Umaga Set for a Substandard Mid-Card Return?

During last weeks SmackDown!, vignettes aired for the return of Umaga, who has been out of the WWE since tearing his PCL at a live event in August. But after the past year that Umaga has had in the WWE, is there any chance that his return will bring any success?

After rejoining the WWE in 2006, Umaga managed to go a year without being pinned, and ultimately lost to John Cena at the New Year Revolution pay per view in 2007 in a WWE Championship match.

After being named Vince McMahon’s enforcer at Wrestlemania 23, he gained an Intercontinental title match against Jeff Hardy, which he won. After briefly losing and regaining his title to Santino Marella, he lost the title to Jeff Hardy on the Sept. 3 edition of RAW, and has seen little success since.

The commentators have always sung the praises of Umaga due to his physically impressive nature, but the results of his matches in the year prior to his injury seemed a big contradiction to this.

Discarding some wins he had against some of the weaker opponents he faced, he suffered loses to the likes of Jeff Hardy, Triple H, and Batista at Wrestlemania 24, and I was left wondering what kind of form the WWE would allow him to return in.

I have never been the biggest Umaga fan, but in theory, he should be quite a force on SmackDown!. But with the way that the SmackDown! roster is at the moment, and with the impending return of wrestlers like Mr. Kennedy and possibly Christian Cage, does he stand a chance of working his way anywhere above the mid-card.

The best scenario I can envisage at the moment for Umaga is a shot at Shelton Benjamin’s United States Championship, but in all honesty, I think he would be lucky to get that.

There is a lot of good talent in the WWE at the moment, and from a fan's perspective, this is not the worst thing that could happen. The mid-cards are saturated with wrestlers that could easily make the step up to world champion contendership, but from Umaga’s point of view, can he see himself getting anywhere near that kind of status?

Umaga is 35, so his career in the WWE is in no means in jeopardy in that respect, but will he find himself stuck in the rut of pointless rivalries and poor storylines until that factor becomes an issue.

No doubt we will see some kind of an impact on his return as almost all wrestlers do when they come back from injury, but after this, I personally question whether Umaga will find much success in the coming year.

What do you think about Umaga’s return? Will he do well or return to the same form we have seen him in the past year?