrestle ever again, but Vince comes out again to tell him not to be so quick to make any vacation plans. Shawn is a healthy man, so it's time to start earning his paycheck again. He enters Shawn into the Royal Rumble and makes him #1, and says that it should be easy for Shawn since he came in at #1 before and ended up winning the whole thing. Oh, and by the way, Vince informs Shawn that Triple H is #2, and wishes him luck at the Royal Rumble. So Shawn and Triple H start the match and Hunter just destroys Shawn until he eliminates himself to get away from Triple H, but then comes back out later and superkicks Triple H and eliminates him just to continue being a pest.

Hunter has finally had enough of Shawn and says that after five years, it's finally time to settle this once and for all and challenges him to a streetfight at Wrestlemania. Shawn again says he doesn't want to do the match because he's already beaten Triple H and doesn't have anything to prove, so Vince offers him a deal: if Shawn takes the match and beats Hunter, he can go home to San Antonio and stay there, collecting a free paycheck for the remainder of his contract with WWE. But if he loses, Shawn will be forced to come back to work and finish out every last date on his contract, as well as all the dates he's missed since 1998. Shawn says he'll do it because he doesn't need this crap and wants to go home, he's beaten Hunter once and he'll do it again at Wrestlemania. I figure it will not only make for a good and very long awaited match, but I'll have actually come up with a way to get the internet smart marks to cheer for Triple H.

Steve Austin vs The Rock

I'm going to start the build as soon as Wrestlemania 18 is over, and I'm thinking what I'll do is put them in a three way for the title with Triple H the month after Wrestlemania since we never got that one at Survivor Series 1999 because Austin had to go out with the neck surgery. They'll end upcosting each other the match, and they'll be all ready to fight again...when the brand extension happens and they're drafted to different shows, leaving them unable to face each other in the ring.

But that won't stop me from spending the entire year teasing the match and building the tension until it boils over. I'll have both of them make the occasional offhand remark running the other down, and also bump into one another backstage at cross-brand PPVs. I'll give Rock a title shot against Brock Lesnar in September and have him lose thanks to interference from Team Angle, then I'll have Austin say that he's going to show Rock up and challenge Brock himself at the October PPV. Rock's going to say he hopes Austin wins because that means he'll be able to go on both shows and Rock will finally be able to get his hands on him. Furthermore, he'll be at ringside to neutralize Team Angle since he doesn't want anything to stand between himself, Steve Austin, and the World Title.

Of course something will go wrong, Austin will lose and then blame the Rock, and they'll end up being pulled apart by security before they get physical. They both separately demand a match with the other, but WWE officials will hold firm on policy and not allow people on different brands to wrestle. I'll then enter them both in the Royal Rumble and again, they'll both spend weeks talking about nothing but getting their hands on the other guy since, short of a World Title match, this is the only time they'll be in the same ring all year. Then I have one of them, Austin let's say, in the ring as the Rock makes his entrance, but then Austin gets eliminated before Rock can get to the ring and they are again denied the chance to fight.

Hopefully the fans will be dying to see them face off by this point, so I have Vince McMahon (who, you'll notice, I've been using very sparingly) tease a special announcement he'll make on Raw, which turns out to be that he's spoken with the Board of Directors and they agreed that for one time, and one time only, they're going to break the barrier between the brands and allow Stone Cold Steve Austin to face the Rock at Wrestlemania 19. I have Rock come out to join Vince in the ring and say he's fought Austin at Wrestlemania twice and lost both times, and even though he's beaten Hogan, Flair, Undertaker, Mick Foley, Kurt Angle, and everyone else under the sun, he needs to prove to himself that he can beat Austin at Wrestlemania.

Austin will crash the party as well and tell Rock that he hasn't just failed to beat him at Wrestlemania, Rock has never beaten him period other than one single solitary win in a tag match at Survivor Series 2001. Going all the way back to when Austin handed Rock the Intercontinental Title in 1997 before kicking his ass and throwing the belt in a river, Rock never has and never will be able to beat him, and Rock can fight him at Wrestlemania a hundred times for all the difference it will make because the result will be the same. Rock comes back and says that Austin can talk big but the reality is that Austin's been hiding behind the brand extension all year because that match at Survivor Series scared Austin. It told Austin that he was slipping, that Austin 3:16 wasn't what it used to be, that the Brahma Bull was getting stronger, and that Austin couldn't beat the Rock anymore. Austin will put his beer down and tell him they don't have to wait until Wrestlemania and can go right now, but Vince gets between them and Austin backs off, saying he'll see Rock at Wrestlemania, counting the lights like he's done every time he's been in the ring with Austin.

Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair

So I've got these two huge legends, they're both older but still in good enough shape to go, and I don't want them main eventing or winning World Titles, but I want to do something good with them. Hey, I know, let me put them together for a match at Wrestlemania!

So here's what I do: I have them beat the Dudleys for the WWF Tag Team Title and hold onto it for a couple of months before dropping it to Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin. I figure that I've got enough talented guys in their prime that I don't need Hogan or Flair in main events except as maybe a one off challenger on a B-level PPV, plus Hogan and Flair as a team was a wholly unexplored idea at the time that I think could have brought some life back to the tag division, and having them put Haas & Benjamin over would have been a huge rub for such a young team.

Flash forward to January where I have them face off somewhere in the middle of the Royal Rumble. I'll have them work together to clear the ring until it's just the two of them, and they'll go at it for a few minutes before the ring fills back up, at which point the Dirtiest Player In The Game will live up to his nickname, lowblow Hogan, and dump him. Hogan, being the eternal good sport that he is, will get back into the ring and illegally eliminate Flair. Flair comes out the next night on Raw and challenges Hogan to a match at Wrestlemania, saying that they've been going at it forever and it's time for this to come to an end. Hogan comes out to confront him and brings up the match that was supposed to happen at Wrestlemania 8 that ended up getting changed, and that he's been waiting for 11 years to get his hands on Flair at Wrestlemania. Bingo, instant Wrestlemania marquee match!

Undertaker vs Batista

This one's going to be pretty straightforward and follow the Undertaker Wrestlemania formula: build up a big, unbeatable monster and have Taker beat him. In this case, I bring Batista up right after Wrestlemania 18 and give him a Goldberg push, having him tear through everyone in his path and finish them with the Batista Bomb in under five minutes. I start him out as a babyface and have him go through guys like Booker T and DDP, but eventually I have him turn on Undertaker and beat him at Summerslam. Undertaker's going to disappear for a while after this while Batista keeps doing his thing. Batista clears the ring in the Royal Rumble, but then the lights go out, the bell tolls, and then the lights come back up and Undertaker is standing right behind Batista, back in full Dead Man gimmick (I never cared for the biker look). Batista turns around and is shocked to see Undertaker, who proceeds to lay him out, eliminate him, and then beat him up all the way to the back, setting up their match at Wrestlemania 19.

Tag Team Title

One of the major tasks before me doing this project is that I seriously need to rebuild the tag division. Not that it was in absolutely awful shape like it got to later on, but it consisted of basically the same teams it featured for the better part of the last three years, so I need to breathe some new life into it. I already mentioned putting the title on Hogan & Flair for a couple of months and then having them drop it to Haas & Benjamin, and that's going to give them the rub to go around saying that they beat two of the biggest legends ever and that makes them the greatest tag team in the world, and they dare anybody to prove them wrong.

In addition to the Dudleys, the Hardy Boyz, and the APA, I'll put Chris Benoit and Eddy Guerrero together (since I'm getting them both back shortly after Wrestlemania), I'll also put Test & Albert back together, as well as Kane & Big Show, Christian & Lance Storm, Booker T & DDP, and also John Cena & Randy Orton since my boss Vince McMahon sees big things in them and I think it'll be really cool down the road when they become stars and face each other, we can point to them being linked going back literally to the moment they were brought up to the main roster. I'll probably even still do Billy Gunn & Chuck Palumbo, but no goofy headbands and sure as hell no stupid wedding angle. I'll have Haas & Benjamin hold onto the title from the time they win it around early Summer-ish all the way to Wrestlemania, and I'll set up their opponent by doing a four team elimination match on each show, with the winners (Cena/Orton and Eddy/Benoit) facing off at No Way Out to determine the challenger. Eddy & Benoit go over, but give Cena & Orton a really strong run before beating them.

Women's Division

Honestly, I wouldn't do too much different than what they did in real life. They had a great women's division with Trish, Lita, Jazz, Molly Holly, Victoria, Ivory, Jackie, and I think Gail Kim started around that time too, and I'd just have them go out and have great matches since that's what got these girls over back then. Jazz had the title after WM18, so I have her run with it for another couple of months before dropping it back to Trish, then do a Trish/Molly feud before putting it on Victoria at Survivor Series. Once Victoria has the title, I have her tear through everyone else and then do a tournament to set up her Wrestlemania challenger. It's got to be Trish since she was the centerpiece of that division, and I'll probably have her beat Lita in a really close final that could have gone either way to set up rematches after WM.

Wrestlemania 19

And with all that build, here's our card for the Granddaddy Of Them All:

-WWE Title Match: Kurt Angle (c) vs Brock Lesnar
-Steve Austin vs The Rock
-Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair
-Streetfight: Triple H vs Shawn Michaels
-Intercontinental Title Match: Chris Jericho vs Edge
-Undertaker vs Batista
-Tag Team Title Match: Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin vs Chris Benoit & Eddy Guerrero
-Women's Title Match: Victoria vs Trish Stratus

Is that some hell of a lineup, or what? Hopefully the build and that matches will draw me a real good buyrate so Vince can justify hiring some kid on the internet to write his storylines, but now we have to pay it off with something really good. There's not going to be a whole lot of gimmickry going on here or a whole lot of complex swerves or anything, this is the blowoff show and all the right people are going to go over.

We'll kick the show off with some solid in-ring action: Benoit & Guerrero go over Haas & Benjamin for the tag straps, Trish beats Victoria for the Women's Title, and Edge comes ever so close to beating Jericho for the Intercontinental Title, but Jericho kicks out of two spears and gets him in the Walls Of Jericho for the tapout win. Next, I do the Undertaker-Batista match and Undertaker hits the Tombstone for the win. Clean and easy.

We're at the halfway point and have four huge matches to go, and it's going to be tough to pick the order they go on because they're all Wrestlemania main event caliber, but I'll start with Hogan and Flair just because they're the older stars and I want the focus to be on the younger guys I'm going to be relying on in a year or two when Hogan and Flair are more or less out of the picture. It's going to be a standard Hulk Hogan formula match where Flair works him over until Hogan (who was still in a good spot on the nostalgia trip) Hulks up, hits the three punches, the big boot, and the legdrop to get the win.

Next we go to the streetfight between Triple H and Shawn Michaels, and I envision this being very similar to the streetfight they had at the real life Summerslam 2002, except Shawn's the heel and Hunter's going over. I'm even thinking the same finishing sequence in reverse where Shawn goes for the superkick, but Triple H blocks and hits the Pedigree and pins Shawn clean in the middle of the ring, finally putting the feud to rest and forcing Shawn back into full time competition for years to come.

The semi-main event will be Rock and Austin, and both are going in as babyfaces and coming out as babyfaces. Otherwise, it's going to be identical to the match they really did have at Wrestlemania 19 where they kick out of each other's finishers, then they use each other's finishers to no avail, and Rock connects with three Rock Bottoms in a row to finally beat Austin in a singles match at the biggest show of the year.

Now we come to the main event between Lesnar and Angle for the WWE Title. Since, from my perspective, I didn't know that Lesnar would nearly kill himself trying the shooting star press, I'd probably tell him to go out there and use it to get the win since he's hit it clean every other time I've seen him do it in developmental. Hopefully in my universe he won't put Kurt too far away and almost break his neck trying the move, but let's assume that (since we're making everything else up) he hits the move clean, he beats Kurt to regain the title he never lost and everyone goes home happy.

Setting Up 2003-04

As always, I need to have stuff set up for the future and have a general idea of where storylines are going beyond my big blowoff show. Since I don't know he's going to flake out, decide he wants to play football, and quit my company in a year, Brock Lesnar's going to be my headliner and it's going to be all about him going forward. I'll do a series of rematches with Angle, then probably match him up with Undertaker, Batista, Shawn Michaels, and even Hulk Hogan to really build him up as a strong champion. I'll have him drop the title to Chris Jericho sometime around midyear, then since I've got Goldberg coming in for the year between Wrestlemania 19 and 20, my entire focus is building to the two of them at Wrestlemania 20 where I have Lesnar go over to build him back to another World Title run sometime later in 2004.

Jericho's getting the WWE Title back in 2003 as I said, but first I have him beat the Honky Tonk Man's record as the longest reigning Intercontinental Champion before finally dropping the title to Edge. This gives Edge a big rub for beating such an amazing Intercontinental Champion and sets him up a a ready made challenger once Jericho gets the WWE Title back. Jericho goes through him and everyone else before building to another match with Chris Benoit whom, as you recall from earlier in this column, Jericho dominated in all their Intercontinental Title matches in 2002. This time around, I build to the two of them at Wrestlemania 20 and have Benoit finally beat Jericho for the WWE Title.

In the meantime, I need Benoit and Guerrero to drop the tag straps, which they'll eventually do to John Cena & Randy Orton. From there, I put Guerrero into a feud for the Intercontinental Title against Edge and have Cena & Orton face and defeat some of the name teams like the Dudleys and the Hardys before having them drop the title (probably back to Haas & Benjamin) and split up so they can face each other at Wrestlemania 20 and start parallel singles pushes.

Unfortunately, Austin and Rock are both probably done for the most part after this because Austin's neck really was getting bad and no amount of fantasy booking will change that, while Rock's movie career would take him away completely as well. I think I can probably do an angle where Flair wants to walk that aisle one more time and give him a shot at the WWE Title, but he won't get it and Hogan will probably end up being Hogan and not wanting to put people over anymore, so he can sit home if that's his attitude. The women's division can keep doing what they always did: have great matches and look hot. After falling out of the title picture, Kurt Angle's going to be Chris Benoit's main opponent leading into Wrestlemania since they've had great matches in the past and I think going over Angle will be a great way to elevate Benoit to World Title level.

So there you have it! Hopefully you at least enjoyed this whole mess better than what actually happened between Wrestlemania X-8 and Wrestlemania 19, thanks for reading and if you have any feedback, feel free to send it along to markemark316@gmail.com. Thanks for reading and see you soon!