WrestleMania. Yes, I know what you’re thinking - that’s not until April next year. But you wouldn’t know it from the WWE’s recent booking. To say that the tradition of how the WWE normally booked the big show (and I don’t mean in an awesome boxer v. wrestler feud for WrestleMania, nor do I mean as a midcard nobody ever since then) has been broken is an understatement.

For years, WrestleMania has been the focal point of the WWE year, the show where the biggest matches happen and the biggest feuds either start or finish. And wrestling fans have come to accept that show’s place at the height of the wrestling calendar.

There’s a reason Ric Flair’s retirement didn’t happen at Unforgiven. There’s a reason the first ever Undertaker v. Batista match didn’t happen at One Night Stand. Would Hogan slamming Andre have meant as much if it took place at Survivor Series? Or if Austin had passed out in the sharpshooter at In Your House: It’s Time?

A month ago the WWE did their semi-regular roster draft, shaking up the Raw and SmackDown brands and creating opportunities for fresh matchups. Most importantly, fresh marquee matchups with it’s biggest stars that have been kept apart long enough that there is intrigue and the possibility to make big money by booking them against each other in matches that have been built up over a long period of time.

Post-draft, the WWE had two long-anticipated WrestleMania main events fall right into their laps, two first-time-ever singles matches between arguably the four most over performers in the entire company. All four guys have enough history as top stars that they could carry feuds with others for long enough to keep the marquee matches apart until the time came to head towards WrestleMania.

And sure, they could hint at it, they could interact on TV, but the smart thing to do is basically the exact opposite to what the WWE did.

In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, after the draft it was pretty clear to me that the obvious choices for WrestleMania main events were Triple H v. Edge on the SmackDown side, and John Cena v. Batista on Raw.

Triple H and Edge did a good duelling promo on HHH’s first night on SmackDown, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that screams to you “they’re blowing the money match” it was much more “here is the first interaction to plant the seeds in the fans’ mind of a potential rivalry when they get around to building WrestleMania.” Then a few weeks later they had their one-on-one match, the big confrontation, the first ever Edge v. Triple H PPV match. At the Great American Bash.

Not only that, it came across as such a rushed decision that almost no focus was put on their match. As fantastically entertaining as the Edge and Vickie saga has been, and in particular the wedding episode, Edge could’ve been feuding with anybody at that time and the TV still would’ve been great.

But to see Triple H, booked as such a huge deal and top star for a decade, be relegated to a sideshow spot where his place in a feud with the best all-round performer in the WWE today is basically irrelevant, showed an incredible lack of brains by the WWE writing team.

The first of two major money matches created by the draft had been pissed away in a month, and they didn’t even make any effort to get over the fact that these are two of the biggest stars they have.

I thought that was a bone-headed move. But we still have Cena and Dave, right? The two major new stars of the second half of this decade, who had parallel runs as top guys and have been kept apart as opponents long enough that their first ever singles meeting should draw big.

Two graduates of OVW.

Two guys who you could probably credit more than most if not all the rest of the roster with keeping the WWE’s profits high when adult viewers have left due to their appeal to a different demographic.

They even had their little interaction with a brawl at the end of last week’s Raw. And when there were rumours of a four or even six-way match at SummerSlam for the World Title (for CM Punk’s World Title - had to say that, it still seems weird to me) with those guys involved I was happy.

Much like Stone Cold and The Rock during the 6-way Hell In A Cell at Armageddon 2000, they could interact and have the crowd go apeshit at the possibility of them facing each other, but the ending could pull them in opposite direction until Mania. I thought it was brilliant. Then came last night’s Raw. Not only did they give away a WrestleMania-worthy main event at SummerSlam, the ONLY WrestleMania-worthy main event I can see on the Raw brand right now, THEY ADMITTED ON TV THAT THEY WERE GIVING AWAY A WRESTLEMANIA MAIN EVENT!

So not only are they throwing money away, they are admitting it, and even joking about it on their own TV show.

I realise wrestling has changed. I realise the days of Randy Savage winning the belt at WrestleMania IV and them already planting seeds for Randy Savage v. Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania V and having them stick with it for the whole year without giving it away or anything going wrong might not happen any more. But WrestleMania has usually been protected far more than the other PPVs to the point where it was still special.

And maybe the WWE have two major matches planned that I haven’t even thought about. As long as it’s not Edge-HHH II and Cena-Batista II and they’re hoping that by April we’ll have forgotten that these earlier matches even happened.

That’s just about the only thing that would be dumber than doing the matches in the first place. I think they’ve just blown their two biggest money matches in the space of a few weeks for little or no logical reason, when alternatives were right there.

Mark Bright
mark@wwepreview.com