Mysterio retains title, but can he keep it?

It was a 619 and a frog splash that allowed a bloodied Rey Mysterio to vanquish JBL and retain the World Heavyweight Championship at Judgment Day. But now that Mysterio's retained his title, can he keep it?

Nope. The king of mystery might have eked out a victory on Sunday, but he'll lose his championship sooner rather than later.

In the world of sports entertainment--where storylines trump victories--the ability to put asses in seats is more coveted than any corkscrew moonsault, no matter how impressive.

Hard workers like Rey Mysterio and Chris Benoit may once be crowned champion, but they won't hold the strap four times like Shawn Michaels, six times like Kurt Angle or ten times like the King of Kings, Triple H.

What makes these multiple-time champions stand out from the pack?

They excel in the following four traits, ranked from least significant to most.

4.) Attendance
"Half of life is just showing up," the old adage goes. The same holds true in wrestling. How can fans connect with a wrestler if they hardly see him? Fans will clamor for a wrestler when he is popular. Until then, a wrestler must endure homesickness and injury and show up to every event.

3.) Looks
Nothing says champ like a well-exercised chest coupled with 24-inch pythons. After all, if the champ is the high hog at the trough, he should look the part.

On a subconscious level, the champ represents the He-Man in all of us. He should look like he could kick your ass and your friends' asses too. That's why watching Batista makes me cheer and seeing JBL makes me feel like doing sit-ups.

2.) Wrestling Ability
Despite the pyro, caricatures and outrageous storylines, wrestling is about well, wrestling. It's about two greased up guys trading holds and throwing haymakers until one of them stays down for three. Good wrestlers usually become popular superstars. Unfortunately, wrestling ability alone isn't enough to keep most fans' asses in their seats.

1.) Mic Skills
It's what turned average wrestlers like Stone Cold, and Hulk Hogan into household names. Mic skills are a wrestler's ability to make fans care about his storyline. More importantly, mic skills make fans care about the wrestler himself.

Wrestling matches may be fun to watch. But it doesn't take long for fans to figure out they're watching the same match over and over again.

But mic skills make matches special. They are why we were on the edge of our seats when Kurt Angle battled Shawn Michaels. They're why we still talk about Rock v. Hogan despite the shoddy wrestling, and why we'll always remember Eddie Guerrero.

Rey Mysterio is a punctual champion with a unique look and exciting wrestling style. But he's as interesting to talk to as your Aunt Ruth. He can't outwit JBL and acknowledges that his championship reign will be likely short-lived. Oh, and he's about the size of your kid brother.

Mysterio was given the title probably for his hardwork, and to honor Guerrero. But with fans' growing acceptance of Guerrero's passing and a personality like dry wall, it's only a matter of time before Mysterio drops the strap.

To whom? If past weeks are any indication, anyone.

Agree? Enraged? Indifferent? Fine! You tell the 'net what it takes to be a multi-time champ! And join us next time on Sports Entertainment in 500 words.

Smackdown! disappoints, Undertaker disrespects

After opening the week with an unpredictable Raw, we close with a disappointing edition of Smackdown!. To be fair, WWE's Friday-night brand put on a good show. But it did little to pique interest in its Sunday pay-per-view.

The main event saw its champion, Rey Mysterio decimated once again, this time by Raw's Kane. The match had its share of highlights, including Kane hitting a throat thrust on an airborne Mysterio, but ended in a "no contest" after the Big Red Machine put aside his match, laid out JBL and hit his pyro (after hearing whispers of May 19th, of course!).

Mysterio's small size makes it hard to see him as a credible champ. And loss after loss makes me wonder if he can ever be seen as one.

Friday night was also the penultimate installation of the most disrespectful feud in WWE history: The Great Retard v. The Absent Deadman, I mean The Great Khali and the Undertaker.

Never have I felt so disrespected as a fan. How can a feud last more than a month without one of the wrestlers ever showing up? What's worse, Daivari--an entertaining character, but weak speaker--is the one who's kept this feud alive.

I wish I knew who to blame: the WWE for bringing Khali up too soon, Khali for not speaking a lick of English, or the Undertaker for no-showing six weeks in a row and expecting us to pay $34.95 to see him on pay-per-view.

The rest of Smackdown! was enjoyable. It's true that the Friday-night roster is desperate for stars, but I still like watching Booker T, Sharmell, Finlay, Chris Benoit, Melina and even Mark Henry overact, wrestle and entertain.

Speaking of Mark Henry, after his match he was insulted by a fan. Upset by the remarks, Henry barked, "I'll eat your face off!" Come on JBL, do you really think you could beat Mark Henry in a pie-eating contest?

Sorry for the late post. Smackdown! was preempted and rescheduled here in Southern California.

In about an hour, Judgment Day will take place. Given Mysterio's string of losses, it's hard to tell if he'll remain champ. I just hope the Undertaker gets his disrespectful ass kicked. As for the rest of the card? I'd rather hear your picks. Sound off on the message board!

Next time we'll consider the ramifications of Judgment Day. Won't you join us?

Would you mock a dead wrestler?

Chris Benoit says he isn't upset with the WWE's controversial use of his friend Eddie Guerrero in its storylines, according to this week's Sun Online.(To read the article click here.)

Shortly after Guerrero's untimely death in Nov. 2005, fans began questioning WWE's constant mention of the Hall of Famer even after his passing. Some even accused WWE of exploiting the tragedy.

For instance, Randy Orton got a title shot after making disparaging comments about Guerrero. He also tried to "kill" the Undertaker by using a lowrider, a Latino Heat trademark. Most recently, JBL mocked Guerrero when he shimmied his shoulders in his bout against Benoit at Wrestlemania.

"Everyone has their own opinion. Some of the fans are angry with it and others are OK with it," Benoit told the Sun. "The storylines involving Eddie have not been hard for me to watch."

Although I admire Benoit's professionalism, I find it difficult to believe that he meant what he said. My guess is he was just following rank and file. I know if my best friend died, I'd at least be irked that my boss was using his memory to make money. But I'm not sure if I'd jeopardize my job for it.

What I'd like to know is, what would you have done? Would you remain loyal to the company like Benoit? Would you quietly seeth? Or would you quit?

Post your thoughts and let other fans know what you think.

Tonight is Friday Night Smackdown! and it looks like JBL is going to once again bring the hurtin' on the "champ" Rey Mysterio. We'll have a recap of the highlights next time on Sports Entertainment in 500 words!

Power rankings a hoax, WWE confirms

If you've ever perused WWE's website after wrapping up a week of Smackdown! and Raw, you've probably seen something called the POWER 25. Borrowed from real sports, the garishly written poll ranks the top 25 WWE superstars according to their performance on their respective shows.

But where sports like basketball, baseball and football derive their rankings from wins and losses, wrestling often ranks its superstars according to hard-to-measure factors, like progression in a storyline.

For instance, JBL taunting the world champ from the announcement booth gets him a higher rank (7th) than Lashley's semi-final victory in the King of the Ring tournament (9th), according to the May 13 ranking.

On the Raw side, Kane hearing voices (6th) puts him above the Spirit Squad (10th) despite their victory over Shawn Michaels and The Champ, John Cena.

Isn't it odd that victories don't equal high rankings? Just who the heck decides these wacky rankings and how do they do it?

It turns out that the POWER 25 is decided by WWE and something called The Academy of Wrestling Arts & Sciences (Now you too can learn the science of suplexes!).

I Googled the "academy" and found that though it's often mentioned in other wrestling sites--usually quoted verbatim from WWE's site--it doesn't have a site of its own. Odd. I then called WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut to ask them about the phantom academy.

"No, it's just something our offices created for the website," said WWE's Corporate Communications Coordinator, Adam Hopkins.

When asked how the POWER 25 are ranked, Hopkins said, "It's decided by our team at WWE.com."

So the wrestling academy isn't real. The WWE is the only one ranking its superstars' weekly performances, which means that just like on the shows, WWE is strongly suggesting whom we should root for on the web.

Most fans know they are told whom to cheer or jeer at WWE shows. But the website's POWER 25 suggests that an independent academy helps the WWE decide who is on top of the mountain. If it were real, the academy might have legitimized (however slightly) the "sports" in sports entertainment. Sadly, the academy is just another one of WWE's characters.

There's an old saying in pro wrestling: "If you see it on television, it's probably scripted." I guess that applies to the web, too.

Your thoughts? Post 'em and let other fans know what you think.

This Friday is the last stop before Judgment Day! Got predictions? Share 'em with us next time when we recap and review the highpoints (don't laugh!) of Smackdown!.

New WWE blog 'frog-splashes' onto 'net

At a time when cynics are denouncing WWE as being at its most predictable, one man still finds a way to keep us guessing. Twice in one night, the man with three monikers and two theme songs somehow gave two unpredictable performances in the scripted drama that is Monday Night Raw.

Most fans who've been watching the WWE for years have seen just about every ending there is to a match: the clean finish, the double KO, the victory by count out among others.

But in Raw's opening match, in a three-on-two handicap, Texas-Tornado, double-title match (Did Vince just make that up?) The Game managed to engineer a new ending: the "I outpinned you by one second! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!" finish. Let's recap on how this unique finish came about:

Perhaps exhausted after hitting the Pedigree on John Cena (the second of the match), Triple H was slow to make a cover. While he was rolling The Champ onto his back, Shelton Benjamin draped an arm over the fallen RVD to pick up the duke and regain the Intercontinental title! (Did anyone see that coming?)

Though he didn't walk away with the WWE title, Triple H (and four fellow wrestlers) put on a good match. That, I think, is more important than a WWE title change for a weekly episode of Raw, where matches are shorter than pay-per-views.

Again the King of Kings would steal the show, this time in Raw's main event.

The bout saw Shawn Michaels vs. the Spirit Squad's Kenny with Shane McMahon as the guest referee. After the match ended, Shane O'Mac held the fallen Michaels and ordered the Cerebral Assassin to ram a sledgehammer into the skull of the Heartbreak Kid.

As a coup de grace, Triple H held Michaels' face and barked, "I want you to see this coming!" He drove the hammer and Michaels ducked! The Game instead struck the boss' son! Was it an accident? Were they in cahoots? Who knows? Man, that's good wrestling! True the "inadvertent" hit has been done before, but never this well.

The mark of a good wrestler is keeping your audience interested. You keep your audience interested by not being predictable (Ahem! The Undertaker! Ahem!). No one on either roster does that better than the ten-time champ, Triple H.

But like I said earlier, wrestling is at its most predictable. If you read the dirt sheets or have seen the crotch chops on Raw, then you know that a Degeneration X reunion is looming. Hopefully, the Monarch of the Mat will find a way to make this unnecessary return interesting.

Thanks for visiting the inaugural edition of Sports Entertainment in 500 Words! If you've got comments or criticisms, just post me a comment and I'll respond.

Next time, we'll talk about WWE's Power Rankings. Who decides? How are they ranked? Do they matter? Hope you can join us for that.