Twilling's Blog: The talent that stole the show at Judgment Day and the Raw main eventers that did not; why is WWE reluctant to build new stars?

Monday, MAY 18 – 7:26 P.M. (CT)

-Last night, the WWE Judgment Day pay-per-view was looking like a very good show four matches and one in ring segment into the show. Umaga defeated Chicago's own CM Punk in a very good opening match. Christian retained the ECW Championship against Jack Swagger in another strong match. John Morrison looked great as a babyface while defeating Shelton Benjamin.

Immediately following Morrison's victory, The Miz had the usually inevitable task of trying to get over in an in-ring promo on a pay-per-view. Not only was he successful, but for some, he was the highlight of the show. The usually entertaining Santino Marella was anything but and Miz came out looking like a star. The fourth match of the night was predictably very good with Rey Mysterio defeating Chris Jericho to retain the Intercontinental Championship.

Excluding Santino, the nine men I just referred to were responsible for a very good to great pay-per-view up to this point. More important, none of the nine are regular main eventers. Sure, Jericho has been in and out of the main event picture, as has Mysterio (to a lesser extent), but these four matches and Miz's promo was a fantastic example of WWE having the personnel to create new (different) main event stars.

The next two matches were the Raw main event and Raw co-main event. Batista defeated Randy Orton by disqualification in a match I probably praised more than most (or all). Of course, Ric Flair made his return to WWE, but he was not met with the huge pop WWE was hoping for. With the speculation that Flair will get back into the ring, it is pretty safe to assume Flair will be teaming with Batista and Triple H to face Legacy sometime down the road. With Flair being in his 60s, Batista, H, and Orton being main event stalwarts, and Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes being role players, this is hardly going to build new stars.

Moving on, a very "injured" John Cena faced Big Show, who apparently weighs somewhere between 430 and 485 pounds (thanks Michael Cole). Show dominated the fifteen minute match completely with brief glimpses of hope for Cena and his fans. Of course, like we've seen a million times, Cena hit the Attitude Adjuster and won the match. Where does Show go from here? Where does Cena go from here?

Last night on the post show audio, Jason Powell and I could not figure out what was next for Cena. I was (and am) 100% behind a Cena vs. Miz program that results in PPV matches with Miz winning one or more. Powell thought maybe Cena would move into a program with Orton until Triple H comes back. Even though he wouldn't like to see it, he was probably right. My question to WWE is: how do you expect to have new stars if you don't take a few risks?

If Miz is put into a program with Cena, it could be seen as risky by some, but damn, I think it is more risky to head down the same road again (and again and again). WWE may not remember this, but they took a risk at the Backlash pay-per-view in 2003. Brock Lesnar had just won the WWE Championship from Kurt Angle at WrestleMania XIX. Lesnar defended the title at that PPV against an unproven and first time main eventer. His name? John Cena.