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| Do hurry, he has to meet Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons for lunch. Photo Credit: WWE.com |
First of all, you're pronouncing it wrong.
Secondly, you're still pronouncing it wrong.
Thirdly, talk about an effective heel or what? No clotheslines, no armdrags, no 450 splashes, no trace of the former life he lead as Johnny Curtis as NXT besides the fact the Fandango Fhenomenon (sorry) seems to be a massive outsized realization of an idea that the back of his old trunks defined as "Let's Get Weird".
So far here is what fans know about wrestling: wrestlers wrestle. Even the bad guys eventually get in there and throw hands. Like a beautiful woman who won't go out with you the first fourteen times you beg and cry right before the sophomore dance, Fandango is subtly but majorly pushing the expectations of the audience. Face it, as amusing as it would be to see an episode of Mad Men where Jon Hamm was on his iPhone sending emojis or Bryan Cranston spend an episode of Breaking Bad shaking Skyler White and yelling "You're not Lois! Where am I?! WHO'S KIDS ARE THESE!?!!!!?" it would totally rip asunder the premise of their critically acclaimed shows. I see A. I expect B.
Fandango is keeping B from happening right now, and by all means shouldn't wrestle until WrestleMania where it seems he will dance with Chris Jericho. (Jericho, by the way, is a perfect foil for the situation: a Teflon babyface with whom a good match can be had and a loss will be prominently displayed in the entrance video of later this year when the Star To Dance With comes out.) Not only is he keeping B from happening, but it's starting to piss fans off, as evidenced when Pittsburgh serenaded him with a "You can't wrestle!" chant on RAW this week. A few more shows of that, and more people just might believe it despite the evidence to the contrary on the G show. More to the point, some of them might even pay to see him get his behind kicked - only the founding principle of pro graps so far as I can understand it.
The reaction to Fandango has got me thinking, since this can't last forever and he is eventually going to have to step between the ropes... why not "prove the fans right"?
And by prove the fans right, what I mean is he shouldn't win a match for months.
Not because he can't wrestle.
But because the losing streak he starts his WWE career out on is one of reverse decisions and disqualifications due to ruthless aggression. You can seem them nudge Sandow into this territory from time to time but the unspoken assumption is that at his heart Sandow is a man of letters and thus sporadically taps into his bezerker rage to gain the upper hand and eventually win matches. Fandango is different: from what we've seen on WWE TV we know his vanity is a body of water no dam would be able to fully resolve. That's lead to an assumption that his skills are subpar.
So turn that assumption on its head. Give him a finisher (or even better, a submission hold) and have him win matches only to keep attacking when the bell's rung. Have him land no move but a series of non-concussion inducing chair shots and a few biels into the snazzy barricade. Have one move matches that start with a kick in the groin and somebody out on their back through the commercial break. Have him punch out a couple of referees. Got a babyface going away for a few weeks or months? Have Fandango jump them from behind before a match even starts and throw them off the damned stage. He can't wrestle? No, he can't.
But what he can do is maim. What he can do is hurt. What he can do is injure.
Under this idea the Bateman that should come to mind is Patrick and not Derrick. Fandango should be displayed highly as a well-functioning sociopath from 8 to 11 every Monday and 8 to 10 every Friday who's mask of sanity is about to slip and is in perpetual danger of feeding stray cats to ATMs. Of taking an axe to the skull of fans' hopes and keeping them from going to Dorsia forever because earlier in the year they insinuated he couldn't wrestle. And then in a quavering voice some WWE talking head can intone the best sentence a black hat can hear: somebody's GOT to stop this guy.
If all this feels slightly familiar it might be because what I'm suggesting is an inverted Brodus Clay. You remember last year so many faceless sheep being lead to slaughter in punishing clips of black and white with the leviathan himself promising destruction on an epic scale. When the time came, a Stepin Fetchit blaxploitation character came out and danced to Earnest Miller's music. It was amusing for a time, but once they fed him to put over the nascent Big Show threat he stopped becoming PPV worthy and turned into something more suited for Saturday Night Slam. That's fine, everybody has a niche to serve.
It still should be noted Brodus fell off the map in so little time there wasn't even enough time to draw the specifications of it to scale. One moment a beast, the next a cuddly teddy bear with dancing girls.
You don't build a compelling heel that way and he doesn't get to the next level that way, either. The secondary belts are Confederate money right now; what's needed further down the card is something compelling and something that stops the march of the remote. If it's a metrosexual monster posing as a man even better.
After a few beatdowns and stretcher jobs even the booing multitudes would end up getting his name right, wouldn't they?
Secondly, you're still pronouncing it wrong.
Thirdly, talk about an effective heel or what? No clotheslines, no armdrags, no 450 splashes, no trace of the former life he lead as Johnny Curtis as NXT besides the fact the Fandango Fhenomenon (sorry) seems to be a massive outsized realization of an idea that the back of his old trunks defined as "Let's Get Weird".
So far here is what fans know about wrestling: wrestlers wrestle. Even the bad guys eventually get in there and throw hands. Like a beautiful woman who won't go out with you the first fourteen times you beg and cry right before the sophomore dance, Fandango is subtly but majorly pushing the expectations of the audience. Face it, as amusing as it would be to see an episode of Mad Men where Jon Hamm was on his iPhone sending emojis or Bryan Cranston spend an episode of Breaking Bad shaking Skyler White and yelling "You're not Lois! Where am I?! WHO'S KIDS ARE THESE!?!!!!?" it would totally rip asunder the premise of their critically acclaimed shows. I see A. I expect B.
Fandango is keeping B from happening right now, and by all means shouldn't wrestle until WrestleMania where it seems he will dance with Chris Jericho. (Jericho, by the way, is a perfect foil for the situation: a Teflon babyface with whom a good match can be had and a loss will be prominently displayed in the entrance video of later this year when the Star To Dance With comes out.) Not only is he keeping B from happening, but it's starting to piss fans off, as evidenced when Pittsburgh serenaded him with a "You can't wrestle!" chant on RAW this week. A few more shows of that, and more people just might believe it despite the evidence to the contrary on the G show. More to the point, some of them might even pay to see him get his behind kicked - only the founding principle of pro graps so far as I can understand it.
The reaction to Fandango has got me thinking, since this can't last forever and he is eventually going to have to step between the ropes... why not "prove the fans right"?
And by prove the fans right, what I mean is he shouldn't win a match for months.
Not because he can't wrestle.
But because the losing streak he starts his WWE career out on is one of reverse decisions and disqualifications due to ruthless aggression. You can seem them nudge Sandow into this territory from time to time but the unspoken assumption is that at his heart Sandow is a man of letters and thus sporadically taps into his bezerker rage to gain the upper hand and eventually win matches. Fandango is different: from what we've seen on WWE TV we know his vanity is a body of water no dam would be able to fully resolve. That's lead to an assumption that his skills are subpar.
So turn that assumption on its head. Give him a finisher (or even better, a submission hold) and have him win matches only to keep attacking when the bell's rung. Have him land no move but a series of non-concussion inducing chair shots and a few biels into the snazzy barricade. Have one move matches that start with a kick in the groin and somebody out on their back through the commercial break. Have him punch out a couple of referees. Got a babyface going away for a few weeks or months? Have Fandango jump them from behind before a match even starts and throw them off the damned stage. He can't wrestle? No, he can't.
But what he can do is maim. What he can do is hurt. What he can do is injure.
Under this idea the Bateman that should come to mind is Patrick and not Derrick. Fandango should be displayed highly as a well-functioning sociopath from 8 to 11 every Monday and 8 to 10 every Friday who's mask of sanity is about to slip and is in perpetual danger of feeding stray cats to ATMs. Of taking an axe to the skull of fans' hopes and keeping them from going to Dorsia forever because earlier in the year they insinuated he couldn't wrestle. And then in a quavering voice some WWE talking head can intone the best sentence a black hat can hear: somebody's GOT to stop this guy.
If all this feels slightly familiar it might be because what I'm suggesting is an inverted Brodus Clay. You remember last year so many faceless sheep being lead to slaughter in punishing clips of black and white with the leviathan himself promising destruction on an epic scale. When the time came, a Stepin Fetchit blaxploitation character came out and danced to Earnest Miller's music. It was amusing for a time, but once they fed him to put over the nascent Big Show threat he stopped becoming PPV worthy and turned into something more suited for Saturday Night Slam. That's fine, everybody has a niche to serve.
It still should be noted Brodus fell off the map in so little time there wasn't even enough time to draw the specifications of it to scale. One moment a beast, the next a cuddly teddy bear with dancing girls.
You don't build a compelling heel that way and he doesn't get to the next level that way, either. The secondary belts are Confederate money right now; what's needed further down the card is something compelling and something that stops the march of the remote. If it's a metrosexual monster posing as a man even better.
After a few beatdowns and stretcher jobs even the booing multitudes would end up getting his name right, wouldn't they?