Championship scramble - bit of a mess?

The owner of this blog, myself and several others make it something of a habit to get the WWE PPVs every month (only when there's a twofer in a month will we skip one), so it is quite likely that we will be sitting down for Unforgiven in about a week and a half. Looking towards that, it's probably best that I start getting excited about the newfangled 'Championship Scramble' matches. Apparently WWE has so much confidence in them, it's giving us three of them - one for each brand's title. Now I may be wrong, but it seems like the novelty may have worn thin by the time we get to the third match (likely the one for CM Punk's World Heavyweight title).

The Championship Scramble - an 'Adamle Original' from Raw GM Mike Adamle - is a 20 minute, five man match in which two participants begin with a new one entering the ring every five minutes. Any time a pinfall or submission is scored, that person becomes something of an unofficial, interim champion (pretty much 'it') until another is scored. When the 20 minutes are up, the person who is 'it' becomes the champion. And no, that will not inflate any of the title histories. WWE has gone out of their way to make sure everyone knows that only the winner will be officially champion.

So when Adamle announced the match, he gave the opponents for CM Punk, and it read like a usual suspects list: John Cena, Batista, Kane and JBL. Nothing really new there - the Raw upper card and usual contenders. Then, John Cena went down with an injury and the spot became the return match for Rey Mysterio - who is off-camera in the makings of a feud with Kane. The change has put Batista in something of a spot as he becomes the only person who does not have an ongoing feud (though they've used his past friendship with Mysterio to build some tension between him and Kane). The original would have had JBL vs. Punk, Cena vs. Batista, and Kane with the tension of a returning Mysterio. Personally, I would have given Chris Jericho the open spot and had Batista vs. Kane with Jericho having the tension of Shawn Michaels, taking the feud into No Mercy. But who am I to second guess?

So with Raw's big match set, Smackdown quickly announced that they too would have a Championship Scramble. Once the qualifying matches were done, Triple H's opponents were set as Shelton Benjamin, Jeff Hardy, MVP and The Brian Kendrick. To me, this is the more exciting match as you have younger talent with flashier styles. It's also exciting to see the likes of Benjamin and Kendrick in a title match. Both have been shining for quite some time and this is really a chance for them to show that they belong in the next level. Of course, much to my chagrin, this setup pretty much assures that Triple H will leave still champion. I'm not by any means a Triple H hater - on the contrary, I think he's one of the best (if not the best) talents in the company -but can you really see any of the others taking the title at this point? And no, I don't think Jeff Hardy has proved himself again yet - missing WrestleMania because of a drug suspension is going to take a while.

Finally, last night ECW announced that they too would have a Scramble, and this time it seemed like they just drew names out of a hat for the shot at Mark Henry. Matt Hardy was a given, of course, but the other three were the Miz, Chavo Guerrero and Finlay. The Miz I'm fine with - he's really come a long way since in his eight month tag title reign, but it seems like a crime to not include his partner John Morrison, who is the stronger talent of the two. Chavo Guerrero has been embroiled in a Smackdown storyline for months and seems out of place compared to the man he beat to get in - Tommy Dreamer - who would have a better reason to go after Mark Henry, aside from the ECW Championship. As for Finlay, he's been feuding with Mike Knox - a feud that I hope wasn't ended when Finlay got into this match. If I had to pick anyone from the roster to fill Finlay's spot, I'd say toss in one of the new talents - Evan Bourne or Ricky Ortiz - or someone the fans can get behind like Super Crazy.

So of the three matches, the one that's balanced and exciting is also predictable, and the others just aren't getting my interest going. Will they be good? I hope so. I'm cutting in a part of the PPV cost, after all.