FanPost

Retroactive Reconstruction: Big E, Intercontinental Champion

WWE.com

Welcome back to another edition of Retroactive Reconstruction! Here, we take a look at abortive, not-quite-there, or downright abysmal gimmicks before retroactively rebuilding them into something that might get over. It's fantasy booking at its finest! Today, we look at a man that needs a very specific number.

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Isn't it something else, Cagesiders? We were preparing ourselves for that moment when you-know-who was going to win the WWEWHC, had made peace with it (seemingly), and yet when the moment finally came…WE STILL HATED IT!!!!!!!!

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*Sigh.*

Here's a RR post to make you guys smile. Enjoy!

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Once upon a time, the Intercontinental Championship was considered quite prestigious. The Honky Tonk Man held it for a strangely long time, and probably the most famous holder was the man that went over Hogan cleanly at Wrestlemania in one of the most famous main events of all time.

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Rest in Peace, Jim Hellwig. (via stream1.gifsoup.com)

However, since then, (with the possible exception of Bad News Barrett's abortive run with the title) the Intercontinental Championship has fallen by the wayside and really become a minor championship. Which is a shame, because what is supposed to elevate new guys (in theory) is instead being used as something to placate the rabid fans of any talented wrestler that isn't named John Cena.

Most recently, this lack of interest in the IC damaged the push of a man that I feel should have been used way differently than what the WWE writers came up with.

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(via ztona.net)

Seeing Big E get dropped AGAIN by Rusev really, really, really pisses me off because it is a perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with WWE's approach to people that don't look and act exactly the way WWE wants them to, or expected them to.

But before I tear into that stupid "Russian" gimmick, let's dig into the backstory of the man who needs five.

BACKGROUND

Ettore Ewen is a scary-strong man. He played college football for a few seasons at the University of Iowa, but soon transitioned to power lifting. In 2009, he made his powerlifting circuit debut. Over a short career, here are his personal bests.

1.) Squat: 711 pounds. without knee wraps.

2.) Bench Press: 529 pounds

3.) Deadlift: 799 pounds

…I, uh, think this man could crush the skull of a human being.

Naturally, because Vince McMahon still has a…preference for heavy-lifting guys, Ewen was offered a contract to work with WWE. At the same time he was powerlifting, by the way. He signed a deal with FCW (later rebranded to NXT) in 2009. Two years later, he and Calvin Raines won the FCW Tag Team titles against Richie Steamboat and SETH ROLLINS, only to eventually drop the titles to C.J. Parker and Donny Marlow on July 21, 2011. At the Wrestlemania XXVIII Axxess event, he would go over another man who is in danger of needing a reconstruction: Antonio Cesaro.

When FCW was rebranded into NXT, Big E would get a bit of a gimmick change as well.

This video…well, it about sums it up.

God, that is SO awesome.

Big E Langston was tweaked into an absolute BEAST, who battered his foes so badly that he would force the refs to count to FIVE instead of three for pitfalls. Vickie Guerrero offered him her managerial services, but he refused. Scorned as only Vickie Guerrero could do it, she put out a $5,000 contract to anyone on the NXT roster that could take out Big E in the middle of his winning streak. Nobody could.

Eventually, NXT Commissioner Dusty Rhodes declared the bounty null and void. Not that Big E cared. He was too busy being the NXT Champion. Who'd he beat, by the way?

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This is the goofiest looking face I could find of this traitorous dipshit. (via 4.bp.blogspot.com)

Big E was hella over, and it was only a matter of time that he was called up.

On December 17, 2012, Big E Langston made his main roster debut by attacking JOHN CENA of all people, establishing himself as a heel (obviously) and aligning himself with Dolph Ziggler. He served as the enforcer of the trio of Ziggler, Lee and himself, and the primary focus of their attention was on Team Hell No! Dolph Ziggler, Daniel Bryan, Big E Langston, Kane, and AJ Lee? Good grief, that is a great recipe for good television. Hey, Vince and alleged Kevin Dunn, this is the kind of "circus"-esque difference in styles wrestling needs in order to be entertaining and not homogenous crap.

Of course, fucking Jack Swagger kicked Ziggler's head in, and due to that Big E Langston was left without a boss. He kept busy wrestling Alberto Del Rio, losing the series in a surprisingly close 3-2 split. He stayed on as AJ Lee's buddy, getting involved in her feud with Kaitlyn, though altogether just floating around the mid to upper card. The crowd was cheering for him. They liked the way he looked and the way that he acted. All he needed was an opportunity.

Enter this fucking guy.

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It is surprisingly difficult to pick your favorite "Paul Heyman stupid face" photo, folks. (via the-void.co.uk)

In the midst of Paul Heyman's slightly-bizarre "father scorned" feud with CM Punk, Punk wrestled Langston and got a pinfall. Because Heyman loves the sound of his own voice, he came out and taunted Punk for beating "a rookie" like Langston. Ostensibly, this was a knock on Punk in the sense that he was only good when Heyman was in his corner.

Naturally, Big E Langston didn't particularly take well to this comment.

The face that Heyman makes at about 55 seconds in when he realizes what is about to happen is absolutely glorious.

It's a shame that they just used Langston's offense at Heyman's comments as a one-off thing to ignite a Face turn, because maybe you could've woven him into the Punk-Heyman feud. Either way, Big E was a fan favorite now, and in honor of his new popularity, he did the entire WWE Universe a service by taking the Intercontinental Title off of that poor charisma vacuum: Curtis Axel.

So we've got an entertaining man with some huge fucking strength, as well as a title as formerly prestigious as the Intercontinental Championship on his waist. Boy, what an opportunity to inject some life into the midcard! Are you ready, kids? Let's see how badly they fucked this up!

WHAT KILLED THE ANGLE?

It breaks my heart to say this, but three major things are enough to break down the Big E Intercontinental Championship angle and why it went flat.

First, no interesting opponents to fight.

Big E Langston faced Jack Swagger and Curtis Axel in defense of the Intercontinental Championship. That is offensively lazy in choosing future opponents. Neither of those guys is gonna invest the crowd's interest in the feud through their talking skills, and both of them wrestle a very similar style. If the WWE is actually serious about keeping the Intercontinental Championship at least somewhat competitive, then you need to have more guys gunning for it. Sure, everyone is focused on the Bryan-Authority angle at the top. Would it really be so difficult for the mid carders and the lower carders to gun for the Intercontinental title? Hell, I'd rather see guys like Christian (if he wasn't hurt), Damien Sandow, Cody Rhodes or Goldust, Dolph Ziggler, Zack Ryder…and yes of course Bad News Barrett in the hunt for the title. That's an eclectic group of guys, and mixing it up creates interest. And on the off chance that an Authority segment falls flat (see: Lawsuit, Big Show's), then a viewer can say "Well, at least the IC chase was interesting tonight."

Otherwise, it just makes it seem like the IC is really just a placeholder title, and that everyone is really out for the heavyweight title when they have no business being in that chase. C'mon, guys. Controversy might create cash, but the midcard maintains money. (I'm not sure who in the Cageside forums wrote that line, but I invite you to take credit, sir/ma'am. Helluva line.)

Second, atrociously lazy booking.

This ties into the first point, but here's a thought. Big E Langston was the IC for about seven months. I cannot for the life of me name a single match that had an exciting build to it in the time that Big E was the champ. Granted, this would be difficult because everyone wanted to see Daniel Bryan get ahead of Randy Orton, but come on. That's asking us to put too much of our eggs in one basket, banking on the Bryan-Orton feud to satisfy us EVERY time that it was featured. (Spoiler: It didn't.) The midcard duels should be in danger of stealing the show every night. That way we can see the main event go, "Shit, better step up our game so that the lower card isn't more entertaining than the bottom card! Hmm…maybe we should axe the whole 'Big Show stealing Daniel Bryan's Yes! chants thing…'"

In the end, Big E was treated to the absolute worst purgatory that wrestlers can be sent to: "Oh, yeah. That's that one guy, Big E Langston. I think he's a champ, but I don't think that he's done much, lately."

Third, his gimmick went stale.

If you read Big E Langston's Twitter feed, you see a very entertaining sort of guy in an endearingly goofy way. A gregarious, strange sense of humor-filled dude who can make people laugh simply because of how…odd he is.

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Believe it or not, ladies, he's actually in the background of this photo. (via 24.media.tumblr.com)

But why didn't he get an opportunity to reeeeeally showcase his goofy side?

Well...

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the WWE actually went private again, or hired an outside agent as a sort of risk analyst to determine things that need to be changed. I'm not sure that that would be a good idea, because how on earth would you explain to this objective outsider the rationale for keeping a man like Michael PS Hayes around?

Look, it's all fine and dandy that Hayes is part of one of the greatest heel stables of all time. But just like the logic of signing 2014 Kobe Bryant to a 2 year, $50 million dollar deal, so too is the logic questionable for having Hayes around as the head of road agents/producers. According to that dynamite story posted by former Smackdown writer Alex D. Greenfield (check out the Hi, My Name Is Kevin Dunn thread), Hayes is still high enough in the company (at least up until a few years ago) where he can offer serious input on booking.

This might not be a troubling thing, except for the fact that Hayes...

1.) Told Mark Henry "I'm more of a nigger than you are" while backstage.

2.) Is credited with the notion that black wrestlers don't need gimmicks…because being black is their gimmick.

The first problem is a personal incidence of cataclysmic stupidity. I suppose it isn't a surprise that Hayes would make a dumb comment like that. What's surprising is that Mark Henry didn't straight up kill him on the spot.

What's a bigger problem is the second point. That'd be like me trotting out on stage as a white guy, and letting people judge me. They'll see dweeb, pencil-pusher, catastrophically uncool, you get the idea. See the problem? It lends itself to lazy stereotyping. Stereotyping that at worst is racist (obligatory) and at best is just. plain. BORING.

I don't need or want to see Big E be another Mark Henry. That's what we have Mark Henry for. I want to see Big E be a badass who actually gets to do the five-count on RAW, and then go off on a strange promo that mentions his love of kielbasa with no warning whatsoever.

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That camera angle and pan-down made this segment daaaaaaamn close to a D-X joke. Triple H was probably quite proud. (via 2.bp.blogspot.com)

RECONSTRUCTION

Boy, this is easy.

First off, we're actually going to let him do the five count while on the main roster. To avoid burying the wrestler on the receiving end of it, this will not happen every match that Big E does, only a few or so. That way, there's an element of surprise, so that when the big man holds up his five fingers you get a legit pop from the crowd. Oh, and both of them will have beaten the shit out of each other.

Next, we're going to really shake things up in the race for the Intercontinental title. Gimme lots of challengers that contrast with Big E's style (which is very powerful). Throw in a few submission wizards and high-fliers. Hell, at one point maybe even throw in a few NXT guys getting some action (have Big E cut a promo over how bored he is, and offer to let one of the rooks face him.). Just mix it up, and keep it really entertaining.

Most importantly, let Big E breathe and don't force him into a boring-ass predictable stereotype gimmick. His Al Sharpton-esque promos against Rusev annoyed me. It'd be better to have a guy who speaks like a normal person, because we've never had any build up to "Pastor E" until this moment for some odd reason.

All this could build to a hellacious feud between Big E and Bad News Barrett. That's gotta be the endgame. Those two could single-handedly revitalize the Intercontinental Championship, and in turn make everything outside of the main event interesting too.

Instead, Big E is jobbing out to Rusev, Bad News Barrett is out thanks to Jack Swagger…who is currently replacing Big E as the man to take down Rusev.

So Rusev, in singles matches, has beaten the shit out of every black guy on the roster…and might get his first pinfall loss to Jack Swagger.

Rudyard Kipling would be proud of you, WWE Creative.

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There's another RR post in the books. What do you think? Agree with my methods? Disagree with my madness? Have another suggestion? Drop a comment in the section below. For those of you new to the series, be sure to check out my profile for the rest of the RR posts.

Tune in next time, when we actually get to the RR post I was going to write before I was distracted by Jeff Jarrett and now Big E.

Until then!

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.