Few things are more intimidating of dominate than a mountain of pissed off muscle, especially when said mountain has an attitude.
For years, the WWE relied on the larger wrestlers to carry the promotion. Their broad shoulders allowed us to look at them like superheroes and larger than life characters. We believed nothing could topple Andre the Giant. No one could out muscle Hulk Hogan or dominate the Ultimate Warrior. High fliers were rare, so seeing Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Randy “Macho Man” Savage go to the top rope gave us goosebumps as we knew something special was about to happen.
Now, it’s the age of the little man, the average man.
It’s been streamlined to focus on high flyers and their athletic abilities to overcome obstacles rather than strength or brute force.
If we want to point fingers, it’s easy to single out Shawn Michaels as he was the first truly great smaller athletic wrestler. His athletic style was flamboyant and eye catching, and set the bar high for others to achieve.
Bret Hart was another one that wasn’t the biggest of people, but he relied on his athleticism in a different way as he chose to work over an opponent, to find a weakness and exploit it in a methodical approach.
In the current WWE landscape, the giants have largely been ignore and passed over. Braun Strowman and Samoa Joe are perfect examples of this. Strowman’s popularity’s been one of the top two superstars for a while. When he steps out into the arena, the fans go nuts. His pop has and continues to surpass the Universal champion, Seth Rollins’.
At Clash of Champions, Strowman dominated Rollins, and had it not been for his “knee injury,” he would have won. The match wasn’t even very good because it lacked the realistic rising of the smaller man, ala Shawn Michaels, against a Diesel, as well as the intimidating power of the Undertaker/Michaels’ Hell in a Cell in ’97 that introduced us to Kane.
Instead, Rollins was “put over” in a weak, transparent way a parent chooses their child to be the star quarterback on the team they coach. And it came at Strowman’s expense. Sure, like Andre the Giant, there would be few believable opponents that could take the title from the Monster Among Men, but isn’t rising to the occasion part of storytelling? Aren’t the underdogs supposed to overcome impossible odds to win?
Rollins’ attempt to put him over the next night on Raw even fell flat for the most part as the fans cheered Strowman being mentioned instead of the push. The fact is, Strowman’s been over.
Joe’s struggle
Even Samoa Joe gets a decent pop when he’s allowed to be dominate instead of being kicked around by the smaller, more athletic superstars. Like Strowman, he’s billed as this unbeatable monster and dominates the majority of a match, but his opponent gets a couple of flourishes and he’s suddenly laid out for a loss.
It’s amazing how a man that loves to fight so much can’t take a punch from anyone when a title is on the line. One of the few times it’s understandable for him to lose was in the triple threat match to go to the KOTR finals. He had it won, but was waylaid. That’s believable to us. That’s understandable. Anything short of that would’ve been an even bigger disservice than him not winning a heavyweight title yet.
The WWE says they’re listening to fans, and Stephanie McMahon has stated we need to be patient, that it’ll be worth it, but are they really listening when what we cheer loudest for doesn’t happen week after week, month after month?
