Now It’d be silly for me to question why Vince McMahon feels the way he does when it comes to certain “Superstars” he has under contract with World Wrestling Entertainment. The man is the greatest wrestling promoter to have ever lived. Period. But I’m a silly kind of guy, and Vince leaves himself open to a lot of second guessing, so here I go.
Christian (Cage) – all you hear about is how Vince has no use for him. I understand that Vince has a hard-on for large cartoon character looking titans which he wants to associate with his brand and that Christian is the anti-cartoon character. So right then and there Christian is behind the 8-Ball. This is unfortunate because I’ve always been a fan of Christian back in his Suicide Blonde days with Copeland two years before “the brood.”
How many wrestlers have the personality & charisma of a Christian Cage? Sure, there are some, but let’s be honest – Christian is a genuine showman when it comes to what he does in the ring wrestling and when he cuts a promo – he’s about as good as anyone. I have loved wrestling not for the ‘thrill of competition’ – it’s an exhibition, not for the ‘spectacle of seeing two men with million dollar physiques grapple, that’s cliche and rather boring. I am a fan of wrestling for the theater it provides. That means letting people with persoanlity shine, irregardless of how they look. Classically, there are two types of theater. In professional wrestling there are three. You have dramatic theater, comedic theater (which the WWE goes completely overboard with) and in the world of wrestling you have what goes on in the ring. The WWE tries desperately to be funny and 14 times out of 15 it fails – the shows are far too scripted and you try to force feed ‘funny’ with people who have no business even trying to be (what’s worse is you have the WWE comentators chuckling at what is supposed to be funny, like a bad laugh track to a bad sitcom). In Christian, you have one of the truly most entertaining personalities, as far as comedic theater goes, who has ever appeared on WWE television.
Is Christian ever going to headline a major pay-per-view? No, probably not. How many wrestlers were ever as good as, let us say: Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig? How many ppvs did he ever headline? The only one was Survivor Series ’92, and that was in a double main event, where you had Shawn Michaels meet Bret Hart in the other – and he was teaming up with a perpetual headliner (Savage) to take on another perpetual headliner (Flair). I am not calling for the WWE to put one of its many title straps on Christian. But for Christian to be what he is, and do it to the best of his ability, he doesn’t need a title. In fact, it’s probably better to never give him another title in the WWE – but yet he should get more mic time – because he sells the product. When Christian is on the mic, you watch. When Cody Rhodes or Vicky Guerrero or Kane or most of the current roster, the list goes on and on, has TV time allotted to them that’s not in the ring, I’m more apt to flip the switch depending upon what’s going on.
I think Vince is missing the boat big time on this. So I am going to have to go into my first If I were Vince modes and project what I’d do with Christian.
First and foremost, I need to make it clear that I’m a fan of stables, particularly when it comes to heels. And I don’t mean stables that are slapped together for the sake of having a stable (a la DOA and Los Boricuas), I refer to stables where there is past history, be it real or fictitious, so that the fabric of the illusion of the stable maintains integrity (a la The Four Horseman or The Hart Foundation). So the first thing I’d do is reunite Edge and Christian, these two were hilarious together. I don’t mean reunite them as a tag team again, but I mean just have them together. Bring back the Major Bros. (a highly under utilized team) and put them in the stable with Edge & Christian. If you do this you can do something I’ve been wanting to see the WWE do since the first time I saw her as GM, and that’s eliminate Vicky Guerrero. She has zero personality and is just over enough as a heel to make up for it. Let Christian be the mouthpiece for himself and the Ryder & Hawkins (Major Bros.), Edge can take care of himself in this regard. If you wanted, to make things interesting for a period of time, (not sure how this would work over the long run or if Reso & Copeland even get along with him) but bring back David Heath/Gangrel as a manager (the position of managers in professional wrestling is sorely missed). If you don’t like him on the mic, fine – again you have Edge & Christian to sell the stable and put it over – Heath could simply be someone who fascilitates heel victories.
With Edge & Christian spurring it on, this would have the potential to be one of the most memorable stables and makers of great theater ever. And I mean this quite literally, because as TV personalities Edge & Christian are artists.
The Edge & Christian posedown was classic. Bring this dynamic back to the wrestling fans and let Edge & Christian run with it, now that they are both a little more grizzled and have more experience on their resumes, for as long as they want. Bring back Christian and Edge as a stable – let Christian be the mouthpiece and have him wear all the fuzzy hats or nutty goggles he wants… it works!
Simply ask yourself this, would you rather watch Vicky on the mic, or Christian? Professional wrestling is a poor product these days, the independent shows are shoddy productions at best, TNA has a long long loooong way to go, and the WWE is just watered down and lacks personality for the most – If you do this you have an instant improvement. And oh, by the way, Christian isn’t just a mouthpiece – he can be one sure, but the man can put on shows in the ring as well. Does anyone remember the TLC matches? Did anyone notice his match on ECW against Jack Swagger two weeks ago? That was probably the best match ECW has ever aired (I personally think this WWE version of ECW is a bad idea and needs to go – originally I wanted it to go two hours, now I’d just like to see it go all together, it’s the worst nationally syndicated show on TV now).
If the WWE wants to bill itself as the number 1 show in the world then Christian should be a WWE fixture for this generation. When he’s done performing can’t you not see him as the color commentator on a RAW broadcast? The man has the makings of being another (and I say this with baited breath) Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan. He’d be better than anyone by a mile who has done a wrestling broadcast.
To keep reading reports of Vince’s disenchantment with Christian is continually disheartening. Maybe Vince is trying to motivate him, after all he did resign him – but even so, if that’s the case, motivate him for what? What more does Christian need to do? I don’t feel Christian needs to be motivated to make it to main event status, he doesn’t need to be a main eventer. Sadly, what I think Vince might be doing is bringing Christian back, as quiet as possible in order to squash TNA by A) luring one of their top draws and more importantly B) having Christian return quiet and with little fanfare in order to understate the insignificance of TNA in the eyes of the WWE offices.
Anyway, here is to hoping that the powers-that-be sitting up there in the Connecticut offices come to their senses and realize what a goldmine they have in Christian Cage.
