The creative teams in WWE & TNA have often come under fire for irresponsible decision making when it comes to booking television. That has never been more apparent than over the course of this week.

Start with Raw on Monday.

Brian Kendrick wanted to qualify for Sunday's Royal Rumble match. Logic dictated that he'd be wrestling someone with the same goal, say for example Charlie Haas, whom Kendrick faced on Heat last week. However, Kendrick was greeted via TitanTron by GM William Regal, who sent out Umaga as Kendrick's opponent. The 2-time IC champion had already advanced to the Rumble by beating the first Rumble winner, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, so why put him with Kendrick? You could say it's because Umaga needed a TV match before the PPV and could be getting a renewed push. That's just a cop-out, a lame excuse. It was a message pitch, because Triple H, who had the next match, was in a similar sitch, except that HHH had to face 3 men, 2 of whom, Mark Henry and Gene Snitsky, had already been entered in the Rumble.

With 6 spots open for the Rumble as of press time, perhaps Vince McMahon might do something to correct this booking mistake. Eh, that's asking too much, isn't it?

Now, we move on to ECW on Tuesday. CM Punk is screwed out of the ECW title by Edge, with Chavo Guerrero becoming the new champion. Collusion between Chavo's Aunt Vicki and ECW GM Armando Estrada, along, of course, with Edge, produced a last-minute change worthy of McMahon, making the match no-DQ. It was already known beforehand that Edge would be in Chavo's corner, but instead sat at the announce table, and for the 2nd straight week, struck the final blow on Chavo's behalf. The booking mistake here was that there was no one in Punk's corner, like, say, Rey Mysterio, Edge's opponent at the Royal Rumble, to offset the selfish World champion. All this does is set up Punk to challenge Edge for the title no sooner than No Way Out, and the two meet tomorrow night on Smackdown. If you've read the spoilers, you know how that turns out. However, the creative team has little more than a week to correct this mistake big time. Chavo Guerrero has "transitional champion" written all over him, but in this writer's opinion, even though Chavo's very deserving of being a heavyweight champion, now isn't the time.

This is how the mistake is corrected, and there are two options:

1. Punk gives Edge a receipt, and costs the Rated R Scammer the World title at the Rumble, enabling Rey to become champion.

2. Chavo faces Punk for the ECW title, main eventing for the 5th straight week, but this time, Rey intervenes on behalf of his new friend Punk, and the straight edge superstar regains the title.

Putting the ECW belt on Chavo was wrong, bottom line.

That brings us to Impact tonight.

Jay Lethal had the X title belt stolen by Johnny Devine and Team 3D a few weeks back as part of Team 3D's campaign to destroy the X division. Lethal defended the title vs. Devine in a street fight, and lost thanks to Team 3D's interference. A couple of weeks back, Team 3D cut a promo promising to return the X title if they lost a 6-man hardcore street fight at Against All Odds on 2/10. Seems as though Vince Russo forgot all about that, and the title change here defeats that purpose. On the upside, it all but ensures that Lethal and the Motor City Machineguns will beat Devine & Team 3D at the PPV to save the X Division. However, this was another title change that shouldn't have happened.

Finally, there is the small matter of a Smackdown title that hasn't been defended in a while. Montel Vontavious Porter, aka MVP, which also stands for Most Vacuous Poser, has held the US title since May, when he beat the late Chris Benoit at Judgment Day. However, the title has not been defended all that much lately, with the last title defense being vs. Rey Mysterio last month at Armageddon. MVP chickened out and lost via count out. Did the same thing vs. Kane at Cyber Sunday. Why? Uncreative is stalling until Matt Hardy can come off the disabled list. That is the wrong approach, and where Vince Mcmahon is making his biggest mistake. The right call to make here would be to strip MVP of the title for failure to defend, since it's now more than 30 days since his last title defense. Since they don't count house shows in television continuity, a case can be made. How do we set this up? Real simple.

Since the Royal Rumble is at Madison Square Garden, it stands to reason that members of the WWE Board of Directors will be in attendance. Several storylines can come out of this, and this is one of them. Have Teddy Long, the rightful GM of Smackdown, meet with the Board without the knowledge of his duplicitous former assistant, Vicki Guerrero. "Five days later", on Smackdown, Long, with the aid of Stephanie McMahon, for example, has MVP stripped for failure to defend. Dumping the widow Guerrero as GM would also come out of the meeting, as previously documented. A tournament would start the following week to determine a new US champion, with Hardy coming off the DL, leading to the final round having Porter & Hardy finally meet at No Way Out.

The solutions are so simple, yet the tunnel vision that has ensnared WWE & TNA creative and management complicates the situation. This is what happens, then, when you let a past-his-prime scribbler back into TNA, and when you hire people from other television shows to write for WWE without formal training. Lessons can be learned, people, even from within.