wrestling / Columns
411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: Has Tommaso Ciampa Been The Best Heel in 2018?
Welcome back to 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week are 411’s Len Archibald & Ken Hill.
1. You are disappointed that Brock Lesnar re-signed with WWE.
Len Archibald: FICTION – I am not disappointed that The Beast re-signed. I am disappointed that WWE caved in to his demands including giving him a platform to continue to be WWE Universal champion. There was a time when I advocated Brock being a long-term champion because it was something different and was akin to Hulk Hogan being a special attraction himself in the 1980s. I have realized that my opinion was skewed by nostalgia and not realizing that because of WWE’s saturation with wrestling content, that it is not conducive to feature a champion who rarely is there. When Hogan was champ for 3 years in his first major run, even if he wasn’t around up until the main PPVs, he still had a presence. He would appear on Superstars. There would be pre-taped backstage interviews or vignettes with him training. When Bruno was champ for eight years, he was ALWAYS at MSG. His presence hovered around New York like a wrestling-colored sky. When Punk had his 434-day reign, even when he was not able to compete, he was always around as a presence. Brock is at the point where he should ONLY be a special attraction. He is obviously above any title and if he is being handled Vince McMahon’s balls on a silver platter, WWE should at least recognize that they can’t cannibalize the rest of their talent by having all their main programs bottleneck through him. I am fine with him being with WWE – they need all the names they can get, it is just his placement in the company that I wish they would re-examine. It is time to open up the field and branch out.
Ken Hill: FACT – Ahhh, Len, we meet again. I’m going to need a handicap if I’m running up against you haha. Seriously though, from a pure fan perspective, I’ve been tired for far too long of Brock Lesnar being at the absolute top of the WWE pyramid. I can certainly respect the business savvy of Lesnar for making millions bouncing around and screeching like a pterodactyl, but his marketability and appeal as a special attraction worsens the more he hangs around. The only real conjecture at this point concerning Lesnar is whether he’s hanging around for one more match to give Reigns the red strap, or signing a new deal for 2018 and holding the Universal Title for another half year, putting him well past CM Punk’ s modern-day record of 434 days as champion (Lesnar has roughly 2 months to go before he surpasses Punk’s record, a drop in the bucket for “The Beast”, so it’s entirely possible for Vince and WWE to go that route).
2. With the NXT roster expanding and a new title being introduced, WWE should expand the weekly show to 90-minutes.
Len Archibald: FICTION – Nooooooooooooo. Nope. This is WWE’s fatal flaw: they find something that works and assumes that what their fans want is more of it. What fans normally like is innovation, evolution and new ideas WITHIN the product or character they like. Pepsi went with Crystal Pepsi – and as much as the product tasted like camel-piss, it was an over saturation of the product people liked. Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Cherry Pepsi is all that people care about. NXT is a perfect self-contained one-hour bubble that should use its limited time to showcase their talent. This is a scenario where the world champ does not need to be on every show, because there is only so much time. Rotating the roster between shows lengthens and colors feuds, provides more insight to characters and allows the talent time to show up their in-ring skills. Changing this changes the entire dynamic of the show and to many fans, will feel like more of the same where NXT begins a shift towards becoming Raw and Smackdown lite. That is not an albatross that NXT deserves.
Ken Hill: FACT – A bigger roster and a new championship means more storylines involving those new commodities, so it’d make perfect sense to add an extra half-hour to account for them. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprise if WWE used an extra half-hour as beta testing for a full second hour of NXT programming. You can never have too much of a bad thing, right?
3. With Bobby Fish injured, WWE made the right call in turning Roderick Strong heel and having him join the Undisputed Era.
Len Archibald: FACT – I am so very upset with Bobby Fish’s injury and was concerned that this would derail the Undisputed Era’s momentum. Thank Spaghetti Monster this is NXT, though and the producers actually know what they are doing there. Strong’s turn was unlikely, but in context makes perfect sense as he was someone who squandered opportunities to become champion “the right way” and finally woke up to the fact that perhaps he needs to get his hands dirty to hold on to some gold. This bolsters the faction and provides a credible name on the caliber of Fish, makes the Undisputed Era even more dangerous and even opens a long-term story where Strong and Adam Cole (BAY-BAY) butt heads. Not only this, but now we get to see a British Strong Style vs. Undisputed Era trios feud and holy shit are my teeth sweating thinking how awesome this could be.
Ken Hill: FACT – The build towards Strong’s turn made sense, with his close-but-no-cigar efforts in UK and 205 Live competition and the Era approaching him in their fledgling months. What irked me was part of his explanation for the turn was that he turned on Dunne for the sake of wanting to be tag champion, when he and Dunne had literally been a three count from accomplishing just that. It would make a little more sense if Strong said he was trying to get a leg up on Dunne before The Bruiserweight turned on him, as it is in Dunne’s nature to do so and would’ve made Roderick a touch more justified in his reasoning for doing as such. Other than that, Roderick is a sound substitute for Fish.
SWITCH!
4. Tommaso Ciampa has been the best heel in all of wrestling in 2018.
Ken Hill: FACT – Turning heel purely out of selfishness, paranoia and fear of being replaced, costing his once closest friend both the NXT title and his livelihood, soaking in all the vitriol and “F*ck You, Ciampa” chants as part of his entrance, and deliberately using a call back to the emotional end of their Cruiserweight Classic match to try and get in one final cheap shot… Miz may have the “cowardly” heel shtick all sewn up, but Ciampa has truly been one of wrestling’s most deplorable, detestable individuals of this generation.
Len Archibald: FACT – When Tommaso Ciampa walked down the ramp at Takeover: New Orleans, what did we hear? Boos. Absolute distain and hatred from a crowd that had the right to hate him. Now, I will admit that those boos were probably out of respect for the work he has put in, but even then, Ciampa has been a master of manipulation so much that he commands such respect. Every action, every tweet, every snarl, has been from a place of unbridled, very real disgust for Johnny Gargano that one could feel that Ciampa made a deal with the dark arts just so he could heal and destroy Gargano’s life. Ciampa made Candice LaRae fear for her husband’s life. Ciampa made people actually fantasy book outcomes where Johnny Wrestling could end up after he loses – when everything in the story pointed that Gargano should win. Ciampa is not a cool heel. He does not portray evil in such an over the top manner that people applaud his comedic timing. He is cold, colder than anyone that has stepped in the ropes so far in 2018. He is one spit in the face of a child away from causing a riot. It is what a true heel should be and when he retires, anyone who is able to take his wisdom on how to be an absolute wretched bastard will hit the jackpot.
5. Following the latest failure at WrestleMania, WWE SHOULD move on from Roman Reigns and the attempts to make him a beloved top guy.
Ken Hill: FACT – Ah, “SHOULD”, my other old friend. I recently came across an interesting read concerning WWE’s overarching failure with Reigns in the past 5 years. During that time period, when the moment in which Roman would take WWE’s crown jewel would present itself, Vince would stare out into the abyss of the WWE Universe, blink, and call an audible to delay Roman’s inevitable rise (twice involving Rollins). Point is, Roman’s already a top guy, if not the top guy, in WWE. There’s no getting around that. However, the big issue isn’t with Roman in the sense of his ability as a performer or even as a character, but when WWE tries to force feed him to us as any sort of underdog-type individual like a Daniel Bryan or an AJ Styles coming over from Japan and having to fight from the ground up to prove himself to WWE mainstays like Jericho and Reigns. It would be easier to say “Just turn Roman heel” and all should be right with the world, but the more pressing issue is that as WWE’s main proxy, Roman and his constant failures and fluctuations on the big stage reflect WWE’s inability for the past four Mania PPVs to simply lay out all their cards on the table where Roman is concerned and take a chance. By this point, i.e. The Greatest Royal Rumble, Reigns finally overcoming Lesnar would serve as little more than a hollow victory and wouldn’t fix Vince’s last five years of reluctance and procrastination. Will that stop Vince from finally pulling the trigger? Probably not. To me, though, they had their best chance at WM 31 to build a narrative around Reigns as THE top guy, and when it came time to do so, Vince blinked.
Len Archibald: FACT – Yeah, I think it is time. Now don’t get me wrong. I think Roman Reigns is an excellent professional wrestler and did have what it took to be the face of WWE. I wrote a column about this a while back, but I have NEVER, in all my years of watching professional wrestling, see a company who has outright placed a supposed #1 babyface in such a situation to fail than Roman Reigns. He is portrayed as this tough guy who doesn’t care about what anyone thinks, but is placed in scenarios where it is very obvious he is rocked by how the fans treat him. He was given scripted material that ran contrary to his original take-no-shit personal when he was in The Shield. WWE made it extremely transparent that they were going to push him to the top of the mountain no matter what and did not have the insight that what they had in John Cena in terms of unique crowd reaction, could not be duplicated with Reigns. The most glaring thing, though – is actually kayfabe. FACES DO NOT LOSE. I know this is something that drives people crazy, but what some forget is that for the most part, WWE is not a heel-centric promotion. They built their reputation and fortune on the backs of the white-meat babyface. The wrestler who persevered against all odds. Bruno, Hogan, Savage, Warrior, Hart, Michaels, Austin, Rock, Cena – when they were seen as THE GUY, they were placed in situations where they didn’t lose and they were viewed as tough and could win when it mattered. The Rock lost more at WrestleMania than won, but it was pretty much guaranteed that he would bounce back. Reigns….he loses. A LOT. He is made to look foolish in the ring. A LOT. He is placed in situations where his opponent looks better than him. A LOT. One can only take so much before the fans themselves begin to notice his limitations and win-loss record. I know the whole thing is wins and losses don’t matter. But to kids who view wrestling and real-life superhero combat fighting, Reigns looks like a loser. If I am playing a video game, I would rather pick Cena over Reigns because Cena is a winner. No one picks a loser. It is time to go with a winner. AJ Styles or Braun Strowman needs to be crowned as The Guy.
6. How excited are you for the latest WWE Superstar shakeup?
Ken Hill: 8 out of 10 – With Roman’s seemingly impending crowning as Universal Champion, having the Usos and their new attitude returning to Raw to possibly reignite the Bloodline faction would be an intriguing prospect. Another, which Coach awkwardly referenced this past week, is the potential for a Miz-Daniel Bryan rivalry, which has been slowly built up over the last couple years and has had such a great deep-seated and personal narrative created between the two, which I really like and am looking forward to even moreso now that Bryan has come off the bench. Beware the Beard, Miz.
Len Archibald: 8 out of 10 – I was not very excited until the end of post-WrestleMania week where we saw a plethora (do we still use that word? I remember Lex Luger used it pimping the WBF) of new and returning talent. The debuts of Ember Moon, The Iconic Duo, The Authors of Pain and No Way Jose along with the returns of Samoa Joe and Lashley have made the Shakeup a lot more intriguing. Some things are obvious (Reigns, Brock and Lashley are not leaving Raw anytime soon), but it feels like anything else is possible. Will Daniel Bryan stay on Smackdown? He is too over not to be on Raw, but putting him on Raw will absolutely crush any plans for anyone else to even sniff the Universal Title. Should Charlotte come back to Raw? Where does John Cena fall in all this? The shakeup has set a precedent of calling up NXT talent that was unexpected. Who may get the green light in that respect? Will Sanity and Almas get the call up we expected at that point? The influx of fresh talent has made this the most intrigued I have been in a roster switch since the 2005 draft where John Cena was officially coroneted as THE GUY when he became the #1 draft pick. I am expecting some tag teams to split (boo) some old alliances to be formed (yay!) and hopefully even an invigorated mid-card. There are two things that matter to me: 1) If Daniel Bryan is staying on Smackdown, The Miz MUST head back to the Blue Brand to cap off an eight-year feud and 2) I am so happy this falls on Rusev Day. I get to kick my feet back and watch a Rusev Day marathon before the shakeup begins.
