If Reigns is seen as a legit long-term champ, a true top guy, then Brock Lesnar has to destroy John Cena. Maybe not short and sweet, but long and violent. Lesnar has to be a convincing winner. If Lesnar wins an even match – or worse yet, by fluke – WWE is hedging its bet on Reigns with an eye toward putting Cena back on top. But then Reigns beating Lesnar at ‘Mania won’t mean as much.
If WWE wants to really build guys, they’ve got to get over this informal policy of trading wins. Nobody cares about .500.
That said, WWE has built the Cena-Lesnar match very well. Thanks mostly to Paul Heyman, but Lesnar helped with a few well-placed words. When Lesnar called Hulk Hogan “grandpa” Monday night, I fell in love all over again.
Brie-Steph has heat. But not money heat. “The family” hasn’t had money heat since Vince-Austin. Nobody cares about girls fighting, unless one is Ronda Rousey. I’m not even sure she has money heat. I would say WWE has wasted far too much time on Brie-Steph, but what else could the time have been spent on?
Oh, wait, I know…how much does the WWE Network cost again? Desperation is a stinky cologne. WWE’s flagship program feels like an infomercial.
Reigns-Orton will further the former’s cause. Ambrose-Rollins (a/k/a Buddy Jack vs. P.S.) should be good, but I think those two are halfway home to being lost in the shuffle. Jericho-Wyatt could well steal the show.
But for SummerSlam to be a success, Cena-Lesnar has to do what it’s supposed to. Let’s see if WWE is willing to do that.
VIVA LA RAZA
I’m not sure WWE is doing a disservice to Latino talent.
But I’m not sure WWE isn’t, either.
Here’s what I hear about the dismissal of Alberto Del Rio. A dot-com employee made a disparaging remark about ADR. It got back to ADR. When ADR confronted said employee, said employee refused to apologize. In fact, he smirked. So ADR slapped him.
If that’s true, Alberto Del Rio deserved to be fired. He wanted out, anyway. It was time for him to work again in Mexico. You can’t slap somebody, especially a civilian.
But said civilian should be fired, too. He has not been.
But what about Ricardo Rodriguez? He was brought into WWE to be the fat frumpy underdog. He got over. Rodriguez did his job well. Then he got told to lose weight, and was verbally abused when he didn’t. Then Rodriguez got fired. They moved the goalposts on Rodriguez. They wanted to get rid of him.
What about Mistico, a/k/a the original Sin Cara? He drew big cash in Mexico. Then WWE tried to change him around. To teach him “WWE style,” which is WWE’s way of pretending it knows better. Mistico’s way of working is the biggest part of what made him a star. Why would you change him? Tell lesser lights to work Mistico’s style, at least initially. Mistico’s failure was WWE’s fault.
What about Rey Mysterio? WWE has always treated him like a piece of meat, always rushing him back early from injury.
Maybe WWE treats its Latino talent poorly.
Or maybe WWE treats everyone poorly.
Or maybe WWE just operates in haphazard fashion.
Kevin Steen is a big test case. He’s a talent. He has an earnest charisma that grows on you. But he’s not their kind of wrestler. He doesn’t have the preferred look. But Steen could be a bad-ass maniacal brawler if they used him like Mick Foley. I bet they don’t. I bet Steen doesn’t last a year.
Follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkMaddenX
