2008 King of the Ring Thoughts

On April 21, WWE ran a three hour RAW on USA Network. It was during this show that a new King of the Ring was crowned. At one point, the King of the Ring was a WWE Pay Per View event. For the last couple of years, the WWE has stretched the KotR tournament over a few weeks on RAW. On Monday, they returned to the single night format.
I believe King of the Ring has found its identity on RAW.
Now, to the gripes. It would have been nice to have the KotR determine the #1 contender for a title. It seemed like most of the superstars in the tournament already had storylines going for them. CM Punk was the winner of the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania XXIV. MVP has a feud with Matt Hardy. Chris Jericho is the Intercontinental Title holder and will be the special referee for the Michaels/Batista match at Backlash. William Regal is the current General Manager of RAW. It would have been nice for some of the talent who didn't have ongoing storylines to participate in the KotR.
William Regal winning the tournament isn't horrible for me. I can see how the new title could play into his role as GM of RAW. I was really pulling for Finlay as this could have been the start of a new angle for him as his WrestleMania XXIV opponent JBL is working the fatal four way at Backlash. We'll see what King Regal does at the PPV.

If He Wins, We Lose

There is a reason they call him “The Showstopper”. Shawn Michaels repeatedly gives the best performance in every WrestleMania in which he has a match. He has had his triumphs, but many times, he has come up with the short end of the stick. Despite his great performances, he has lost his matches in WrestleMania X, XIV, XX and 23. Shawn is due for a win at WrestleMania. That’s where the conflict comes in.

The Heart Break Kid has a match with the legendary Rick Flair at WrestleMania XXIV. The stipulation for this match is that the next match Rick Flair loses, he will be forced to retire.

Let’s think about the ramifications of a Shawn Michaels’ win at WM24. The first and most obvious is he will be forever be known as “The Man Who Forced Rick Flair Out of the Business”. This would put Shawn’s “face” status at risk because everybody reveres The Nature Boy. This could also organically grow into a feud with Triple H because of the bond H and Natch’ share.

If Shawn Michaels loses, Rick Flair lives to wrestle another day and no conflict would come from the match.

Since HBK has had more than his share of conflict during his fantastic career and since Flair is being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, there is only one outcome for this match… Shawn Michaels will end Rick Flair’s in-ring career. But as we have seen before, anything can happen.