A night three men's careers took off in different ways.

[Showtime]

The year was 2006 and at the June PPV, Vengence, there was a thriple threat match for the IC title between three of WWE's young stars, the champion Shelton Benjamin, the turned face and popular Carlito and the newcomer to Raw Johnny Nitro. Many felt Carltio had the momentum and would win the IC title, but the WWE instead took a chance a put it on Nitro. I don't really need to explain how the match effected Nitro/Morrison too much, his career took off, had successful feuds with the Hardy's, became ECW champion and is currently part of the best tag team in the WWE with the Miz. Shelton kind of stayed in neutral during this time. He reformed WGTT, but WWE had no plan to put the title on him. A move to ECW was seen as a last straw effort. Fortunatly he had a strong feud with Kofi and was moved to SD, soon after he won the US title and is in the WWE title scramble. Carlito career continued to rise even after the loss, teaming with Trish and Torrie and having a feud with Orton. However after his feud with Flair, he slowly began to fade in the background. Dispite formng a solid team with Santino, Carlito wasn't getting pushed. It's funny how all three were in MITB this year and essentially on the same level at that point, but after WM Carlito has been buried and hasn't been seen on SD since he was drafted there, while Morrison is in limbo but still looks to be getting a push soon like his final month on Raw, and Shelton is a middle card champ fighting for the WWE title.

So there you have it three careers, three different paths, began all on the same night. So the question, how do you think each man's career would be like if the outcome of the match was different. How would Sheltons be if he retained, Carlitos if he won or if Nitro/Morrison hadn't won?

Well with Shelton I don't know if much would be different. He hadn't been having a very successful title run in my opinion, winning the title off Flair thanks to Momma and winning it back from RVD in a 3 on 2 handicap WWE and IC title match on fluke. Perhaps he would've established himself better and maybe he wouldn't have had his career drop for a while, but I'm sure he's career may have been essentially the same, with the possibility of a mainevent fued or two. A feud with Jeff Hardy afterwards may have pushed him to mainevent quicker, but only if they played it more even. Still the big difference would be that his career wouldn't have tailed off like it did there for awhile.

I think a win would've done so much for Carlito, at the time he was over with the crowd and could've used it to bumb up and stay in the uppermiddle card mainevent. As time would roll on, Jeff Hardy came back to the WWE and pushed Carlito back a bit down on the face ladder. If Carlito was champ it could've been him feuding with Jeff and they may have used to make a successful heel turn over Hardy. Winning the title would've proven Carlito a winner and not someone who wins by surprise or cheating. I think he'd still be on TV today, maybe even in the mainevent picture, providing his supposed attitude didn't sour up like the rumors have said.

Nitro it would've majorly slowed his career down. His career began skyrocketing with that win and without it he wouldn't be where he is today, he might've even still be Johnny Nitro, a middlecarder with not much future like Carlito. His feud with Jeff Hardy helped make him a serious contender/champion. I think the Nitro is talented enough that he would've made it without this win, but the win set him up and gave him a chance and he proved myself worthy of it.

 

[FromTheSouth]

John Morrison will be WHC or WWE Champ some day. Shelton might be one of those. Creative told him to step it up, and as his match with Jeff Hardy proved, he is on his way. Carlito's best hopes are to be X division champ.

That is sad, as he is talented, but his mouth and his bad attitude are his downfall. The videos of him bad mouthing HHH and the reports of his whining and trying to get out of his contract weren't only not helpful, but suicide.

 

[Dead Kennedy]

Great article. Seriously, you need to making so many damn good posts. Jesus!

John Morrison is one of those future world champions. Even though he held the ECW Championship while it was still called the "ECW World Championship", that don't count. The booking of Nitro to win was the best overall decision in my opinion, but giving it to Shelton wouldn't have been bad either. Giving it to Carlito could have been possibly as good, to reasons I will explain further on down the post.

Shelton Benjamin has stepped up to a game previously unseen from him now. He may not be over with the crowd, but he can wrestle DAMN good matches with the best of them. However, I don't think him retaining the Intercontinental Championship on that night would have made much difference for his career. He wasn't very over at the time, and quite frankly, I didn't think the reign worked. His United States Championship reign though is truly becoming one of the best since its re-inception, up there with Benoit's long reign and MVP's reign. But if he retained the IC title at that show...I dunno. Don't think it'd have mattered much really.

Carlito would have benefitted from it enormously. He's proven himself to be a good competitor and a guy who can carry a title well, as shown with the Intercontinental Championship in earlier times and somewhat with the United States Championship. Carlito was really over back then I remember, and he had that passion that he lost somewhere along the way. Remember, earlier in the year he made it as the last person to be eliminated in the Elimination Chamber match at New Year's Revolution, and he was really on fire back then. I believe a win here could have restored that fire and brought him higher up as a midcarder and a main eventer. But who knows? Either way, it's probably too late for Carlito's WWE career to be saved now, but you know what they say - never say never. Almost any career can be resurrected with the right move, and with the right moves, WWE could restore Carlito's greatness and probably faith in himself. Unless that happens, he should be on his way out of WWE shortly. It'd be sad to see a talent go to waste. I guess he would do well in TNA's X-Division though.

Again, thank you for the enlightening and thought-provoking post. I'm looking forward to see other guys' responses as well.

 

[TheOneBigWill]

While I have some agreement in what you've said about this being the night their careers went in specific directions, I really think this night only helped John Morrison. And not in as big a way, as him becoming the E.C.W. Champion did. My opinion of Carlito and Shelton are as follows though.

Shelton Benjamin: Arguably his best push was when he came over to Raw off the draft in 2004, I think it was. Benjamin got two back-to-back victories over Triple H., and he single handedly took down most of Evolution by himself.

He became one of the longer reigning Intercontinental Champions of some odd 7 years and he made the Championship interesting at that time. (albeit I liked Orton as Champion too) His downfall was the lack of mic skills he had. You can be impressive to watch, but if you can't talk I doubt you'll get far.

Now as far as this match goes, I'd completely forgot it was after the whole "Mama" angle. That angle hurt Benjamin in my opinion, when the assumed thought was it was meant to help give him more character. Having Benjamin retain here would've done nothing for him, other than continue a reign that I believe a lot of people forgot.

Carlito: Much like Benjamin, Carlito was meant to have his biggest run during his debut. He defeated Cena and became United States Champion. He was injured almost instantly after that, and his career never found it's proper path since.

They gave him another huge break when he came to Raw, and won the Intercontinental Championship (I think from Benjamin) but much like when he was injured, his run as I.C. Champion wasn't impressive or memorable.

Those two things tied in with Carlito's mouth today, make it incredible hard to think he could ever be anything more than a random entry into the M.I.T.B. match every year for his abilities, but always the guy who never comes close to winning.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

It's too difficult to guess how careers will go regardless of the things that happen in the ring. Did i ever think Mark henry would become a 'World' champion? No, his last title was awarded to him in 1999 and that's the only belt he's had before this year. He was ECW champ for 2-3 months and was booked as a dominant champion, yet held it less time than Kane (i think) who was came off looking weak. Did i ever see Edge becoming World champ after losing the IC belt the night after he won it in '99? No. Did i see him becoming champ after breaking his neck in '03, or after he relinquished several titles due to injury? No. But hey, here he is, a 5 time champ in 2 years. Could i see Billy Gunn or Mable becoming champ after winning KOTR where every other winner before or after them has done (except Regal, yet, but with 2 strikes against him, who knows)? Well, i could with Gunn, but it didn't happen did it?

Onto the 3 guys in question. I don't think that particular triple threat was a catalyst for the way things went for them, no. It helped Nitro, didn't affect the other two at all, how they progressed (or didn't progress) is what shaped their futures.

Morrison has been ECW champ and then thrown right back into the mid card shuffle. The fact that he wasn't in the ECW scramble proves that. He hasn't even had a shot since Punk fueded with Chavo (another guy i never saw wearing the 'World' belt). He's just been lumbered with this tag team role that he worked so hard to get away from. He debuted, had a great tag run with Mercury, they split, he got pushed as a singles guy, got pushed even further on ECW, then they used him and Miz as a means to further the MVP/Hardy fued, and now he's right back where he started.

Shelton Benjamin is a guy who has had some awesome matches with top tier talent. he and Jeff have had great matches, he and Shawn Michaels have had a great match, and he's even gone over HHH more than once, even if it wasn't decisively. What is he a 3 time tag champ, 3 time IC champ and current US champ? Why in the 5 years that he's been there has he not surpassed that mid card level yet with his abilities? Well, i think the consensus is, is that he's boring to listen to, face or heel, but then when does he ever get the mic? Until now, he's not had a gimmick of his own to run with, and now that he has one, he still rarely gets to talk. It's becoming more frequent, but much like Jeff Hardy, that is the one thing that's keeping him back from ME tier imo. It's been suggested that Shelton's Mama was used to get people to care more about the character. Well WWE certainly didn't learn their lesson because Sharmell did nothing for Booker T some 2 or 3 years later did she? In fact she was the worst part of the King Booker angle. JUST SAY THE LINE ONCE, DON'T SAY IT REPEATEDLY AS YOU COME DOWN THE ASILE FFS!.......... sorry.

John Morrison and Shelton Benjamin both have the skills in the ring to have excellent ME event matches with anyone, but they're rarely given the chance for the fans to be swayed into loving or hating them, and creative think, 'hmmm, why does no one care about these guys?' I know it's up to the talent to put themselves over, but surely they need to be given promo time to do it in. Kennedy got over in a snap, despite his ring work getting worse and all his injuries. The Brian Kendrick has gone from the tag team/jobber guy to impressing anyone who watched the WWE scramble in the ring, and his promos are great too. You forget that he looks 12 years old, prancing around in that stupid jacket of his. Why don't Morrison and Shelton get the same chances. Morrison has the Dirt Sheet on WWE.com but i personally don't watch that crap. I don't care, i want promos on TV not on the website, and i don't want them at all if they're just fuck around promos with nothing to do with the wrestling, but that's me.

Then there's Carlito. Well, he must be the only 2nd generation guy in the company who isn't being pushed to the moon right now. I've always liked him, he's good in the ring, he's pretty good on the mic, and as people said he got the level where they thought he could be in there with the ME guys in the EC match in '06. Then he paired with Masters, who for some reason also got in that match (there must have been a LOT of injured guys that year), and that killed him. Masters was terrible to watch in WWE, and it dragged Carlito down imo. Then a year later, after doing not much, maybe challenging for the IC belt now and again, he's tagging with Flair and then they fued and no one cared, then he was fueding with Sandman in 4 minute matches and no one cared, and then he's fueding with HHH and then he gets squashed for the rest of '07. Instead of realising that eventually you'll be rewarded for all the crap you take like Santino, Mark Henry and Chavo all have, Carlito decided to run his mouth on several occassions because he thinks because his dad is Carlos Colon, he should be treated like wrestling royalty. Now that his brother is in the company, maybe he'll get pushed further, they have already gotten a win over the tag champs, but who knows. As long as he whines, he isn't going anywhere.

Will Morrison become World champ on one of the flagship shows? Will Shelton ever transcend above the mid card titles? Will Carlito ever wear gold again? We can only guess based on a) their ring and mic skills over the next couple of years, b) the angles their put in and how they run with them, and c)the reports we hear about the feedback/heat they get backstage. We're not going to be able to tell based on the outcomes of individual matches.