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SLAM! Readers Speak: 2005's champs
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SLAM! Wrestling Readers
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When the SLAM! Staff sat down near the beginning of the year to pick who we
thought would be heavyweight champions at the end of 2005, the consensus was
more of the same. Both WWE and TNA have proved us right so far - with two PPVs
in the books, HHH and JJ are wearing the gold. Smackdown, for its part, still
has JBL as champ, but has yet to put on a major show where the belt would change
hands. We'll see what happens next Sunday, but for now let's see what the readers
thought of who will hold the gold on December 31, 2005.
Gayle
Since neither show's writers have any imagination or actual ability to build
characters or storylines, I'm afraid 2005 will be a boring repeat of 2004 -
JBL having the belt and getting way too much airtime on Smackdown, and Raw will
continue to be "The Triple H Show", no matter how sick we all are
of the whole Evolution and Triple H thing.
Blair Burch
Well since the WWE product has becomeso stale, I can't form an oppinion there.
I don't watch the product enough anymore to even know who has all the various
belts right now. I'll just make my calls for the 2 companies I do watch regularly.
For ROHW, I see a couple choices for the year. I see Alex Shelly growing to
championship material, if he can get past his issues outside the ring. I haven't
seen him in TNA in so long that they can't be blocking his push much longer.
I could also see CM Punk finally getting the big strap. He's been an amazing
worker in everything I've ever seen him do; he deserves a golden push. My final
though would be Steve Corino. Now that Zero-1 isn't taking all his time, the
former ECW champion and king of old-school is a perfect choice for a well built
heel champion for the company.
In TNA, I see a comet on the horizon for planet Jarret. This will be a year
of hotshot title changes to try and build a few in house top-carders. Raven
and Page will each have a short run just so they can do the job and pass the
torch to a few made-in-TNA stars. I see TNA finally giving Monty the big belt,
with Garza and Abyss likely the other two made-in-TNA champions for the year.
I see this not being a good year for Styles, who is getting relegated back to
the X-Devision, so he will likely have a better chance of the Smackdown title
than theNWA strap.
Jason Skidmore
I can see Cena as the Smackdown champ by the end of the year, with runs in
there for Eddie and Angle.
As for Raw, I can see the same as everyone else - Orton with stints around
the waist of HHH and Batista. And if Flair decides to call it a career, then
a small time on his waist.
I cannot say much about the others (TNA and ROHW) as I do not get to see them
much, although I wish I could.
Eric Shroba
Well, I think that Randy Orton should be the champ. Triple H needs to step
down because people are getting really sick of him. Furthermore, for Smackdown,
the WWE Title has been robbedd of its past. I watch it still just because I'm
curious how WWE is gonna go down the toliet. They should have never split the
brands. If they had a lot of wrestlers, they should of just made the shows longer,
not split them and have the WCW title on Raw and the WWE Title on smackdown.
Both shows have really sucked since they did that. Neither title has any meaning
anymore. How can you give a title to someone? Triple H I'm talking about. No
tournament, no Rumble, no nothing. Hopefully the writers and staff behind WWE
get there heads out of their you-know-wheres and do something about it.
-- compiled by Jon Waldman
