King of the Ring Returning?? (Bret Hart KOTR winner 1993)

[Loose Cannon]

As previously reported, the June 15th edition of WWE Raw from Charlotte, North Carolina will be a special 3-hour show. The show is rumored to feature a 1-night tournament to crown a 2009 King of the Ring.

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sweet, I love KOTR as long as it includes some good wrestlers. Some upper level guys as well. I would love for Morrison to take it or MVP.

I may actually think about getting tickets for this one. hmmm

[Jeritron]

I want an established star to win KOTR one of these years. What does it do for them? Not much. However, it does a lot for the tournament itself, and will make the next years winner mean more.

[Nicky Fives]

nowadays the tournament is worthless and leads to a royalty gimmick if victorious..... they need to go back to the good old days of a 32 man tournament spread over all the shows with the semis and finals on a PPV. a 64 man tournament might not be out of the question.... I'm sure WWE could find enough..... until then I do not care

[Krimzon7]

A good 16 man tourney is cool. Instead of having I would be booking qualifying matches over the ALL WWE programs in the weeks building up to the tourney. Then I would have the tourney happen on the 3 hour RAW, and give it a quasi PPV feel. I would make this thing really imprortant. The one thing that I would do is give the Maineventers the night off. I would not let them diminish the night by fucking up the moment. I'd let all the matches go 15 minutes also. I'd want these guys to get some serious exposure.

[Jeritron]

nowadays the tournament is worthless and leads to a royalty gimmick if victorious..... they need to go back to the good old days of a 32 man tournament spread over all the shows with the semis and finals on a PPV. a 64 man tournament might not be out of the question.... I'm sure WWE could find enough..... until then I do not care

Are you suggesting that King Harley Race, Macho King, King Mabel and King of Harts, or even King Kurt weren't royalty gimmicks in the "good ole days"?

[Hornicane]

I want an established star to win KOTR one of these years. What does it do for them? Not much. However, it does a lot for the tournament itself, and will make the next years winner mean more.

I agree with this. I'd love to see someone like Kane or Show win it, if in fact they have it this year. Since taking the tourney off of PPV it seems kinda worthless, but having a bigger name win it could kinda revitalize it and make it seem important again. I like Regal as much as (and probably more than) the next guy, but he's had so many instances of dropping the ball* that him winning didn't really feel like he was taking a step toward main event status that most of the past winners did.



*http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/d/9/ad98c97b456601a8d47325980ec37a0b.gif

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Regal doesn't drop the ball as much as they don't give him it to run with. Though I guess he got pinged for steroids that one time, but I'm sorry... really? That's what would set them off?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Using an established star to boost the tournament was what they did in 2006 with Booker T taking the thing over Bobby Lashley. If Lashley had been a bigger star, he would have gone over there without a doubt. William Regal winning in 2008 was both a veteran taking it, and someone the WWE wanted to get a real boost out of winning it.

Regal fucked things up by getting suspended for 60 days. I haven't heard any rumours supporting this, but I got such a strong feeling that as RAW General Manager, the 2008 King of the Ring, and with Triple H being such a backer of his (he was WWE Champion at the time); Regal was about to win the big one for himself. I doubt he would have main evented WrestleMania XXV or anything, but I think he would have racked up a nice and cosy WWE Title win.

For this year, I think giving it to a younger star would be the best idea. John Morrison and MVP are two names that I see thrown around a lot. I would not be opposed to either of them winning, although Jack Swagger, Mr. Kennedy and Matt Hardy are another three that people shouldn't forget about.

Swagger has got such a backing, and if they take the ECW Title off him and move him to RAW, a KOR victory could put him into perspective on that brand. That RAW sounds like it is mere nights away from the Night of Extreme PPV (or whatever it's being called now). If they choose to have Swagger drop the title to Tommy Dreamer, or have him go over Dreamer, it's either a great way to have him rebound, or a way to further push him.

King Kennedy just has a ring to it, and it's something the character would be able to cling to -- which was what Mr. Kennedy needs right now. The Kennedy character is meant to be arrogant, and at the start of his run he has that right; but now he's just lost so much steam. Winning the 2009 King of the Ring Tournament is a way for him to matter again. And I do believe the WWE wants him to matter.

Matt Hardy could just use a big victory to elevate him to that main event stage. He seems to be on the way there, but King Matt could add even more validity to his claims that he's the Hardy that's meant to succeed in this business.

[The Optimist]

Swagger or Matt Hardy

Matt should dominate the shit out of it and beat MVP in the finals, just to show how much he's better he's gotten.

[Juan]

KOTR 1993 is playing right now in the TPWW Vault (http://www.justin.tv/tpwwvault)

[Xero]

You lie. All I see is a clumsy masked man.

[GD]

Matt Hardy FTW! He needs to break through mediocrity.

[Rammsteinmad]

To be honest, I don't really care about KOTR any more. I mean, we've got MITB for that "mid-carder elevated to main event" transition, plus the overall gimmick that comes with it (whilst the holder has yet to cash it in), but also, the fact that there are usually two or three tournaments every year for a title shot ("gold rush" etc), the KOTR tournament doesn't seem so special any to me.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I think they should put it back on PPV, at least. And give the winner a guaranteed title shot. Hold the King of the Ring in June, and have the winner get a title shot at Summerslam in August. Bing, done.