Stars in Progress: Who/What Moved Up & Down This Week
By: Chris Cash @RealityofChris
WWE Night of Champions
One Last-Minute Step Up
The pay per view is this Sunday and on paper, it doesn't look like much.
John Cena's in another Championship match – nothing new. Triple H was rushed into his match with CM Punk, all revolved around an angle that has lost most of its momentum from when it started. The added stipulation of Triple H losing his COO position should have never touched this match. Not this soon. Kevin Nash's fire from his SummerSlam return has damn near fizzled out and Mark Henry still hasn't established himself as a credible challenger to Randy Orton's WHC (although he has taken tremendous strides as of late).
Tomorrow, I will be posting my official "Preview & Predictions" column, but I wanted to put over the closing moments on both Raw and Smackdown this week. The last-minute efforts by WWE to make fans by this pay per view paid off. Triple H and CM Punk had a great confrontation this past Monday. Triple H is simply more convincing as "The Game" than he will ever be as the authority figure. CM Punk was great as usual.
The "Cutting Edge" segment on Smackdown was somewhat of a mixed bag for me, but in the end, I found myself semi-convinced that Mark Henry has at least an outside shot of winning his first Heavyweight Championship on Sunday. I wasn't a huge fan of Mark Henry making himself look human, admitting that he has been such a failure in the last decade and a half. Then, to turn it around and have him demolish half of the Smackdown roster seemed a bit contradictory. However, my criticism of the small stuff is not an attempt in any way to dilute the progress Mark Henry has made in recent months on Smackdown. He looks, acts and talks like an absolute beast right now. He deserves the spot. I just hope fans can forget his lackluster career for the 15 minutes he's opposite the ring of Randy Orton this Sunday and enjoy the match for what it's meant to be.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
