Cena's Triple Threat Takeover

Monday's Raw offered what William Regal coined the "Triple Threat Takeover", where he chose a wrestler from the WM24 Triple Threat match to preside over Raw. John Cena was choice numero uno and got to pick the main event. Surprise, surprise, Cena chose an Orton versus Triple H main event, which was a pretty good match, until Cena got involved. I have no serious problem with the former champ, but it's starting to look like for the next few weeks we will get those sort of matches. Next week is the Wrestlemania Rewind. Since it's matches from Wrestlemania past, it would make sense that Orton chooses a HHH vs. Cena main event, just like Wrestlemania 2 years ago. And we will likely end each week with one guy hitting his finisher to stand over the other two.

Maria also unveiled her surprise Playboy cover just 4 days before the issue will hit newstands. She started her break-up angle with Marella when he tried to force her to leave the ring with him. Jerry Lawler was the King in Shining Armor and shoved Marella out of the ring. It was also announced the diva match at WM24 will be a Lumberjill style match with Snoop Dogg as the Master of ceremonies. Now how much did he cost?

The entire Mayweather vs. Big Show exchange did little to inflate their WM24 showdown. Mayweather is being paid 20 million dollars but clearly wasn't trained in how to do these promos, as he and Show were basically trying to talk over each other. Mayweather had a few lines like "Im ready to die" and "I'll break your jaw", but didn't seem to increase the hype for this match. Even his interview later on Raw was bad as he tried to tell everyone he's the best at WWE.

The other thing that stood out was the whole Hornswoggle-JBL-Finlay skit. For starters, many fans feel this whole angle is in bad taste, because nobody wants to see a midget being beat up by a larger wrestler. On Raw we got to see more of this, or hear it. JBL slapped the leprechaun in the face and then shut out the lights so he could do some damage to Hornswoggle. What made the scenario very unbelievable was how Finlay just remained in the ring staring blankly at the end. Most other guys would have quickly exited the ring and took off running up the ramp.

We also got to see Umaga squash Super Crazy just to prove Umaga deserves to represent Raw at Wrestlemania 24. Right now I'd put money on Batista, but why not make another Triple Threat. Throw an ECW superstar into the mix. The fans might not mind if ECW won the bragging rights as the top overall brand, but most likely Vince McMahon would quickly denounce the idea.