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Tonight, WWE will crown the new King of the Ring, and to honour this historic night, the SLAM! Knights of the Round Table gathered to discuss who should wear the crown.
With royal "ascent" on the line, both literally and figuratively, there is much on the line, as WWE has demonstrated that the crown is a talent's ticket to a quick rise in the ranks.
Let's see what the SLAM! Wrestling crew had to say about this year's one-night tourney.
Andy McNamara
Having King of the Ring on free TV actually should cause a rating spike
as I don't think it would have the same PPV draw as years past. OK this is the
time for anyone who was in the running to win Money in The Bank at 'Mania to
be given a strong showing. I'm picking Chris Jericho and Ken Kennedy in the
final, with Mr. Kennedy getting the nod and begin working his way up the main
event ladder.
Matt Mackinder
Does the King of the Ring moniker even mean anything any more? I mean, WWE
has way too many titles as it is, so let's go and add one more? Being that this
tournament will be a three-hour Raw, it had better be worth it. What frightens
me is thinking of the winner and if they'll have to go around in the old King
Booker cape and crown and suddenly develop a British accent. Yikes. If WWE thinks
this will get the fans excited, I think they might be on to something. After
all, not much coming from WWE gets most people jazzed these days. So who wins?
Triple H so he can be the "true" king of kings? Nah. Hornswoggle?
Nah. He seems to be getting phased out. I'll go with someone due for a huge
push and it finally happens here - Mr. Kennedy.
Greg Oliver
My first thought would be to elevate someone like MVP, but then I realized it
would be too much like Booker T as the King. So here's hoping they do something
different - as good as King MVP would have been. I'd use the King of the Ring
as a furthering of the Lance Cade / Trevor Murdoch inevitable breakup. Have
them meet in the first round, and Murdoch win. He flukes his way to the title
itself, with someone interfering to cost the babyface the match - it could be
Matt Hardy getting duked by MVP, for example. Then it can be a point of contention
between them (yeah, they did a similar angle to break up Edge and Christian,
but that was seven years ago!).
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Chris Schramm
King of the Ring was originally built to give some middle carder a quick push.
Steve Austin, Triple H (a year late) and Edge are perfect examples. Sometimes
it was someone who really did not need the win like Bret Hart or Booker T. I like
the idea of using it to push someone. And with that in mind, my pick this year
is MVP. He came to the WWE with high hopes and it hasn't worked out. This could
rejuvinate his career, maybe send him to a different direction in terms of looks and give him that push they were hoping to offer a year ago.
Jon Waldman
In the past, WWE had used KOTR to launch the career of a wrestler into the big
title picture. Unfortunately, the hunt on both Smackdown and Raw is pretty full
right now, and will be for the next few months. Thus, I get the feeling we're
going to see the next ECW title challenger come out of this tournament, and
to me there's no one who fits that bill more than Kofi Kingston. Kofi has the
fan support but now needs a strong showing against top-rank wrestlers to solidify
his standing. Beating three midcarders in one night will do that.