Once again WWE delivers with the worst possible iteration of what lay before them.

The Mark Henry situation really is just sad. I was shocked that, after his 10-year contract expired, he was still kept around. Yes, he is big (and fat). Yes, he is legitimately scary strong. The thing is, he has never ever showed anything remotely close to main-event level talent. Let me put it this way: when the WWE pushed Umaga as a main event talent, people were skeptical. Mark Henry has never, in 14 years, had a match as good as even someone like Umaga was capable of having.

Henry did excellently at his role. He was a monster and had more personality than Khali or Kane have shown in months. The problem, as you point out, is in longterm booking there is no reason to believe this guy will perform well in a top spot.

Having Bourne lose in a decent outing was a flub. It’s a flub to put him as a face on the same brand as HHH and Cena, where Batista will return, and they already have MVP and Kingston. He’ll fight just to get air time, whereas on Smackdown he could play off Jericho, Punk and Edge. It’s a further flub, as you point out, to have him be the one to lose when he’s been great and could have become a breakout star in one night. It’s just another in a series of misfires, like having Miz go 0-2 to Cena in two nights and leaving Morrison off the PPV after upsetting Punk. WWE routinely shows little faith in the new stars, and they need them to survive.

I think it’s sad that, to my knowledge, the two “newest” guys that they’ve taken seriously enough to bump to the WWE title picture (“newest” as in “most recently debuted”, not “newest to the picture”) are John Cena and Vladimir Kozlov. Cena debuted in 2002, won his first world title in 2005, turned it into a $1,500 pinwheel, and the rest is history. Kozlov “debuted” in 2007/2008 and…well, you know.

Note I said “seriously” and am not counting that Scramble match back in September where they just threw in Kendrick, MVP and Shelton into the match because they didn’t have enough guys to job to Trips at the time. You’ll note that, with the possible exception of MVP, those guys haven’t even come remotely close since, and they never will.

What criteria are you using there? Kozlov has never won the world title never really came all that close to it. Then there are Batista, Randy Orton, Bobby Lashley, Khali and CM Punk, plus JBL (in essence a brand new character debuted in 2004) and a significant shift in direction for Edge.

Read it again: I said they were introduced into the WWE TITLE PICTURE. Never once said they actually won the damn thing.

Yeah, but Lashley, Batista and Punk have been introduced into the title picture since.

My problem largely lies with talented guys appearing so ready and getting hamstrung. In conclusion, poor MVP.

Imagine what the IWC would be like if Punk was in MVP’s position. Oh, the uproar.

Andy Wheeler convinced me that Swagger’s booking was great. He really should be a heel, and given that ending, he could be Legacy’s enforcer, or at least a losse ally.

He fits better than Henry, whose booking I also didn’t mind (of course, at the time, I didn’t think it was a face turn so much as him staying character).

My only problem with it was Bourne jobbing. Would have been great if he could have become a bigger star and all that. I really don’t see how he fits on Raw, unless he and Kofi are going to team up/feud.