Talks about replacing Kane in MITB with Bray? Sounds good to me either way. I love Kane but the Wyatt family needs to be very violent (along with Bray's awesome mic skills) in order to succeed with their gimmick. What better way then bashing several people with ladders (in today's WWE)?

I'm liking the rumor/idea of Bryan Danielson winning the MITB, then using it to challenge Cena to a title match at Summerslam. It gets them to a nice enough title match, uses MITB to hype that title match, but most importantly, circumvents the hardcore 24/7 style cheapening of the top belts that usually comes with MITB. I'm all for that!

I don't know, I kinda like the whole "watch your back" game that MITB introduces to the champs. It's one of the few things that the E has gotten less predictable with as time has gone on. Take the two times that Punk cashed in and won, everybody saw them coming once the opportunity presented itself. With Ziggler, he had about a dozen chances to cash on Show and Del Rio before finally doing it. And Cena, forgoing the element of surprise and challenging Punk? It was a smart swerve. Now with the next two winners they can afford to be a bit more blunt with it, because the fans might not expect it as much.

I'm going to go ahead and offer up my MITB predictions here:

Shield
Kaitlyn
Curtis Axel
Ryback
Dean Ambrose
Daniel Bryan
Alberto Del Rio
Cena

Hey guys, just wanted to share with you all that i am now doing play by play commentary on all TNA wrestling shows airing in Portugal (Impact Wrestling and PPVs/TV specials). It's been a lot of fun, great job to have!

Wow! That is amazing dude. How in the hell did that even happen? It just fall into your lap or were you always doing commentary on the side? Either way, that's great stuff man. Congrats!

I had done color commentary for WWE Smackdown! before, and the guy doing commentary for WWE shows recommended me to the network, so there ya go!

Trying to be unpredictable is one of the biggest keys to WWE's downfall of the last decade. MITB epitomizes the stupid, slap-dash bullshit that's made titles meaningless and programs one shade of meandering or pointless. It's Hardcore 24/7, bottom of the barrel, cheap crud. At least if a guy treats it like a conventional, pre-arranged contender contract there's some legitimacy to it. I'll always prefer a well contested, well planned one-on-one title match over a 60 second title switch. MITB is cheap crap that's been used to flip the script way too many times. Hate it!!

Predictions:
- The Shield (c) d. The Usos
- AJ Lee (c) d. Kaitlyn
- Curtis Axel (c) d. The Miz (DQ?)
- Wade Barrett World Heavyweight MITB match
- Ryback d. Chris Jericho
- Bryan Danielson WWE Championship MITB match
- Dolph Ziggler d. Alberto Del Rio (c)
- John Cena (c) d. Mark Henry (Shenanigans?)

I dunno wtf is gonna happen in the MITB matches. Except that I will hate.
Looking for a Lesnar/Punk incident. Wouldn't mind a Kane replacement, maybe Jericho. Or Sweet Tea Tensai. It would be quite unpredictable if Sweet Tea Tensai won MITB and then the title. Also I would LOL.


Nice one! Put over Magnus!!

That's awesome zent.

Sigh...

Yep, we're stuck with Orton at the top for at least the next year. Thing is, Daniel Bryan didn't really need the briefcase, he's going to get there without it... and I couldn't really make a case for anyone else winning the match, since they swerved us in the WHC ladder match and went with Sandow.

The swerves are just getting ridiculous. Is it such a bad thing to do a little fan service once in a while? Sandow's great, and Orton, for better or worse, is solid, but did anybody really want either guy to win?

And yeah, Bryan will have a long feud with Cena and eventually come out on top...just in time for Orton to cash in the briefcase. It'll be Wrestlemania 28 all over again.

I wanted Sandow to win.

Bryan deserves a reign that rivals Punk's. He's one of the few guys who I feel has earned something of that nature, and I'm not normally a backer of title reigns lasting longer than 6 months unless the guy truly is worthy of it.

I was hoping Ambrose would win the WHC Money In The Bank match.

Haha, no disrespect intended.

And I would not object to a nice long title reign. Bryan reminds me a lot of Kurt Angle in his prime. He can play the corny heal, then hulk up and go berserker on anything that moves, and he's so f'n legit that nobody questions it. Dude's amazing.

**EDIT** I would not have objected to Ambrose winning, haha. He's a little rough around the edges, but I enjoy his brand of batshit insanity.

I think it was very difficult to pick an obvious, completely satisfying winner from the World Heavyweight MITB match. I definitely spent a couple weeks talking about Sandow as someone I'd like to see, if only for the picture of Sandow carrying a briefcase. That might've been the image that made the most sense to me. Didn't think it would happen, but I'm chuffed it did. I'll take a funny gimmick over a cheap title win, any day.

I've never been a fan of Orton at the top level, but you've definitely at least got to give credence to the fact that he's spent the majority of his tenure on Smackdown out of the title picture (without losing his status). That kinda deal has always given him the slight edge over his contemptible main event contemporary - Cena.

No amount of references to "slithering" will convince me it's consistent for Orton to sit on the briefcase for long. With any luck he'll be a TV cash-in and get it over with quickly - win, lose or draw.

As much as I hate the gimmick, it might even be the perfect way to slot things into place. It's shunted Orton into the WWE Championship picture, where he otherwise wouldn't have naturally been involved. It gives him ample opportunity to make that long talked about heel turn -- but also gives Bryan Danielson the most natural transition to the title, as well! This has the potential to be more than the shuffling of the deck with a popular star. If Danielson truly is to get a shot at the title at Summerslam -- Orton makes a much more logical opponent (given the past month or two) than Cena. That'd be lemons for lemonade. Some good, old fashioned logical booking (albeit, in somewhat abbreviated form).

The thing is, both Orton and Sandow NEEDED those wins, while Bryan and Ambrose are on the path to greatness already.
Hopefully, the win for Orton will lead to a heel turn.

RVD vs Y2J was classic. Best match on Raw in years. Was just fantastic. Felt like i was watching a match they had in 01/02/03.

Def think Cena chose the wrong pick when he didn't choose the whole f'n show RVD! i think Bryan was a poor choice but thats just my opinion.

Did you listen to the crowd? They were chanting for Bryan to be Cena's pick since the beginning of the show. It might not be the pick you'd like to see, but it wasn't a poor decision, and that's not a matter of opinion.

That was a great RAW, with lots of great decisions. Apparently Bryan vs Barrett was going to take place, but since the Punk/Heyman promo went on too long, they decided to nix the match and give Jericho and RVD more time - that was an EXCELLENT call.

Summerslam is looking exciting. Punk vs. Lesnar, Bryan vs. Cena. Me likey.

Within the parameters of the premise: it worked. If the crowd were going to cheer for the winner -- mission accomplished. The problem lies in that being a completely unremarkable way to pick a WWE Championship contender for a (in theory) major event. Both the title and Bryan Danielson deserve a contested contender situation, or a developed storyline & feud. The premise was the mistake.

Killing time for boos and cheers to pick the pretty girl from across the room was a dud way to pick a WWE Championship contender. It only highlights that error when you've just had a long, high quality match between two worthwhile contenders. Rob Van Dam really earned it.

Axing Barrett/Bryanson was a good move - we were better for it.
The WWE title, Bryan Danelson & Summerslam weren't better for it.

I really see it as Bryan beats Cena at Summer Slam, in a good match. Not good for a Cena match but a bloody good match. Then Orton cashes in.

Nuclear heat.

Mortal Kombat/Wrestling Crossover Piece by former ProWrestling.com writer. w00000. /spam

Why did WWE get rid of Mickie James?

Honestly, she's better off for it. She never set the world on fire or anything, but she deserved better than the whole "Mickie's fat! Lawlz!1!" B.S.

I disagree. I liked the whole angle because it was different and exciting. Pro Wrestling needs to mix it up every chance it gets, because it's a predictable form of entertainment by nature. I don't think I'd ever seen an angle like this one ever, and that's not something that you can often say in Pro Wrestling. Every gimmick and angle has been done to death, so the whole "Cena picks his opponent for Summerslam" thing felt fresh - and hey, did you listen to the crowd? It worked wonders.

Well, I disagree in the majority. Some things aren't done with good reason. Having a crowd vote to pick your Championship challenger for a Summerslam main event is one of them. Cheap, tacky, and in no way unpredictable given the current course. That's a terrible justification for putting your top belt on the same level as picking The Usos for a Monday night match against the new heel team.

Let Championship competitors show everyone why they're worthy. Sometimes predictability is to the betterment of things -- a unique advantage professional wrestling has over other sports, who are sometimes subject to the whim of the moment, the upstart, the disappointing finish. Wrestling's darkest moments lie in arbitrary acts of unpredictability (like this one). It's greatest triumphs lie in legitimizing stars through the sport and story of this form of entertainment.

Of course, it's not a dichotomy of total monotony or diminishing the stakes.
You can wrap serial programming in all the unpredictability you want. You can have your cake and eat it too without anyone ever questioning the credibility of a contender, a championship, a major pay-per-view event. That speaks to much bigger issues than RAW's one bad decision to resort to ballroom logic for a title challenge, though.