Reading through your comments today took a bit longer thanks to all those gifs and pictures. No worries, I stayed the course and figured out what you guys love and loathe about Summer Rae.
First, the good stuff:
- Ringside Reactions - Her reactions in general are great, but she is pretty funny during the matches. Great reactions like "get him!" to "omg!...noooo" she does a lot for as little the WWE gives to her.
- Improvement - Who says wrestling fans are negative? You guys always applaud those who are trying their best to improve. In Summer's case, it's mainly her in-ring skills that are getting better.
- "Bitchy-pretty girl" Gimmick - She has kept a tired gimmick pretty fresh, she also shows a solid comedic side to her as well which I think will help in promos down the road.
- Top Valet - Possibly the best valet in wrestling? Some of you said yes and that she outshines Fandango at times.
- Looks - I mean, this doesn't really need explaining does it? Best legs for sure.
Favorite comments go to who requested we evaluate Summer today, Vidence - "First and foremost, her character work. “The First Lady of NXT” is one of the best characters of either gender on the entire roster. Bitchy heel may be an overused wrestling trope, but she’s the best at it by a million miles, and makes it feel fresh. The best valet in the game today, and if not for AJ and our boy D-Bry, I’d say she’s the best valet in years. Her reaction shots outside the ring are phenomenal. She’s a total scene stealer when she’s outside during Fandango’s matches."
Now we look at the bad stuff...
- Dance! - Seriously, dance. On WWE, that's all she does, which is a bit one-dimensional. Yes she is great ringside, but there's really not much else going on character wise and she's been around long enough that something new needs to happen...OHAI EMMA!
- Tired Gimmick - Her NXT gimmick has been used, over, and over, and over again. She's great at it, but it's a shame Creative can't do a little more than "mean girl" with a lot of their heels.
- Green - The negative to her improving means that she's still fairly low in skills when it comes to wrestling or putting together solid promos. Like with most new talent, they just need time to figure things out. Not to go off-topic, but look at The Shield for example. Over just the past few shows I see all three trying to separate themselves into who they will be post-Shield. Dean is crazy/brawler/heel, Roman is a powerhouse/no-nonsense/face, and Seth is Kaitlyn...Ha!...Because his hair is two-toned, right??? Well Kaitlyn's hair wasn't two-toned when she left...ok, forget all that. Seth is a top worker/trash-talker...moving on!
- Voice - It's kind of annoying, but I guess that's the point, right Vickie?
- Can't Dance - I'm no Mikhail Baryshnikov, but some of you said she's not the best dancer. I tend to stick to tap, so I can't really comment.
My favorite comment goes to SkyonAir - "Loathe: I know this might be beating a dead horse to say, but the “Bitchy Lady” is the oldest fucking gimmick for divas ever other than “Nice happy girl” and it REALLY bugs me that WWE/NXT creative couldn’t think of ANYTHING better than that. If it’s not the fact that I have seen this in Maryse, Laycool, Melina when she was heel etc. etc. a million times that bugs me, it’s the fact that her micwork just doesn’t sell me on her. She’s just…wooden. Redwood forest levels of wooden. She’s always going between two pitches during promos. always. She’s a decent wrestler but man, it always seems like she’s phoning it in on promos."
Finally, the poll, with 209 votes, Ms. Rae's average score is 3.6. Great score, hopefully she will get to do more on WWE in the near future.
Thanks everyone for commenting, really fun responses today. Tomorrow we will be looking at a real loudmouth.
Shout out to C.M. Punk!