 |
| The best Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Team PWG was booked against the Osirian Portal (complete with Escorpion Egyptico!), so they weren't winning, unbeknownst to me at the time. I didn't get to see that iconic finishing move, but I fell in love with El Generico all the same. He had a magnetism about him, one that transcended a moveset, a gimmick, a mask. I didn't know where else I was going to find him, but I wanted to follow him around. He led me to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and Ring of Honor. He made me look forward to shows that I never would have dreamed I'd be interested in when my fandom's reascension was in its nascency.
I didn't get nearly as sad when Bryan Danielson left for WWE as when Generico did, even. Danielson, I thought, was built for WWE, made to go to that company, become its next Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels (without aping either one, obviously). Maybe I just hadn't been a fan of Danielson as the American Dragon as long as others have, or even as long as I was of Generico when he left. But his crucible was the last four years, and man, he passed with flying colors.
With Generico, I don't think I felt as sad because he wasn't going to work. So many people were down that he was going to lose the mask, or that if he kept it that he'd flop in WWE because of it, as if that mask was the only thing that gave him worth. I wanted to rip them all new ones. A mask, a gimmick, a character... they only go as far as the guy pulling the levers. El Generico was a success because Rami Sebei is a natural performer, a genetically-embedded babyface.
So when I hear Tony Dawson exclaim that NXT is Sami Zayn's house? I am thrilled, but I am not surprised at all. In record time, he has made the Performance Center his own personal stomping grounds. Through epic matches against opponents of varying providence or a charming, spoken charisma that was his only question mark in the indies, he has proven that yes, WWE was his future all along. He was made to main event WrestleMania. That endgame should make a fan of his happy, right? The pinnacle of the business, making all the money to make wrestling a community united behind one wrestler?
Why would I have any reason to be sad? Well, I grew up on the WWF, and for as long as I'm a wrestling fan, for better or worse, my mainstream canvas will always reside in Stamford, CT as long as that company exists. But the indies have become collectively my passion play, the thing I view and love because I elementally love professional wrestling. Guys come and go from that scene. Excellent wrestlers pass through as a rest stop. Whether Danielson, Castagnoli, McGuinness, Austin Aries, Sami Callihan, Jon Moxley, Brodie Lee, or Sara del Rey, all of them got my love and undying fandom at some point, and yet I didn't feel nearly as sad as I did for Generico when he left when they all got the call to their various companies.
Maybe I was losing the avatar spirit of that passion play. Maybe his departure was the straw that broke the camel's back, that when he and Kevin Steen wrestled together against the Bucks for the DDT4 tournament Championship, a full, four-year season of a major chapter in my life had come to an end. I'm a big sap when you boil me down and expose my core.
Still, from every ending comes a new beginning. Now, instead of compelling me to buy a DVD or head to an armory, Zayn is making me sit down and watch NXT every week. He will keep me watching RAW when he finally gets there, and he will keep my eyes glued to the screen, no matter what foil they give to him. He is Ricky Steamboat, if Ricky Steamboat were a punk kid from French Canada with an electric smile and a kinetic ring-style. If that doesn't find you as a compliment, then man, I would hate to be you.