The television programs of WWE start anew tonight, as the company tries to put the nightmare not only of last week behind them, but also the backlash of a storyline that simply was taking fans away from their TV sets and making more people mad than it should have. There are only a few things that are known about tonight’s show, and not much else is being leaked as they have yet to really finalize plans for the direction they are going in. Two things are for sure: 1. There will once again be no mention whatsoever of Chris Benoit’s name on the show, nor of the tragedy of last weekend. The company will put that “Tribute” show of last Monday behind them, and almost pretend it didn’t happen. 2. The Vince McMahon “death” storyline is over as well. The company had two real deaths during the storyline, as well as tons of backlash from fans and company shareholders about it going over the edge. With the Benoit tragedy taking the headlines last week, the decision was made to scrap the storyline, and go back to full-time wrestling.
Tonight’s show is from Dallas at the American Airlines Arena, and all three brands will be on hand as they are actually taping SmackDown and ECW first, then doing the live RAW. This means I would not be shocked a bit to see other stars from the shows on RAW, and vice-versa tomorrow and Friday. Seems like the draft from a few weeks ago was a rather waste of time, as wrestlers from other brands keep popping up on other shows. The one thing that has to be established tonight is they have to start building up the company’s next PPV – The Great American Bash, which takes place on Sunday, July 22nd from San Jose. They need to get WWE Champ John Cena a challenger, and start feuds leading to that PPV. BTW – the only announced match for tonight is Santino Marella putting up the belt vs Umaga.
Now back to the story still that is at hand, and that is the tragedy of Chris Benoit. Here are some recent links to stories that have popped up over the last day or so that may be on interest:
This is a feature on ESPN.com from Elizabeth Merrill, a very good piece, a bit long, but worth the read:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2922166
The Winnipeg Sun’s Kevin Engstrom has a story concerning Benoit and the whole “roid rage” deal at: http://winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Engstrom_Kevin/2007/07/02/4306281-sun.html
Here is an AP story about wrestlers dying young: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/06/30/bc.wrestling.sshame.ap/
A story from the Los Angeles Times from Saturday on Benoit:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-benoit1jul01,1,2819193.story?coll=la-headlines-sports&track=crosspromo
And finally, another AP story on “has wrestling lost control”
http://www.mlive.com/sportsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/sports-13/1183145999114830.xml&storylist=
