It’s gonna be another short one today. I know a lot of people hate Baron Corbin, but if you saw Corbin in any other organization, you would be in awe of his talents. This isn’t a case of the WWE pushing a bad wrestler, it’s the case that the WWE is properly pushing a guy of Corbin’s talent; it’s just that the WWE has such an abundance of riches when it comes to talent on their roster that Corbin doesn’t seem that impressive.
I’m not a huge Corbin fan, but his talent is undeniable. Is he going to set the world on fire with promos or in-ring work? Maybe not a fire, but he’ll at least get some kindling going, because he’s really freaking good. Everybody can think that he sucks, but objectively speaking, he’s quite good.
So he’s in a main event spot. Are there guys that I enjoy more that I would like to see in that spot? Definitely, but the guy pleases the audience of one in the WWE, and he’s so hateable that you never have to worry about him becoming a cool heel that gets cheered eventually, and that’s a tough feat to pull off in the smart mark age that we’re currently living in.
tl;dr: Baron Corbin, pretty cool, not totally for me, but the WWE is doing a fairly good job of maximizing his talents.
As a pro wrestling fan, it is a part of our identity to always know how to utilize wrestlers better than the WWE. If WWE would just give me, random WWE fan, a job a the company, ratings would immediately rise to the levels of the Monday Night Wars, despite how television ratings have changed as a whole over the last 20 years. But until that happens, WWE will continue ruining our favorite wrestlers, and that is why it is time to point out the error in their ways. Because of WWE's incompetence, I am literally going to pick a wrestler at random and point out how they could be better utilized, because WWE is ruining everyone in one way or another.
Today, we take a look at the GLORIOUS, Bobby Roode.
Bobby Roode truly came out of nowhere to burst onto the NXT scene and become the NXT Champion. He was never an indy darling and appears to have stopped wrestling on the independent scene after getting a couple matches in the WWE in 2004. Yep, between then and his NXT debut in 2016, he only wrestled a handful of matches in New Japan. But outside of that, it appears he was just chilling, definitely not doing anything of note in any organization.
Anyway, the important thing is Bobby Roode came in and talked about how awful and poor the fans were in order to generate heat. The man was made to be a heel as even his smile makes him look like an asshole. He got that cheap heat, but fans also LOVED his entrance theme, and the WWE heard this love of his entrance theme and thought, "Bobby Roode, what a classic babyface." This was a bad decision.
He quickly won the United States Title after being called up, but since he was WWE's version of cool, he really sucked ass and nobody cared, so his only discernible characteristic was saying glorious a lot. He lost the title, nothing important happened, he tagged with Chad Gable because they didn't have anything important for either guy, and then for some reason they just won the tag titles on Raw last week.
Winning titles would seem to indicate the WWE is doing something positive with a guy, but no, this title reign is stupid, because the team isn't very good, and they pinned the manager of the tag champions to win the belts, so it doesn't even make sense why they are champions.
So what should the WWE do moving forward? First off, find new tag champions. I'm fine with AOP winning them back, I'd love to see The Revival as champions, and hell, since they won them in an asinine way, they can lose them in an asinine way if Lucha House Rules are in effect. But no matter how it happens, Bobby Roode must attack Chad Gable after the match and finally turn heel.
Then, if you want to push Roode to any sort of title level, he needs friends. Roode has charisma, but his ring work is only solid, so that isn't enough to help him stand out. He's best as a cowardly heel, and a cowardly heel can't do it alone. The easiest pairing would be to have him help AOP win the titles by turning on Chad Gable, and building his heat by destroying Drake Maverick. Then he has two bruisers who can be the tag champs while having Roode as their mouthpiece, and they can help Roode in his matches to make him a more legitimate contender.
I think you can start him off by abusing Chad Gable with his newfound muscle. Then Gable gets help from his old friend, Jason Jordan, and they reunite American Alpha to take on AOP to get Bobby Roode out of that feud and onto his own thing. Then just let him be a heel, maybe get him an Intercontinental Title match on occasion and just see where things go. But at least let the guy be a heel.
[Editor's Note: I originally wrote this before Hulk Hogan went all KKK on the world, so consider this the non-racist title of Hogan's worst insult.]
When Hulk Hogan joined the nWo, it was one of the most memorable moments in professional history. The purest babyface in wrestling history had gone heel and no longer cared about his Hulkamaniacs. He had gone Hollywood.
History often looks at Hogan as a great heel, because he was so hated. He actually did do a good job of wrestling as a heel, but this may have been that he already did a lot of heelish things in wrestling matches, but it was allowed, because he was Hulk Hogan. But when it comes to talking, Hulk Hogan may have been the worst heel in history.
You see, Hogan didn't quite understand insults or how to think on his feet. The latter has been made abundantly clear as time has gone on, as his in-ring promos are often repetitive and never seem to actually get to any sort of point. There is no greater example of this than when Hogan was getting set to fight Ric Flair at Clash of the Champions, and to help build the match, he came up with the ultimate insult.
He announced that he was no longer going to call Ric Flair by his name. Instead, he decided to demean Flair, and would only refer to him as, and brace yourself for this because it's a doozy, Hogan was going to call Flair, "The Stupid Little Man."
The Stupid Little Man.
The...Stupid...Little...Man.
Yep, that was his master insult. He really never figured out how the heel persona, but it's Hulk Hogan, and that's all that matters. If the man wants us to cheer, we will cheer. If he wants us to boo, we will boo, because for better or for worse, we are all Hulkamaniacs, and you're a stupid little man if you disagree.
Everybody remembers Rick Rude, but I'm not sure people remember how great Rick Rude was. I'm honestly not sure if there was a better heel during his era, as it was impossible to cheer for Rick Rude. He was better than everybody else, and there was nothing more that he loved to do than shove that fact right down their throats. Still, he is not remembered for being as great as he was, and now that Macho Man is in, Rick Rude is definitely the most deserving person to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
The guy had it all. Rick Rude was amazing on the mic. In his debut match, he set the tone for what his schtick would be:
Sweathogs is an insult that is not used nearly enough. It elaborates enough on a simple pig comment by not only saying you look like a hog which takes care of fat and ugly, but you both look and smell disgusting with the sweat added in. Underrated in this clip is Vince McMahon commenting on Rude as he disrobes, "Well, pretty good abs, traps not too bad," and then the camera flashes to a fat kid, and McMahon gets completely flustered. It's all perfect.
And then, after his match, he kisses a woman so passionately that she faints from the experience. If I had a nickel for every time that happened to me...I would have like 25 cents, although I think the girls may have just pretended to pass out to prevent any funny business. Either way, I'm a helluva kisser. Underrated part of after the match is that Rick Rude would then stand over the woman and gyrate his hips. I really should have tried that maneuver to show the ladies that I'm a bonafide stud.
But it wasn't just on the mic that Rude was a stud, as he could flat out wrestle. He succeeded in WWE, WCW, and in Japan while excelling in every style. This man could not only have great matches with other great wrestlers; he managed to not only get a good match but good matches out of the Ultimate Warrior.
That alone should be enough to make him a Hall of Famer. And the guy was a heel through and through. Rude used to just flex his ass in the middle of the ring or gyrate his hips and get boos rained down on him. He was a total heel in that every bit of his offense made you think this was a bad guy. It was full of headlocks and sleepers and punches to the gut. That slow offense makes it impossible to cheer for a guy. But even when he would add some flash and hold suplexes, there was always that little bit of him showing off that made people hate him.
Oh yeah, and the man loved to show ass. There is nobody in history that got depantsed more than Rude.
And although he never became World Champion in the WWE, he did manage to do it in the WCW.
He not only beat Flair for the title, but he also managed to make out with one of Flair's many different women. As far as I know, he may be the only guy who can claim the latter. He had an incredible career where he not only managed to look great, but he always made his opponents look great as well. After finally becoming a World Champion, he actually never lost the title. Unfortunately, he injured his back in a freak accident in a match against Sting in Japan and was forced to retire. But Rick Rude was pure money both in and out of the ring.
That being said, had he just gone to the ring in his custom made tights, he still would probably be one of my 20 favorite wrestlers of all time. Here are the top five things that Rick Rude had airbrushed on the front of his tights: 5. His Face
It's an incredibly great way to peacock. I mean, if Mystery is armed with a top hat and a boa, you're going to blow him out of the water with custom made tights with your face on the front. A great pickup gambit would be asking a girl to kiss you on your airbrushed lips.
4. Championship Belt
Since you can't wear your title belt at all times, it is best to just airbrush it on there to let the ladies know that anytime you put on your pants, you're a champion. They'll learn later that when you take off your pants, you're even more of a champion.
3. Regis and Kathie Lee's Faces
Yep, just Rick Rude making a woman pass out from the passion of his kiss, and then showing off Kathie Lee's airbrushed face on his front side, while using his backside to make Regis animated when he flexed his ass. This is a very boss maneuver for whenever you are invited on to a talk show, and I think more people should follow Rick Rude's lead.
2. His Opponent's Face
I mean, how demeaning is that? Just your face is right on his dick. That has to be one of the most alpha maneuvers anyone can possibly pull off.
1. His Opponent's Wife's Face
This is the most alpha maneuver. His opponent had a woman? Yeah, Rick Rude's going to put that woman's face right over his dick. Imagine somebody doing that to you. If somebody put my wife's face on their pants, I'd have no choice but to fight them. Like, I couldn't just let them keep wearing those pants. But man, if I saw somebody doing that to somebody else's wife, I would applaud that dude for the gumption. Basically, I am just saying that this is one of the greatest heel maneuvers ever, and I really want a wrestler to bring it back.
After his wrestling days were over due to a back injury, he still had one of the most memorable moments of the Monday Night Wars when he showed up on both shows at the exact same time. Since Raw was pretaped every other week, Rude was there for the taping, but his contract ended and he showed up on a live episode of Monday Nitro.
Yeah, if this isn't 100% the reason that Rude isn't in the WWE Hall of Fame, then it is at least 99% of the reason. He not only screwed over WWE, but then he buried them on their competitor's show. A couple years after this, Rick Rude died at the age of 40 from heart failure. He was a wrestler in the 80s and 90s, so he undoubtedly lived a hard life, but one that still ended far too soon.
Basically, if I was going to be a pro wrestler, I would want to be Rick Rude. Great look, great mustache, and could live like a heel in every aspect of life. Rick Rude's one of the greatest wrestlers of all-time; he's criminally underrated, and WWE needs to put him in the Hall of Fame immediately. It's long overdue for an all-time great.
