The most important wrestling moment of 2011...

...was not Punk's "shoot" promo.

And yes I'm being serious. But the most important wrestling moment of 2011 was Edge's retirement. Why I hear you all ask? Well let me explain.

Edge's injury became apparent in the run up to Wrestlemania 27 at which Edge was set to drop the World Heavyweight Championship to Alberto del Rio, these plans changed with Edge's injury and set in motion the entire year in the WWE.

When Edge successfully defended the belt none of us expected his retirement to follow, yet there we were barely a week removed from Wrestlemania and the biggest name on Smackdown, and the the World Champion at that, was no more. The main event for Extreme Rules has to be changed which of course became Christian vs Del Rio for the World Title. But before that we had another huge change.

THE WWE DRAFT

The draft was moved forward from June to April in order to deal with the gap left at the top of the card on Smackdown by Edge's retirement. Orton moved to Smackdown in order to be the top name. Another huge move was Del Rio moving from Smackdown to Raw. Lets take a look at those two moves in more detail.

Without Edge's retirement Del Rio would have won the world title at Extreme Rules and stayed on Smackdown to be the top heel, due to Edge's retirement Christian won the World Title whereas Del Rio lost all of his momentum by moving to the Raw brand. Yes he has won the WWE title twice this year but in many ways moving him did him more harm than good.

Orton on the other hand would have stayed on Raw. With Edge as top face there would have been no reason to move Orton, what's more Christian would have continued to be the brand's number 2 face because...

Christian wouldn't have won the World Title or turned heel this year

Lets for the purpose of fantasy booking suggest that Edge would have retired at WM29 anyways, this would have led to Christian turning heel on his best friend leading into WM29 where the two would face off, lets just for arguments sake say, for the world title. Even then Christian wouldn't have needed to turn heel as Del Rio would have still been on Smackdown and....

Sheamus would have arrived in the draft in June anyways (if the dirt sheets are to be believed). Sheamus therefore would not have turned face this year as he would have been the top heel (alongside Del Rio) on Smackdown. Furthermore because Del Rio remains on Smackdown his "rookie"/bodyguard Brodus Clay would have stayed on Smackdown and not have disappeared. Brodus would have been the third monster on Smackdown alongside Kane and Big Show which in turn means that...

Mark Henry does not have a career renaissance. Brodus Clay originally came up with the Hall of Pain idea, and with him still on Smackdown Henry does not get the main event monster heel push. Clay would have been fed Show and Kane and even if he didnt get a full on main event push he might well have been tested in a few main events. Henry was an afterthought on Raw and even if he had been sent to Smackdown in June he would have been fed to Clay.

With Smackdown looking different already Daniel Bryan would not have won the smackdown MITB, regardless of if he would have been pushed down the line. With Bryan not winning the briefcase it frees up the MITB contract to be won by Sheamus, positioning him for the World Title win, or maybe Cody Rhodes/Wade Barrett would have got the push Bryan has got.

Over to the Raw MITB match, Del Rio is still on Smackdown so he cannot win it. In his absence Miz wins the briefcase and becomes the third man to win it twice. Miz becomes the new ultimate opportunist backed by John Laurinaitis as a corporate champion. Del Rios spot in MITB would have been filled by Orton but as Orton has never been booked to win MITB before lets just assume he wouldn't of here. R-Truth may have sided with Miz anyways eventually or may have ended up being drafted to Smackdown. This leads us on to the biggest story of the year...

PUNK's SHOOT PROMO

This still happens. The Cena-Punk storyline goes ahead regardless of all of the other alternative happenings. Simple reason for this still happening is that just as he did with Jeff Hardy, Vince McMahon throws money at Punk to stay and the shoot still happens. Punk re-signs with WWE and wins the title at MITB in front of the Chicago home crowd. The main difference being that Del Rio is not involved but rather Miz is the third wheel. He wins the title in the same way after a dramatic cash in at Summerslam, but it is not Nash who attacks Punk....


Its Randy Orton! Orton is still on Raw and turns heel after becoming disillusioned with being ignored and the fact that HHH is the special guest referee for Punk vs Cena infuriates him even more. Orton fits better into the storyline than Nash did and HHH/Orton have plenty of history. Whats more, Orton vs Punk and Orton vs HHH would have been far better matches than the ones we got with Nash involved.


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So there we have it, the wrestling world of 2011 was changed completely by one man's retirement.

Thank you Edge

Great article

My only point, you said Miz would be the third guy to win MitB twice, whos the second? Edge cashed in twice but only won the match once.

Samo wrote:Great article

My only point, you said Miz would be the third guy to win MitB twice, whos the second? Edge cashed in twice but only won the match once.

CM Punk won it in back to back years

fernando wrote:

CM Punk won it in back to back years

Yeah, making him the first guy. Gregers said the Miz would be the third. Whos the second?

Id presume he meant Edge Samo tbh he never said the MITB match just the briefcase in general

Yep I meant Edge, Punk and then Miz.

My apologies. Didnt mean to detract from the Article.

That's alright mate, it was constructive feedback.

Thoughts on the article as a whole?

Fantastic. Spot on analysis. I almost forget Edge retired this year, because it was so early.

Cheers mate, and edge was and will always be one of my favourites so I wanted to do something about him. Combining it in this way seemed like a great idea.

Good well thought article.

Don't agree with much of it as it seems more innaccurate , where are you getting all the "would have's" from?

The WWE didn't realise the seriousness of Edge's discomfort, if they did they most certainly would have had him drop the title to Del Rio

Christian was scheduled to turn heel on Edge anyway, it was nixed at Mania but the plan was for him to do it at Extreme Rules (after he helped him defeat Del Rio) and for Christian/Edge to feud for the title over the spring/summer, Edge was due to take a few months off after the draft and return around Survivor Series time like he has done a few times in the past while Del Rio was always pencilled in for RAW, Orton was always ear-marked to move to SmackDown!, depending on how popular he became as a face in 2010 the plan was always to split him and Cena up, Orton didn't capture the imagination so they where never sending Cena to SD!

So did Edge's retirement really change the landscape of the WWE? Not in my opinion, it simply moved things forward by a couple months, it probably did have a Domino effect as others possibly got an enexpected push (Daniel Bryan) but that doesn't mean it was the most important

Most important moment? Simple, CM Punk's 'shoot' promo - why? Because it changed the face of Monday Night RAW

Not only did we get a new top face, we got a genuine threat to John Cena's #1 status, outselling him in the merch stakes, a guy who if he continues to progress could open up the potential of letting the WWE finally freshen up their biggest star (Cena)

All this was born from that promo, the aftermath of MitB could and should have been better, the possibilities where endless however even though it wasn't as great as it could have been, it was still pretty good and for me easily the most important single moment of 2011

Gaffer:

The information comes from dirt sheets and insider information, using multiple sources to try to picture together what might have happened. Obviously the whole article is a what if and if something happened how it would cause other things to change as well.

Christian would not have turned heel at extreme rules imo and del Rio would not have been moved to raw (the second being heavily reported). With edge as top face Orton would not have moved to SmackDown as there would have been simply no need for him to. He was sent to boost ratings and be the face of the brand (which edge was, and having not retired would have continued to be). I have not heard of edge being about to take time off anyways so not sure if that's fact or your opinion.

Simply put Edge's retirement was undoubtedly the biggest moment of 2011. And I'm not sure if you actually read my point that punks promo would still have gone ahead in my alternative reality, so by raising this issue you do you call into question if you read my whole post.

Finally fact and opinion are very different my friend, in writing this I made sure to go on as many "facts" as I could. Obviously some are sketchy but things such as Ortons move to SmackDown and Henry getting Clays hall of pain gimmick are quite well documented.

Yeah, anyway, back to the topic, what I already said above, Punk by a mile

One question, if Orton stays on Raw presumably as a face, would the Shoot promo really of happened? That would mean Raw would be left with 3 top face guys Orton, Cena and Punk.... with only really The Miz as a heel seeing as Del Rio would of stayed on SD? Surely in that scenario it would make more sense to keep Punk heel, or could it of sped up a Cena turn?

alanqlm wrote:One question, if Orton stays on Raw presumably as a face, would the Shoot promo really of happened? That would mean Raw would be left with 3 top face guys Orton, Cena and Punk.... with only really The Miz as a heel seeing as Del Rio would of stayed on SD? Surely in that scenario it would make more sense to keep Punk heel, or could it of sped up a Cena turn?

I don't think CM Punk's 'shoot' was ever designed to turn him face, going with where MitB was held it was always going to be such a Partizan crowd but I genuinely think it took the WWE by surprise at how people where willing to get behind him

I honestly think Vince McMahon is so out of touch that he thought Punk slating HHH and Cena so publicly would get him serious heat, threatening to take the WWE Title away from WWE would get him heat, I feel Punk's shoot was designed to make him the biggest heel of the year so Cena could overcome him and save the WWE Title

As for Orton, he was always planned for SD, the WWE wanted to split him and Cena up for a while, many within the WWE last year felt that a face turn everyone seemed to want last year would at least put him on a par with Cena and possibly go a way to making him a bigger star but it never worked out that way and Orton was fading in Cena's shadow, it was a no-brainer he was going to be moved to SD, ADR was always going to RAW, his entire build up was to set him up for a run against Cena

Cheers for your view, much appreciated.... seeing as you and Greggers clearly have differing opinions on the whole thing would be interested to hear his opinion on this though using his version of events too.

Great to see an alternative idea of what would happen, it's possible any of those things could have happened, and at least you aren't just following things like a mindless sheep

I use to be a wrestler like you...........until I took a Hornswoggle to the knee

alanqlm wrote:One question, if Orton stays on Raw presumably as a face, would the Shoot promo really of happened? That would mean Raw would be left with 3 top face guys Orton, Cena and Punk.... with only really The Miz as a heel seeing as Del Rio would of stayed on SD? Surely in that scenario it would make more sense to keep Punk heel, or could it of sped up a Cena turn?

I believe the shoot would have happened as McMahon would have done everything possible to get punk to stay. As Orton has showed on SmackDown he wouldn't have mind putting over younger talent (Ziggler instead of Rhodes). Punk was probably never supposed to turn face and with Orton there as well he might have been more of a tweener until the double turn at summers (Orton turns heel, punk turns face). Plus if the Supershow idea still happens then del Rio can appear on raw if needed.

Cena still wouldn't have turned this year, the slow burn on a possible heel turn is great.

From what I read at the time Orton was pretty much guaranteed a move to SD whatever happened with Edge the same with ADR who was getting such a dramatic push the move to the flagship show was inevitable.

I actually think though that the most important wrestling moment this year though was the increased control that HHH now has backstage. From scouting out better new talent coming in to ensuring that those stepping up to the roster have are packaged correctly and have a long term plot etc, to me he's certainly thinking in the right direction, he just needs to remove himself from the ring so the ego stays in check and stick Vince 6 feet under.

You want Triple H to murder Vince? Harsh...

That should be the angle of 2012 though, definitely