Lately, there seems to be a trend of comedical character development across all wrestling promotions. But whether that helps or hinders the talent development or provides any beneficial windfall remains to be seen.
Take AJ Styles and (Matt) Riddle. Styles recently obtained a sort of bodyguard, the large African American dude previously guarding the entrance to RAW Underground. I guess they needed something for this ‘Omos’ to do now that the shoot fighting concept has been shelved.
But the way Omos towers over even men like Braun Strowman, the Phenomenal One might as well be the actual parody version of him recently played by Swoggle on Impact Wrestling during a gimmick match with Ethan Page.
Even in the beginning, the pairing between AJ and this guy already planted comical seeds from the start.
As for the aforementioned Riddle, the ‘King of Bros’ seems to have fully embraced the Rob Van Dam 2.0 stoner gimmick and taken it to another level. Witness the slew of nicknames he bestowed upon his fellow RAW men’s teammates for the traditional five on five Survivor Series tag team match.
We saw some of this ‘dazed and confused’ stuff coming from Riddle in NXT when he teamed with Pete Dunne as the Broserweights. Although some commentary opined that this was more suited in black and yellow brand as it catered to a core audience, I’m still laughing at this material right now so it can’t be that bad.
Speaking of NXT, as well as Impact Wrestling, I can’t help but notice that Johnny Gargano and Ethan ‘Ego’ Page are playing almost an identical character: charismatic, arrogant but succumbing to a degree of paranoia. Page and Gargano’s mannerisms, tone, even their appearance, are strikingly similar.
Meanwhile, Johnny Gargano’s character development had him doing something like obsessing over wheels. And if you look up recent subsequent backstage segments with his wife, Candace LeRae, they are also side splittingly hilarious.
So what are we to make of these comedical character developments across wrestling lately? With the majority of wrestling shows devoid of fans, it’s very hard to tell if something is getting over or not. Gargano’s performance I would say would certainly be over, and I haven’t followed enough of Page’s social media content to tell if the stuff he does is popular.
I definitely see AJ Styles doing another babyface run with the comedic timing and the pairing with Omos, but the Riddle thing remains to be seen.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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