Seeing the silver lining in Christian/Orton

When Edge retired and it seemed Christian might have a legitimate shot at becoming the World Heavyweight Champion, fans were cautiously optimistic. When he actually nabbed the gold at Over the Limit, fans were absolutely ecstatic. When he lost the title two days later (which was aired three days after that) to Randy Orton, fans wanted to boycott.

I tend to take the "wait and see" approach, because I want to see how everything plays out before judging. But even I was pretty upset. I didn't understand why Christian couldn't just get the three week reign and lose it at the PPV. This seemed like a slap in the face. But once I actually saw the end of that particular episode of Smackdown, my outlook changed.

The fact of the matter is that this entire feud -- and, to a lesser extent, all of Smackdown -- has been entirely about Christian. When Christian lost the title, the emphasis wasn't on Orton being the new champion, it was on Christian's defeat. That Smackdown ended with a shocked Christian walking backstage in despair. And from that point forward, every single video promo they've put together was about Christian's journey to reclaiming the gold. Or about his heel turn and the lengths he'll go to in order to win the title back. Christian has unquestionably been the focus of the feud.

Nonetheless, you'll have people out there saying, "Great, but he's still not champion." Fair point. But remember when Chris Benoit won the World Heavyweight Championship, yet the show STILL focused on Triple H? People were furious. Well, you can't really have it both ways. Christian may not be champion, but he's the show's attraction, even if they're not doing it intentionally. Every week they're showing videos in order to get people to watch Smackdown, and each video is centered on Christian, not Orton.

You'll also have people saying that Christian is yet to win a match against Orton. This is true, and it's a sore spot for me too. But, again, consider the fact that while Christian has never won, he's also not being portrayed as out of Orton's league. In each of their encounters, Christian has been close to winning, but one swift RKO has changed that. As a comparison, consider that Austin has won, I believe, all but one singles match against The Rock. It doesn't mean they weren't in the same league.

For that matter, I don't recall Christian ever being pushed so strongly. He's always been jobber to the stars, right? Now he's beating big lugs like Mark Henry and Sheamus cleanly. Even this past Raw, he pinned Orton and outlasted the rest of his team (including recent Champion the Miz and flavor of the month R-Truth). That's not too shabby.

I'll admit it, this all still hinges on how it plays out. If this Christian/Orton feud ends with Orton yet again beating Christian clean, and then Christian being shto to the middle of the card, they will have dropped the ball. But let's see if that happens before writing off this feud.