TLC, Raw & ECW - Sheamus as new WWE champ

With this past Sunday's 2009 TLC PPV results came several title changes right before the close of 2009. D-Generation X was finally rewarded for their historical power amongst the tag team ranks, when they defeated Chris Jericho and Big Show to become new Undisputed Tag team champs. The newcomer Drew McIntyre continues his push towards superstardom, when he took the Intercontinental title from John Morrison, in cheap heel fashion. But of course the win everyone is talking about came from the Celtic Warrior, Sheamus. He defeated John Cena by shoving him off the ropes, causing Cena to fall through a table. That's all Sheamus had to do to grab the WWE title, and now he's your new champion.

Honestly, I like the move by WWE. Jesse Ventura made the statements back on Raw that the same wrestlers are always in the title picture: Orton, Cena, Jericho, HHH...It was just a continuous cycle. Throw in a Batista brief title reign as well, but for a while it was just those few wrestlers carrying the belt. Not that they aren't historically among the top wrestlers in WWE, but it does get boring. The Sheamus move is somewhat similar to when The Great Khali won the World Heavyweight title in a Battle Royal, after Edge was forced to forfeit. In both instances, neither guy actually pinned someone to become champion. Also, it shows the WWE has faith in its new talent. For a while, I had believed Jack Swagger to be the next WWE title holder, maybe even Kofi Kingston. But Sheamus has the big man look and power, like previous champions (Brock Lesnar, Diesel, Undertaker, Sid Vicious). I actually was thinking Sheamus would head to Smackdown from ECW as the next adversary for Undertaker, but instead he's now made a name on Raw within his short WWE career so far.

The Irish media community is going wild over the news of Sheamus' win. Check out "History is made at WWE TLC" and "Sheamus is new WWE World Champion", for just a few. All in all, that move was somewhat shocking, but a nice change for once. The question will be how long Sheamus keeps that title? Maybe until Royal Rumble? He doesn't quite generate a ton of heat yet, but they can work on that if he keeps ducking Cena on Raw.

Speaking of Raw, on Monday's show we got the lengthy 3-hour 2009 Slammy Awards, hosted by Dennis Miller. Miller's been a favorite of mine for some time, and his routines were funny, but just not meant for the WWE Universe. That's not calling the fans unintelligent, just that Miller has a dry sarcasm that works better in different "arenas". He had some humorous lines while comparing Cena to Obama, or discussing bringing Bret Hart in as the next guest host. Mr. McMahon certainly didn't like that. Anyhow, Raw produced some interesting Slammy winners. Maria was a surprise winner of Diva of the Year, because in previous diva votes, Mickie James won the award. They used that opportunity to have Batista pull a Kanye West interruption during Maria's acceptance speech.

In the main event, John Cena and Randy Orton battled for the right to be called 2009 WWE Superstar of the Year. Cena ended up the winner, so they could have the Newcomer of the Year, and new title holder, Sheamus, come out to brag with his newly acquired gold. The Superstar of the Year must have been close this year with four men in a tournament to decide it, but it made things interesting. Other nominees were CM Punk and Undertaker. Punk lost in extremely quick fashion, not too sure why. They could have had Luke Gallows interfere instead to keep Punk looking credible as a superstar of the year candidate. Undertaker lost by countout. As much as many fans were hoping to see Undertaker vs Cena, I have a feeling that is a Wrestlemania moment waiting to happen. I was also surprised to see an award given to Jeff Hardy. Not that he didn't deserve it for that feat, but based on the legal issues revolving around drugs. Then again, it's not like the USA Today or NY Times ran articles about the Slammy Winners from WWE. Also, the WWE is pushing the new Jeff Hardy DVD via CM Punk's rants, and now the award win.

ECW is now running an interesting tournament called ECW Homecoming, set up by its lovely GM Tiffany. Basically it will be 16 matches, with former ECW roster members being invited to compete. The 8 winners go into a final homecoming, which I'm guessing is a Battle Royal. The winner of that becomes #1 Contender for the ECW title. So far, Kane has defeated Zack Ryder, and in another match, Ezekiel Jackson defeated Vladimir Kozlov (Regal interfered, so it appears Jackson is now on Regal's team). It'll be interesting to see who shows up for the tournament. Some names I'd consider would be Jack Swagger (he'll be there next week), Kofi Kingston, John Morrison, Big Show and The Miz. It's hard to pick an early winner, but a Kofi Kingston-Christian title match would work, and a Kofi Kingston ECW title reign would be another title on his wishlist. He reported in WWE magazine his goal is to hold every WWE title (well except the womens belts). So far Kingston has been US Champ, Intercontinental and Tag team champ. That leaves ECW, WWE and World Heavyweight.

On Tuesday's ECW on SyFy, they also had the Abraham Washington show featuring Diva of the Year, Maria. Abe noted in his opening monologue that he was robbed at the Slammy's of Breakout Star of the Year (Sheamus won), Superstar of the Year, Oh My Moment of the Year, even Tag Team of the Year. He failed to mention that Shaquille O'Neal was robbed as "WWE Raw guest host of the year". Bob Barker was good and the game show environment was cool, but Shaq really riled the crowd up and got into it.

Next week's Raw is hosted by baseball star Johnny Damon of the New York Yankees. No idea how much of a WWE fan he is, but several other athletes or sports involved individuals did a decent job - Shaq, Mark Cuban and Ricky Patton.

And don't forget the next WWE film starring a wrestler is out soon. Ted Dibiase will showcase his acting skills in The Marine 2 available on December 29th, 2009 on DVD, Blu-Ray and as part of a DVD 2 pack featuring The Marine (starring John Cena).