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From Where I Stand #1: The Intercontinental Championship
By DX-RATED, MOP Squad Sports Staff Writer
Jun 1, 2008 - 1:07:52 AM

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Welcome to the first edition of ‘From Where I stand’. These will be a series of articles devoted to my personal opinions about the world of wrestling today and of yesteryear. This is pretty much just my opinions and anyone who has a different opinion should feel free to let me know about it. With all that being said lets get down to business.

Now, since before WrestleMania the Intercontinental championship has been in the possession of Chris Jericho. When Y2J got the title it fit perfectly well into the storyline. It took the title from Jeff Hardy and gave him a viable contender for the Money in the bank ladder match. It even set up a possible Jericho Hardy feud after Mania that would have been gold to watch. Instead of that Hardy screwed the whole thing up.

Now I am not sure on the specifics but since Jericho won the title I have only seen him defend it once. Keep in mind this is the same title that helped launch guys like HBK, The Rock, Stone Cold and Randy Orton to main event status. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Jericho. Quite the contrary, I think he is one of the top 5 superstars, talent-wise, in the WWE. I think the title would be of more value to someone who actually needs a push as opposed to a man who is in a feud with Shawn Michaels. So I got to thinking and decided to list some of the superstars who could use, and deserve a run as intercontinental champion.

Matt Striker
This may catch a few people of guard but just hear me out. Striker is man who has a lot of talent and has really not been used properly in my opinion. He is obviously very talented when it comes to in ring wrestling ability. We have all seen him have good matches on ECW. On top of that he is extremely quick witted on the stick. He’s got a lot of charisma as shown in his “classroom” segment. While Striker may never really become a true main eventer, I think if the WWE use’s him correctly he could become a very good mid card- upper card wrestler.

Paul Burchill
Again, not a wrestler that is exactly in the IC title contention right now but one that is definitely talented enough to have a run as champion. Since Burchill has returned to the WWE he hasn’t really made an impact. His initial return against Brian Kendrick was very impressive with his “sister” acting as an excellent valet. although i must say that he should have stuck with the reverse swinging neckbreaker as his finisher instead of the curb stomp. Since then he has done very little, appearing only occasionally on Raw and wrestling people like super crazy in handicap matches with Katie Lea. The only good thing about this is that it has shown that Katie Lea is a potential women’s champion. Let’s look at the facts here; Burchill is a good in-ring wrestler who will only get better with experience. He also has an imposing figure that that makes a viable IC champion. He may not be a great talker yet but he’s not nearly as bad as Lashley was when he was the US champ, ad with Katie Lea by his side the male fans are more likely to be looking than listening.

Shelton Benjamin
Now I know that he has already had 3 runs as the IC champion but tell me what else he has to do right now? He started the year with this ridiculous “gold standard” gimmick that hasn’t brought him to main event status, which was the point of it I assume. Shelton really needs to start over. He needs to get rid of his blonde hair cut (its too distracting), he needs to go back to Raw and they need to give him a descent run because honestly he could be a man that could main event WrestleMania somewhere in his career if he is managed properly.

Benjamin has been putting on great wrestling matches over on ECW and his feud with Kofi Kingston isn’t nearly as unbearable as I thought it would be (from a talking perspective of course), but he’s never going to relies his potential over there. He needs to go to Raw or even Smackdown to get his career back on track and having the IC title could help him achieve that.

Lance Cade
Cade wasn’t a guy that I originally had in my thinking of possible IC champions but when I look at it closer he is a prime candidate. For the last few years Cade has formed a great tag team with Trevor Murdoch and they were one of the best teams in the WWE. When Cade turned on Murdoch and punched him in the face he became an instant contender in my books. We already know that Cade can wrestle with the best of them. He’s one of those guys who has a lot of potential and it just needs to be brought out in him. He did as much as he possibly could in the tag team division and he was ready to move on to bigger and better things. A run as intercontinental champion would be a great way to kick of his singles career and would establish him as a force to be reckoned with in the WWE. Time will tell whether or not he makes the most of his potential.

There are other wrestlers that could use the push but those are the main three that I believe deserve it. They have worked hard and they deserve some reward for their work. Like I said before the IC title has launched many superstars’ careers as main eventers and it has the potential to again.

And that’s the way I see it from where I stand

Please  E-Mail me at dx-rated@live.com.au

Also check out my blog at http://wweviews-dx-rated.blogspot.com/


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