Lack of veterans may hurt DiBiase and Rhodes

I probably wasn't the only one who saw Cody Rhodes' betrayal of Hardcore Holly coming, but thus far it seems to have been the spark he needed to start shining. He and Ted DiBiase (the new one) are custom made for the roles they now have: cocky sons of well-established and successful veterans of yesteryear ready to make their impact, but not really interested in putting the build-up work in. That's a great angle for them.

But there's a problem here. For the "cut in the pecking order line" upstart gimmick to work, you need some established "paid their dues" veterans to offend, and hopefully ones that can afford a loss or two to build the new talent, yet with enough push to make it matter. Hardcore Holly was the perfect choice to start this thing, and if he comes back to take his revenge, you've got the start of something good. Unfortunately, past Holly, the Raw brand (and the entire WWE, for that matter) is lacking on mid-carders with any momentum that could challenge.

The Raw veterans that could believably feud (and lose) to Rhodes and Holly consist of Holly, Val Venis, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and William Regal. Val Venis has lacked any kind of push since his days as Chief Morley back during the Bischoff administration, Hacksaw Jim Duggan is a nostalgic gimmick machine and William Regal is out on drug-suspension and might end up on a different show when he returns (remember, he was fired from Raw by Mr. Kennedy who is now on Smackdown). None of these have any clout to push Rhodes and DiBiase up a level. The other veterans, like Chris Jericho, JBL, Shawn Michaels and Kane are too high up on the card to have a feud with the two in such a way - and are already involved in their own feuds.

Stretching out to the entire roster, candidates for such a feud would include Smackdown's Big Daddy V and Funaki and ECW's Chavo Guerrero, Finlay, Mark Henry, Nunzio and Stevie Richards, Super Crazy and Tommy Dreamer. In that list, the only ones freed up for such a push would be Super Crazy and Nunzio, and if you beat either of them, so what? Everyone else does too.

Perhaps Rhodes and DiBiase will continue their push, but unless someone comes along that can help elevate them, they'll start to fizzle and end up on Heat with no one but Hacksaw and Pez Whatley tributes to beat.

Wait, there is no Heat anymore?