The King of the Ring

I hope I'm not going to be alone in this one. Here goes.

The WWE completely destroyed the King of the Ring tournament. Back in the day, it used to have a Pay-Per-View centered around it. Just last night, we saw a two-hour tournament take place live on Raw. The involvement of The Great Khali (to further his feud with Big Show) and the involvement of Hornswoggle were *completely* unnecessary. To me, the tournament has always been about the major talent in the WWE. We weren't even treated to qualifying matches. Those two slots could have, and *should* have gone to guys such as John Morrison, Elijah Burke, Shelton Benjamin, Kofi Kingston, Carlito, Mr. Kennedy, Cody Rhodes, Festus (who would have been a very amusing King, mind you, not to say he'd be my first pick)... Hell, those eight would make one heck of a tournament in their own right.

Getting past the fact that the tournament didn't seem to include a proper field of superstars, one might look at the upper half of the bracket and see potential for a great set of three matches. Jericho vs. MVP could have been a classic, and honestly, those two in a feud would be dynamite, but that's another thread in the making. CM Punk and Matt Hardy also had major potential. Unfortunately, both matches seemed completely lackluster to me. The energy just wasn't there. Punk looked grim the whole time (and I couldn't figure out why, because I hadn't seen any spoilers at all and was expecting him to win the thing as part of some huge push)., Jericho just looked sluggish, and it looked like nobody was selling anything properly. CM Punk vs. Y2J turned out to be decent at the end, when they both started stepping things up a bit, but it still seemed like they could have given it more. This brings me to the point that nobody within the WWE seemed to show any enthusiasm for the King of the Ring.

My favorite segments of the night were the Clinton and Obama match (up until Umaga came out), and the Divas bit. Beth played her role perfectly, and it made me love her as a dominant heel even more. The line "Bill Clinton" gave with, "I did not have illegal contact with that candidate" made me laugh.

The one thing I do have to give credit for is the outcome of the final match. I did expect William Regal to ultimately fall to the young, fresh, fan-favorite CM Punk. I was delighted to see Punk tap to the Regal Stretch, and while I still think there are about 10 more guys who could have used this as a push... William Regal isn't a terrible guy for it.

All in all, though, disappointing, and if they attempt this again, I don't think I'll be able to take it seriously.

i don't like william regal but i do respect him greatfully,he is a good wrestler and it was kind of kool seeing him actually win against a good superstar

The KOTR 2006 is when they bucked traditon by having Booker T win the KOTR. The KOTR use to be away to launch mid-card wrestler to upper-card wrestlers. Austin. Bret Hart, HHH, and other guys have gotten their career jump started by becoming KOTR.
I think it is a strange choice, but if Booker T can win it, then why not Regal. I think it is good that Regal will have this stat on his wrestling career and I hope that he gets back to wrestling more often because I like his style in the ring.

Concrete Jesus wrote:

The KOTR 2006 is when they bucked traditon by having Booker T win the KOTR. The KOTR use to be away to launch mid-card wrestler to upper-card wrestlers. Austin. Bret Hart, HHH, and other guys have gotten their career jump started by becoming KOTR.
I think it is a strange choice, but if Booker T can win it, then why not Regal. I think it is good that Regal will have this stat on his wrestling career and I hope that he gets back to wrestling more often because I like his style in the ring.

The main point that I was trying to make is that if they want this push to be serious, why didn't they give Regal a more legitimate path to the top?

Because the path was set up for Regal to be at full strength so he would win. He is the the GM, so he would set the matches and he would set them to give him the easy road to be the King, that is what I would do, the path of least resestance.