Irish Whip Fighting: Backlash promo suggests a Cena loss

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Monday, April 16, 2007

Backlash promo suggests a Cena loss

Other than the fact that the picture of Edge peering through broken boards like Jack Nicholson in The Shining is probably the coolest idea for a promo I've seen in years, it may just tell us something about the outcome of the main event as well.

See, the WWE forgets that I spend hours checking out the wealth of information on wikipedia. They also forget that before I post, I do my homework. This post's homework led me to look at the most recent promos and the eventual outcome of the event, seeing if there was any correlation. Most featured all the wrestlers in the main event for that night, but a few did not. Let's take a look:

New Year's Revolution 07: DX is in the poster but loses the match to Team Rated RKO due to a legit quadricep injury. I call this one a wash as I feel that DX was supposed to win this match. After seeing the awful finish to the Summerslam 1997 match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Owen Hart (after a botched Hart Driver broke Stone Cold Steve Austin's neck), I'd much rather just stop the match than have them finish as they did at SS 1997.

Armageddon: Kane and The Undertaker are featured in the front of the poster with MVP and Kennedy behind them. The winners? Both 7 footers.

Cyber Sunday: The promo featured all three champs (Cena, Booker, Big Show) holding their respective belts. By the time the night was over, all three were...still holding their respective belts.

No Mercy: King Booker is placed in the very front of the poster with the technically-impressive trio of Finlay, Lashley, and Batista behind him. Booker retains the title.

Unforgiven: The promo features a sole picture of John Cena, who of course, would go on later that night to defeat Edge for the WWE title.

This analysis would seem to suggest that Edge is in line for another title run. Fortunately, my research is consistent with everything I've been hearing about current backstage politics. Apparently, Cena has been getting heat from other wrestlers in response to his streak of beating veteran opponents much more talented than he. Combined with the fact that Edge has been well documented as unhappy with the length of his previous title run, the storms seem to be aligning for a Rated R championship in the WWE. I'm sure Drew will have some interesting ideas regarding how this will all transpire in less than two weeks. Stay tuned for his predictions!