Hi, and welcome to the very first View from Down Under, a new weekly segment on http://www.wrestling-edge.com/ where I will discuss my thoughts and views on the world of professional wrestling, particularly the WWE, from all the way down here in Australia. I have been a wrestling fan for well over 30 years, and finally decided to join the rest of my fellow wrestling fans here in the online world. I look forward to reading your comments on my views and opinions.
Craig Higham
Christian’s Return To The Top……
(Hopefully This Time For Longer Than 2 Days!)
1st August 2013
In 2011 at the WWE event Extreme Rules, along with thousands of his other peeps, I was thrilled that the WWE finally saw what many of us already new, that Christian was not only ready, but long overdue to be a WWE World Champion. Being a Christian fan since his tag team days with Edge, I was on the end of my seat as he slowly climbed that ladder to grab the title. I went to bed that night proud that the WWE had finally given Captain Charisma a chance at the very top.
As excited as I was after Extreme Rules, I was just as shocked and angry when only two days later (5 days in TV land) on his first title defence on Smackdown, he would lose the title to Randy Orton. These two superstars would give us fans (what I feel) was the feud of the year in 2011, swapping the title between them. However, in the end Christian only walked away with 2 title reigns, one lasting two days, and the other one month – not reigns that are going to be looked back on with any sort of acknowledgement…..in fact you could use that terrible term that he was a “Transitional Champion”. With all the years he has given professional wrestling and the WWE, he deserves better than that. You just had to visit nearly every wrestling site on the day he lost the title, to read from the many peeps who felt the same way I did.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BBPisJI5m8[/youtube]
Christian will be a future Hall-of-Famer as since arriving in the WWE in 1998 he has a resume that is pretty impressive and envious. It includes 2 times World Heavyweight Champion; 2 times ECW Champion; 4 times Intercontinental Champion; 9 times WWE Tag Team Champion and is the 11th Grand Slam Champion. He has also won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship during his 4 years with TNA. However there are two main issues that haunt Christian, the above mentioned World Heavyweight reigns and often being associated as being under Edge’s Shadow.
Being known initially as Edge’s brother when arriving to be part of The Brood, Christian’s early career was dominated by his and Edge’s great, entertaining and humorous tag team run. To this day now, I still remember their “5 second pose for those with flash photography”, their comedy work with the then commissioner Mick Foley and of course those TLC matches with The Hardy Boyz and The Dudley Boys.
After their split, and resulting feud, we all know what happened to Edge’s career, however, Christian took a little longer to get over as a single performer (at least he was lucky enough not to suffer from the Marty Jannetty factor which occurs at the break up of an established tag team). To many of his fans he was on the verge of ascending to the top in 2005, with some great matches against Chris Jericho, and was starting a feud with John Cena, before some behind the scenes decisions resulted in his decision to leave the WWE and start his 4 year hiatus with TNA.
On his return to the WWE in 2009 he was assigned to the ECW branch of the roster, and very quickly ascended to the top, capturing the ECW title. He had some great matches which helped to establish new WWE stars such as Jack Swagger and Ezekiel Jackson along with an awesome ladder match against Shelton Benjamin that highlighted his ECW run.
Once the WWE decided to drop the ECW brand, he had a small run in the RAW brand before being drafted to Smackdown where there he helped establish new WWE star Alberto Del Rio, by having Del Rio be the one responsible for putting him out for four months with a pectoral injury. His return at the Elimination Chamber, saving Edge from an attack by Del Rio, was the start of what many fans, including myself, thought was leading to an eventual World Heavyweight Championship feud between the two friends. However, with Edge’s career ending in injury, it resulted in Christian winning the vacant World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Rules……..with an assist from Edge.
Injuries then halted any momentum he had gained with the 2011 Randy Orton feud, and some lack lustre Intercontinental title runs, and a focus to help establish other WWE talent meant many of Christian’s peeps such as myself, felt that he would not get a chance for his “one more match”. This left many of us feeling that he was not given that chance to really show he could lead the company, as his title run was short, and believed by many only to have occurred due to Edge’s injury.
On Smackdown this week (spoiler), Christian becomes the number 1 contender for the World Heavyweight Championship and will face Alberto Del Rio at Summer Slam.
After being undecided whether to order this pay per view, I have now already booked it via my pay per view provider and counting down the days to August 18 (well August 19 here in Australia).
Will Christian get his well-deserved chance to lead the WWE again? I hope so, with the likes of younger stars such as Dolph Ziggler, Damien Sandow, Cody Rhodes, Ryback, Wade Barret and Antonio Cesaro around, and established main event stars like John Cena, Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, this might be Captain Charisma’s last chance to hold a major WWE title. And with no Edge around to share his spotlight this time, it will be well and truly Christian’s title.
Although if he does happen to win at Summer Slam, I do see a briefcase being used to again give him a shortened reign, which while being disappointed to witness it does show Christian’s willingness to put others over rather than personal glory for himself, a great trait for an experienced professional wrestler to have, which is one of the reasons why he will be an all-time favourite of mine.
So dust off those “peeps” signs, tune into Summer Slam on August 18th and watch Christian’s “One More Match” – and hopefully see him leave with HIS World Heavyweight Championship.
Thanks for reading my very first Wrestling-Edge article, if you liked what you read then go check out my wrestling book “Stop Telling Us It’s Fake: A Wrestling Fans Journey 1977-2012” exclusively at Amazon Books or find me on Facebook at Craig Higham Author page!
