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PWINSIDER Q & A: SHAWN'S INJURY, KENNEDY'S BOTCHED PLANS, IMPROVING ECW, ATLAS' TIME IN OVW, THE DWINDLING AUDIENCE AND MORE

I thought I heard that HBK would be out for much longer due to the fact that his knee was still giving him trouble? I know that the WWE is lacking star power lately, but do you think it's a good idea for HBK to be back? It seemed like when he attacked Orton in the ring he was favoring that knee... I know there is such thing as "ring rust" but he looked really stiff in his legs (which could be a knee brace probably). All in all, do you think it was the right move for him to comeback so soon when everyone thought he was going to be out until early 2008? 

Michaels has been around long enough to know his body by this point.  He did come back a little sooner than he probably would have wanted to in a perfect world but the company needed him.  Also, keep in mind that he was working with a sore knee for a while before he left to get it taken care of, so he knows how to work around the injury.  With a guy like Michaels, who knows when to shut it down and to not make a problem worse, I would trust his judgment.  If he says he is ready to go, I believe him.

Sorry, this has probably been asked thousands of times before but do you know the plans for the Kennedy/McMahon son story? I read a few weeks ago that they would go through with it when Kennedy was back but there's not been any more talk of this or any hints on TV that I've seen. 

The plan before Kennedy's suspension was for him to be Vince McMahon's storyline son, which would have led to a huge push for him.  I heard a lot of other offshoots of ideas that they had for the storyline but they were never totally confirmed.  What we do know for sure is that Kennedy was supposed to be Vince's son.  Once he got suspended, they made the decision to go with comedy and make Hornswoggle the new McMahon and it was all over for Kennedy.  There was speculation that when he returned from suspension Kennedy would get the son role but it never happened.

Talking about who you would move to ECW, I would move Val Venis. Perfect to add into the Miz / Balls feud. He might get more air time and a bigger push. The other person I would move is Chavo. Instant feud with CM Punk. “I’m going to do what my Uncle Eddie never did, and win the ECW championship.” Again I think it gives a lower midcard wrestler a bigger spotlight. 

Venis is hurt now but I like the idea of putting him there to work with the younger talents, kind of like Chris Benoit was slated to before his death.  I also like the idea of moving Chavo over.  There's a lot of underused, lower card guys who aren't getting any face time that could add some flavor to the scant ECW roster.

When WWF/E Hall Of Famer Tony Atlas and ECW World Heavyweight Champion got into an argument at OVW, It left me with a lot of questions that I hope you can answer. (1) How can WWF/E hire Atlas to evaluate talent if he has not watched WWF/E or ECW lately?? (2) Because of this argument, should the fans expect C.M. Punk to get more heat from management for standing up to Atlas or will Atlas be the one held accountable for this incident? (3) OVW has Al Snow (Former 6x WWF/E Hardcore,European and World Tag Team Champion) and Robert Gibson (One Half of one the greatest tag teams in wrestling history-The Rock and Roll Express-and 4xNWA World Tag Team Champion) training the OVW wrestlers. With their credentials, shouldn't Vince be trusting them and their judgment more rather than send Atlas down the OVW?? (4) If there is a lot of bad and/or low morale and WWF/E doesn't seem to have confidence in the people running OVW, do you see WWF/E shutting down OVW down the road? 

1. WWE thought they would throw Atlas some work and let the young wrestlers get some insight from a long time vet.  They never thought he would make an idiot out of himself by saying he doesn't even watch the product today and then acting like CM Punk was a nobody.  It was obvious at that point that Atlas was out of touch with the business.

2. Everyone I spoke to said that they respect Punk for listening to Atlas incorrectly ramble for as long as he did before finally responding, so I would say no to this one.

3. Just because someone has credentials doesn't mean they are perfect teachers.  WWE is smart to have their big people, like Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Johnny Ace, go down to OVW and monitor how things are being done and progressing.  They tried to do something positive with Atlas but it didn't work out that way.

4. WWE needs new workers so they need developmental territories.  OVW has been there top one for a while and I think before pulling out of there they would instead force owner Danny Davis to make changes, if they felt changes needed to be implemented. 

If it's not a problem with Nielsen, what do you think could be the reason for the 2.8 RAW rating the day after a PPV and crowning of a new champion? Could it be the loss of Cena or something else? My friend is convinced that fans are tired of seeing the same guys on top like Triple H or Randy Orton, and are getting turned off by the lack of new stars on top. 

Some people have made the case that the number drop was due to there being playoff baseball and a good Monday Night Football game against Raw that night but I don't buy that for the simple reason that both of those games were on cable and in the past WWE has gone up against the same events when they aired on broadcast TV, which has a larger audience.  I think that the loss of Cena was definitely part of the problem.  He has a large fan base and I think it's reasonable to believe that at least some of them took the night off from viewing when they knew that his successor would be crowned.  I also think that the "sameness" factor of WWE programming came into play as well.  That is why I was a proponent of WWE really blowing the lid off of the title picture by having Chris Jericho return and win the belt. I think something different would have caused a buzz.

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