The Grand Stage 1.01.11: The Best Characters of 2010

2010 was quite a year for pro wrestling. We kicked things off with Hogan’s foray to Orlando and the Monday Night Massacre, the WWE had a youth movement, and ROH had its first year of iPPVs. But what did this mean for the characters in American wrestling/sports entertainment? That’s what we’re going to take a look at on this week’s The Grand Stage!

Here we are with what I believe is the second edition of “To Answer Your Question…”. This should be a regular feature of the column from here on in.

Guest#4889 inquires:

Great idea for a column Mr. Justice, but shouldn’t the title be “The Verdict on the build of TLC”? It doesn’t make sense to pass a verdict to condemn the PPV, since it has yet to happen. Just a thought. Best of luck.

“The Verdict on the Build to TLC” wasn’t as catchy a title. Also, the Verdict thing is a play on Justice, just in case people didn’t catch that.

Lonestar022 gives his 02 cents:

This was a Negative Nancy column. I know the PPV is not perfect, but wwe does managed to get a few things right every show (unlike TNA). Come up with some positives. If nothing but negativity comes from your columns, then don’t waste the time to write them.

In going over the comments again for this column, the only things that people gave as a positive were that TLC is a good gimmick and that the match-ups themselves could be good. I can agree with both of those. I thought TLC was a fine PPV, though perhaps I would have liked it more if I had not still been reeling from the awesomeness of Final Battle the night before. However, I didn’t write a column discussing whether the matches themselves had the potential to be entertaining, my column was about the storylines leading up to them, none of which I saw much good in. I am not a third grade teacher. I don’t view it as my responsibility to hunt down the positives in a given situation. Nobody really disagreed with me except to say that they disliked my negativity, so all I can conclude is that I was completely right to be negative about the builds to those matches. I write about the PPVs because they are topical, not necessarily because I was a huge fan of everything that went into them.

If enough of a build was good enough for me to remember it, I will mention it. I don’t go out of my way to bash anything. If you actually disagree with my points, please back it up in your comment. You and I may have differing opinions and I’m always interested to see the other side of the coin. However, if you’re just going to call me out for being negative, I can’t do anything for you. I respond positively to a product that warrants it and negatively to one that doesn’t. Without trying to slight James Cooke, this isn’t Positively Raw and the point of this column is not to be positive.

I believe that professional wrestling is at its best when it emulates a sporting atmosphere. Regular readers of this irregular column have already gotten this drift from me. However, I think larger-than-life characters make everything interesting, even real sports. What makes a guy like Mike Tyson or Tito Ortiz memorable: prowess when it comes down to the wire or their bombastic media portrayals? The answer should be obvious: it’s both. In fact, I would say that without the reputation for knocking out his opponents, Mike Tyson isn’t Mike Tyson. After all, there are likely thousands of people giving rambling, super aggressive screeds to anybody who will listen and they’re not famous.

Wrestling has competitive, non-scripted sports beat in both of these arenas. It has the benefit of being able to make nearly anybody look like a million bucks in the ring, which is important. But what pro wrestling is most remembered for, especially in the mainstream, are those characters. Whereas in boxing, a guy like Iron Mike or Pretty Boy Floyd is one in ten at best, in wrestling pretty much everybody is expected to develop their own unique persona that will draw interest to themselves. So with all that said, this week on the Grand Stage I’ll pick out my three favorite characters from the three promotions I’ve followed with any frequency this year: World Wrestling Entertainment, Total Nonstop Action, and Ring of Honor!

World Wrestling Entertainment’s strong point has always been giving its wrestlers unique characters. Very rarely do we get someone who is “just a guy” in WWE, which is a big plus. After all, sports entertainment definitely needs entertaineing personalities, so let’s look at three of the characters that entertained me the most this year.

Alberto Del Riiiiioooooooooo
(but you already knew that)

Some people have derided the Big Deal Fairly Quickly as being nothing more than a Mexican version of John Bradshaw Layfield. Del Rio is rich and he drives a car into the ring, but what draws me to Del Rio is his natural heel cool. When he’s talking on his own and riling up the crowd, he seems like nothing in the world could ever bother him. When he’s inevitably bothered, he’s completely sinister and self-serving. He feels completely justified in taking whatever steps necessary to preserve himself and punish those who try to step up onto his level. A lot of WWE’s hot-shotted main eventers have lacked that surefire franchise player confidence, but Del Rio has that in spades. He seems like the kind of guy who was the top of the pops in some foreign promotion. He’s already beaten a wealth of people, he’s reached the pinnacle, and he doesn’t feel any need to pretend like he’s starting on the level of the Chavo Guerreros or the Chris Masterseseseses of the WWE Universe. Rey Rey was the perfect foil to Del Rio and not only because of their shared Mexican heritage. It doesn’t matter who Rey is against, he always seems like the underdog, and that just made Del Rio seem like a bigger, badder villain for mercilessly beating up on him. You get the feeling that Rey can’t even defend himself when Del Rio has the upper hand, that Del Rio is just kicking a dog when he’s down for shits and giggles, and in Del Rio’s case, you’d be absolutely correct.

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Woi Barruh
(Wade Barrett)

If you’re not a fan of John Cena, there’s always Nexus for the rest of us. And the leader of the Nexus is (or perhaps was) Wade Barrett, a smug but tough Englishman equipped with vague goals and a very real and present danger at his beck and call. Yes, Nexus’s power has waxed and waned and waned and waned, but with Barrett at the epicenter there was always something to draw interest back. Both Barrett and Del Rio were new faces in the WWE this year, which definitely added to my interest in their characters, but Barrett started with a severe handicap: NXT. I’m not knocking the program’s concept, but what I am saying is that Barrett was stamped with Rookie very early on. The Nexus concept helped him break free of that, but once broken free, he needed to show that he deserved to be more than a rookie. Out of NXT season one, only he and Daniel Bryan truly showed that they deserved to be taken seriously as roster members. That’s why Bryan is the US champion, Barrett was the leader of Nexus, and everybody else in NXT season one is either still in Nexus or was kicked out. Barrett brought his sly, conniving charisma as well as in-ring crediblity to the group, making him an effective final boss: not only did he make you want to beat him but that fight was going to be a tough one. If you want to know why Nexus worked and why it survived after being consistently defeated by John Cena, look no further than Barrett. I already touched upon Wade Barrett several weeks ago when I did my column on the Nexus storyline up to that point, but the point bears repeating. The Nexus has been the premier force of evil on Monday Night Raw in 2010 and that all rested upon the shoulders of Wade Barrett, doing his best to find a way to make the Nexus seem threatening despite the unkillable white blood cell of the Cenation’s body politic.

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The Miz

What a fucking chickenshit little scoundrel. And that’s a great thing. The Miz is the first guy in a long while who could have a Honky Tonk Man-esque title run, constantly dodging all competition, barely escaping with the title belt, and making everybody look dangerous in the process. The Miz is a natural on the microphone, irritating as all hell, and he gets under your skin in a way that is difficult to do, especially nowadays. One thing the Miz doesn’t have is a tough guy kick-your-ass credibility between the ropes, but that’s not to say he isn’t good. That’s just not what he does. He’s definitely been developing in the ring and he has a bevy of interesting moves, though I do think he’s hurt by having to work the WWE main event style instead of being allowed to continually play the little pissant and basically get his ass kicked. The Miz makes me want to see him get beaten and badly, which is something that neither Wade Barrett nor Alberto Del Rio have going for them, even though they’re both villains as well. Like both Del Rio and Barrett, the Miz has a hanger on in the form of his apprentice Alex Riley, and this pairing has made the Miz seem like an even bigger asshole because now he even has an admirer. One thing the Miz also had going for him this year was that he never lacked some sort of accolade. He held the United States title and the Undisputed Tag Team title for a good spell (giving him the ultra-impressive three belt look), and held the Money in the Bank briefcase all the way up until he cashed it in. Not only was the Miz consistently a burr in the Universe’s collective britches, he was able to lord it over others because he had proof to back up his claim of being Awesome. The Miz was red hot in 2010 and he has the potential to rise to even greater heights in the new year.

Honorable Mentions:
– Kane: Would have been a lock if he had continued to be the destroyer after he laid the Undertaker to rest, but was utterly undone by Edge.
– John Cena: After all these years, he plays his superhero role to a T and can always be counted on to deliver his end.
– Dashing Cody Rhodes: Definitely a breakout year for Cody Rhodes with his new narcissist gimmick. Some people say it is a strictly midcard persona, but I think he has a future when he evolves past this (not tosses it aside and tries to forget it).
– Randy Orton: Stone Cold-lite? Maybe, but Orton has retained a sinister calm in his terse promos that separates him from his serpentine cousin and makes him seem very threatening.
– Josh Matthews: He fucking destroyed Michael Cole when he sat in on Smackdown. Novelty pick, but seriously, more Josh Matthews.

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Of the big three American promotions, Total Nonstop Action is easily my least favorite. I don’t know what TNA does best except for crazy trash TV, but they do that poorly as well. Nevertheless, 2010 has provided for some interesting characters out of Orlando, enough to make good standing on this list.

Jeffrey Nero Hardy

Once a megastar on the platform provided by the global juggernaut of WWE, Jeff Hardy headed down south as part of the crew brought in by the new regime of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff to revitalize TNA. When he arrived he was the same fighting-for-good Jeff Hardy that fans knew and loved from his time WWE, though a little fatter and a step slower. Still, Hardy made a splash in the main event, befriended Rob Van Dam, and teamed with TNA’s resident asshole and newly turned good guy Mr. Anderson. However, what really made Hardy interesting for me happened at Bound for Glory. Hardy faced off against Anderson and Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in what was supposed to be an instant classic. His betrayal of Anderson, Angle, and the fans to join the new megafaction Immortal Fortunes, Inc. and gain the TNA World title turned him into a strong focal point for the promotion. As Tim Burton’s Antichrist of Pro Wrestling, Jeffrey Nero Hardy became… well, everything that a heel Hardy should be. He was more enigmatic than before with a cool, calm, snake-like charisma that allowed him to smirk bemusedly while bragging about giving Mr. Anderson a concussion. New theme music, that atrocious new Immortalweight title belt, it all added to the mystique of this new evil Hardy boy. There was a great deal of skepticism as to whether Hardy could actually pull off being a heel. Many viewed Hardy as something like Sting or AJ Styles, someone that the fans simply did not want to boo, and Hardy’s turn definitely felt like a last-minute for-the-fuck-of-it decision (which I believe it actually was). However, in Hardy I personally felt like there was something that could take this ball and run with it, and he really has. He’s managed to be different than the other heels in TNA in a way that draws a lot of attention to himself, which both fits his new persona and is due him as the TNA World Immortalweight Champion.

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Motor City Machine Guns

I think TNA, and any Russo project really, suffers from an asshole syndrome. They focus on creating a ton of heels and let their faces flounder with little direction. However, their current tag division benefits from having an incredibly exciting babyface tag team combination in Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, the Motor City Machine Guns. The MCMGs are witty and entertaining outside of the wrestling ring and are equipped with an incredible name and style. To add to that, inside the ring they’ve got rapid-fire combination moves and both of them can play the face in peril extremely well. The crowd is on their side because they can reliably put on exciting matches and they make full use of that. Does this make them worthy of being the best characters when they really haven’t had the kind of “main event promos” that others mentioned have? Yes, I believe so. The story of the MCMGs is told almost entirely in the ring, a welcome change for TNA which is known for its rampant backstage segments. Much like WCW and TNA of yesteryear used the cruiserweight/X Division to draw fans of wrestling in, today’s TNA is pushing the tag division as its workrate core, and the MCMGs have excelled in their role as the standard bearers for the new tag division.

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WHOO! WHOO! WHOO! The NAITCHA BWOOOOY!
(Ric Flair)

There’s really very little to say here, I think. If you know who Ric Flair is, you know why he’s one of the best characters, not just in TNA, not just in 2010, but of all time. If you don’t know Ric Flair, you better start knowing. I believe Flair made the perfect transition out of the ring in order to manage his new group of proteges Fortune, a perfect fit for the slimy, conniving Slick Ric at this stage in his career. And even as the manager and using AJ Styles as the centerpiece of his faction, Flair’s personality overshadows his followers. For Fortune, I believe this is a bad thing as they end up being reduced to something of a goon squad when it seems to me that they were put together to get them over. But this isn’t about that. Flair is here because he’s incredibly entertaining in whatever position he’s in, and he continued that trend in 2010. Still stylin’ and profilin’, still the dirtiest player in the game, still (WHOO!) Ric Flair, and we should all be glad that he’s still around.

Honorable Mentions:
– Beer Money: Still very entertaining, but since joining Fortune they’ve been lost in the shuffle, mainly acting as the enforcers of the group.
– Rob Van Dam: Has done a solid job as TNA’s top face since being put in that role, but has not been terribly compelling.
– Mr. Anderson: Whereas Randy Orton has taken the snake part of Steve Austin’s persona, Anderson has claimed the blue collar/redneck part, though like Orton he plays it differently than Austin did. I still think Anderson’s better as a heel but he’s been working out well.
– AJ Styles: If Styles had to be a heel I think he would have been better if he was his own person, but he’s steadily grown more comfortable in the role of Flair impersonator.

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Ring of Honor is definitely all about getting it done in the ring. More than WWE or TNA, ROH has characters that are wrestlers first and personas second. However even here, pretty much everybody has their own thing to set them apart and 2010 has produced some great characters.

Davey Richards

I’ve made mention of both Randy Orton and Mr. Anderson briefly as heirs to the throne of Stone Cold, but in reality, I think the strongest claimant is “The American Wolf” Davey Richards. I can already hear the comment sections heating up their hate rays, but hear me out. What made “Stone Cold” Steve Austin special was that he was able to get cheered for doing heelish things all the time. In fact, he started out as a heel and made the transition into being a face. Davey Richards, I believe, has had the same sort of phenomenon. He is beloved for being such an intense don’t-fuck-with-me motherfucker. He storms around the ring and kicks ring attendants out of their seats solely so he can point to the sky and shout AMERICAN WOLVES! He, unlike the snake-gimmicked Orton and the blue-collar-gimmicked Anderson, does not share an iota of his actual persona with Austin, and yet the role their characters play are fairly similar. His Hunt has consumed the ROH World title picture all year and that’s because Richards himself is such a forceful personality. When he says he will dominate someone, I as a fan believe him. This is not just because the words he says or the way that he says them, it’s because he’s put up the proof. Richards in the ring is a fucking killer. Every action bleeds that idea. He is like Alberto Del Rio in that he really embodies the persona that he has assumed, everything about him is an American Wolf. His promos are not the long insult-packed diatribes that I feel like most people immediately think of as a “good promo.” Most often, Richards is short with his words, and they’re great promos because he doesn’t need to be long-winded. He doesn’t need to talk and talk and talk. A great promo is one that makes you believe what the speaker is saying, and when Davey Richards tells you that he… will… break you, you’d better listen.

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Kevin Steen

Jeff Hardy called himself the Antichrist of Pro Wrestling. Kevin Steen merely called himself the Antichrist of Ring of Honor, but I believe Steen has a better claim to Hardy’s title than Hardy does. 2010 was the Maniacal Rampage of Kevin Steen and he did it better than anybody I can remember. It’s very tough to pull off being a psycho the right way. Often it feels very cheesy and forced. Make no mistake, Steen’s psychosis was over-the-top, but it also made sense somehow. Listening to Steen talk about how El Generico had made him sick, how it was Generico that drove him to this point, had a logic to it despite the heinous actions that Steen perpetrated the whole year. His very literal bloodlust, the ramping up of his disturbing sexual aggression towards the crowd, his brutality in his matches no matter who they were against, all added tremendously to the entity that was Kevin Steen. And notice how he didn’t have a weird ring name like Brutus the Barber or Nailz or Psycho Sid. He’s just Kevin Steen. He sounds like a very nice man that perhaps works at a shoe store. He just happens to be fucking insane. The Kevin Steen character was my favorite in all of wrestling in 2010 and it’s a position very well deserved. I was severly put out by the fact that I never got to see a Steen title match, and also that the one show I saw Steen on had him in a big brawl with the Briscoes which meant that for much of the match he was out of my range of vision. He made El Generico’s life a living hell and I’m glad to have lightened my wallet in order to see it.

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El Generico

The silent warrior. The Generic Luchador. The betrayed friend, the target that turned into the hunter. In every stage of his extremely personal and dangerous rivalry with the nutjob known as Kevin Steen, El Generico played his role perfectly. He didn’t need to talk. Yes, he benefitted from having Cabana there for much of the feud, but in reality, a guy like Kevin Steen could have done all the talking and we as viewers simply needed to see El Generico react. There was nothing for him to say and everything for him to do. 2010 saw Generico transformed from the broken shell of a man he was after the chairshot at Final Battle 2010, buoyed up by the friendship of Colt Cabana and turned into a heat seeking missile of revenge. By Final Battle 2010 he had completely changed and was out for only one thing: Kevin Steen’s blood. “How could you, Steen? How could you turn your back on me after all we’d been through, the ups and the downs? How could you expect me to take this lying down? You’re dead, Steen! I’m going to end you, Steen!” Could El Generico have said all this and more? Sure. But in a way, it would have actually taken away from this story. Kevin Steen took full advantage of the fact that Generico couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to say everything on his mind without fear of repercussion. In fact, that inability to vocalize seems to have aided in prolonging Generico’s grief, as without the ability to put words to his misery he could never get it off his chest. Kevin Steen was an absolute monster this year, but El Generico played his part in that I didn’t just want to see anybody beat Kevin Steen, I wanted to see Generico do it. It was always about Generico giving Steen his comeuppance. Generico was one of the most sympathetic babyfaces that I can remember, both in spite of and because of his silence, and he more than held up his half of an epic year-long battle.

Honorable Mentions:
– Colt Cabana & Steve Corino: The perfect sidekicks for the Steen/Generico feud, it simply wouldn’t have been the same without their input. Cabana was the perfect fun-loving friend for Generico and together they took the trip into hell. Corino was the devil on Steen’s shoulder that helped bring out the madman’s dark side.
– All Night Express: Definitely helped by the support of their mentor Austin Aries, the ANX have always been entertaining and flashy.
– Kyle O’Reilly & Adam Cole: Rookies! The rookie gimmick is really easy to get behind and letting these two run with that will benefit them in the long run.
– Kings of Wrestling: They stand atop the tag team mountain as very credible champs, but enjoy too much crowd support for heels and don’t do enough to turn it away.

Last year is dead! Long live the new year! Before I sign off here, I’ll take the time out to plug a few things on 411.

411 staffers make their predictions for 2011 in the Top 5.
Peter Hopey shares his thoughts on CM Punk joining the Nexus.
Massive Matt S once again entertains us with an edition of Ask 411 Wrestling.
And, of course, Ari Berenstein’s gigantic end-of-the-year Final Column in six absolutely, positively, must-see, can’t-miss, world-changing, and exhaustively thorough parts.

That’s it for me, I’ll see you all (hopefully) next week!

You think you’re civilized, but you will never understand…