Our first debate: should Ryback be the #1 contender for the WWE Championship?
YES
by Nick Gator
In the aftermath of what some have described as a “passing of the torch” John Cena must now move forward to defend the WWE Championship. Making Ryback the first challenger to Cena after WrestleMania makes the most sense for a myriad of reasons.
This is a logical continuation of events that
started months ago. Cena and Ryback have been circling one another. It was only
a matter of time, particularly after the Royal Rumble match with the two of
them as the final participants. If not for Cena, it would have been Ryback
getting that coveted WrestleMania title match.
One thing you need for a good feud is the belief
that the challenger poses a serious threat to the champion. Ryback can match or
exceed Cena’s power and it is believable for him to get the win and the gold.
Despite being in this persona for less than a year, the exposure that Ryback
got in the final months of 2012 makes him a credible main event caliber
opponent.
One knock on Ryback is his win-loss record. As my
fellow broadcast journalist Corey Santiago says, it’s all about what people
will pay to see. UFC fighter and motor mouth Chael Sonnen lost one title match
and now gets another title match in another weight category while coaching on
The Ultimate Fighter show. Sonnen gets those opportunities because he can bring
in an audience and Ryback has that same potential.
Another issue for some is that Ryback only gets a
crowd reaction because wrestling fans like to chant things. What? I said
wrestling fans like to chant things. What? I said…IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT I
SAID. YES YES YES. Dah Da Da Da Da Dah Da Da Dah Da. If it’s good enough for
the likes of Steve Austin and The Rock, it’s only with me for the crowd to get
behind Ryback’s catchphrase and help him become a recognizable figure in sports
entertainment.
My belief has been supported by the latest work
Ryback has done both on television and in social media. He has never had better
promos or come off as potent as he’s had in the last few weeks. There is
another dimension than just the lunkhead formerly known as Skip Sheffield
that’s being captured.
Ryback’s tweets going after “Super Cena” included
some below-the-belt remarks on Cena’s ex-wife. These have been deleted and even
if he’s going into business for himself, that’s a good thing. It creates buzz within
a fanbase that has no love for either of these superstars. Sometimes you need
to stand out from the crowd and Ryback is doing just that on a level beyond his
physical prowess.
Many fans complain there is a lack of new stars in
WWE. Ryback as the #1 contender and the next WWE Champion can be a new star.
There is no other person in the company more suited for this role at this time.
Nick
Gator is an award-winning cohost of the Future Endeavors wrestling show, live
Sunday nights at 11pm eastern and available on-demand from Itunes and other
outlets. In his spare time he buys domains and drops elbows on jackets. Tweet him @NickGator.
NO
by AmplifiedToRock
If you were to ask a group of wrestling fans who grew up watching the pre-Attitude Era WWF/E what one of the most significant differences is between the product they watched as kids and the current product, a common answer would be that wrestling is no longer presented as a sport. In those halcyon days of our youth, wins and losses carried weight. Each victory was another step forward, each defeat a crushing impediment and a blow to the psyche. Match after match, opponent after opponent, a wrestler had to earn his way to an opportunity to wrestle for one of the coveted gold belts worn by the man (or woman) who had reached the pinnacle and earned the right to call themselves the champion.
Then things began to change. It began slowly, during the Monday Night
Wars, with wrestling beginning to take a backseat to backstage antics and
tomfoolery. As the silliness and
storylines became more prominent and the shift from wrestling to “sports
entertainment” became more complete, the unavoidable side effect was a
reduction in the importance of the “sport” of wrestling. This includes the emphasis on wins and
losses.
There is no better illustration of the current
unimportance of wins and losses than Ryback.
After taking the WWE by storm by squashing one or more for weeks on end
(ironically demonstrating just how strong a wrestler can appear by winning
every single match), Ryback has lost in each of his six appearances on WWE
pay-per-views. Seemingly every time he
has had an opportunity to go over on a big stage and take his place in the top
tier of the current WWE roster, he has failed.
His most recent loss was on the grandest stage of them all,
WrestleMania.
Logically, the next step would be for Ryback to go
back to the drawing board and try to build himself up again.
Not in today’s WWE.
The next night Ryback appeared on Monday Night Raw
to declare himself the number one contender for John Cena’s WWE
Championship. If that wasn’t absurd
enough, to get to Cena, he first went through Mark Henry, THE MAN HE LOST TO
THE NIGHT BEFORE.
Ryback’s positioning as number one contender by WWE
Creative is indicative of a larger problem, namely how do you make champions
and championships matter when the results don’t mean anything? But I’ll save that for another article. There are a number of other reasons, aside
from his not having “earned” it, that Ryback is not the guy to challenge John
Cena for the WWE title.
First of all, despite his great look, Ryback is not
the best worker. Even in a gimmick
match, as the match at Extreme Rules will almost certainly be, he doesn’t have
the ability to tell a great story for a longer period of time. Combine his lack of ability with Cena, who
isn’t the greatest worker himself, and you have the makings of a rather
lackluster match.
Then you have the candidates who are more deserving
and much more talented. First, you’ve
got young super talents such as Antonio Cesaro who, despite being booked to
look like a fool with a yodeling gimmick in recent weeks, has the heat and
skill to make an excellent opponent for Cena.
You also have Mark Henry who, and this is intentional repetition, BEAT
RYBACK AT WRESTLEMANIA. He’s been around
the block and is every bit the dominating powerhouse that Ryback is. It just makes so much more sense psychologically
for him to get the title shot, especially as he’s probably making one his final
laps around the circuit. He’s also
better than Ryback in another crucial area:
crowd heat.
You have an audience that isn’t sure what to make of
Ryback. Though it wasn’t botched quite
as badly as Alberto Del Rio’s face turn, Ryback turning heel was not executed
particularly well. Having him attack the
company’s biggest face would usually be a great way to generate heat, but he
did it at the IZOD Center on the night after WrestleMania in front of the most
anti-Cena crowd the WWE could possibly have.
Though Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler tried to sell it as a reprehensible
action, the crowd on hand ate it up.
Another problem is his “FEED ME MORE” chant, which I have sworn was the
only thing about Ryback that was truly over.
The crowd still loves it, even though he is making a concerted effort
not to use it. (Note to WWE Creative: Maybe it’s time for new music?) He’s still not getting a lot of heat.
The problem? More than likely it’s because all he has done
when there is really something on the line is lose, so the audience doesn’t
really believe he can beat John Cena with the most prestigious title in the
company at stake.
It’s not his time yet. Start over and let him build his way back to
the top and give him a steady diet of meaningful wins. Do the same thing across the board. In so doing, they won’t just be building a
legitimate contender, they’ll be giving us compelling television.
The artist known as Amplified To Rock is an American citizen despite his love of soccer, hockey, and Japanese wrestling. Keep The Noise Down is his brainchild and he never draws into an inside straight. Tweet with him @AmplifiedToRock.
