Damien Sandow should have been a legend

[Fake Jesus]

Nah. The title isn't hyperbolic. I'm still f***ing bitter.

Was this a world class talent? Nah. Did he fall on his ass outside WWE? Initially, yeah. His NWA stuff is pretty good from what I've seen.

But any time they gave him a character to work with he hit it out of the park. Part of the reason the modern WWE environment feels so f***ing barren is there just aren't that many guys like Sandow allowed to prosper - this is your Honky Tonk Man, your WWE-run Jerry Lawler type heel. Midcard asshole with a definable, perennially heat-drawing gimmick who could have worked with your top guys on their come-up and got them over. I mean, imagine if he was still around and got to work with Steiner's kid? That's such an easy, short little feud.

Elias is another one. Now Elias isn't even a good in-ring worker (Although he was given no time to progress), but who gives a shit? There's no reason that gimmick couldn't have filled out the lower card until the end of the world. Heath Slater. I saw people always say you couldn't complain about his booking because WWE gave him more than most, but the guy was literally perfect for his role.

And now you have an entire roster full of these sorts of people in NXT2.0 who are all gonna get f***ing jettisoned because there's a directive that they should only be producing main eventers. This hyperfocus WWE has on the main event (While simultaneously not wanting actual *stars*) has made a roster that (Since the 'lost generation' a decade ago) has felt like it's full of failed prospects, jobbers, and the 2-3 people they actually manage not to f*** up. And that loops around to the initial point, because Sandow was basically destroyed when they gave him a MITB briefcase he shouldn't have been anywhere near.

This post brought to you by me mistakenly watching a recent episode of the show.

[Dub H]

I think a lot of people soured on him due to his TNA run which fair enough was Trash.

but that didnt make his work in WWE any less good

But yeh guys like Ryder and Sandow would have been perfect as "mid card legends", but WWE sees no interest in that

[Vice honcho room temperature]

He should have won that stupid Andre Battle Royal if he wasn't gonna beat the Miz. Hell the fact they didn't do a proper blowoff f***ing is stupid. It means why get invested in the lower to mid card if nothing good or satisfying comes from it. It's the Zack Ryder thing all over again but at least we got the US title feel good moment.

[government mule]

Mizdow was one of the best comedy gimmicks WWE ever had.

[Cvslfc123]

Jan 29, 2022 18:53:53 GMT -5 government mule said:

Mizdow was one of the best comedy gimmicks WWE ever had.

My favourite Mizdow moment was when he mimicked The Miz screaming at him for taking his spot in the 2015 Royal Rumble.

[Deleted]

Been said over and over, but I hate the main event or bust mentality. There's nothing wrong with being the next Scotty 2 Hotty instead of the next Rock. WWE should want a strong midcard with acts like Sandow, Elias, and Zack Ryder.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Part of it was Sean O’Haire syndrome. When you have debuting vignettes that good the talent has to be hot shotted into an upper midcard feud at minimum. Aron Stevens had enough of the tools to succeed. But WWE booking didn’t get bad just recently.

As it is Sandow never had a memorable upper midcard feud. Not even a midcard title, even when they seemed to be playing hot potato with some belts. He eventually had some gold and had a little revived attention tagging with Miz, but the damage was done by that point. Damien Mizdow was also so far removed from the original gimmick it was ridiculous.

Making matters worse is that despite being a capable performer, Stevens’ mind for creative stinks. When TNA gave him some freedom to come up with a new gimmick, it sucked. That just made it look like WWE had a valid reason never to push him seriously.

[BorneAgain]

Jan 30, 2022 0:31:32 GMT -5 KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! said:

Part of it was Sean O’Haire syndrome. When you have debuting vignettes that good the talent has to be hot shotted into an upper midcard feud at minimum. Aron Stevens had enough of the tools to succeed. But WWE booking didn’t get bad just recently.

As it is Sandow never had a memorable upper midcard feud. Not even a midcard title, even when they seemed to be playing hot potato with some belts. He eventually had some gold and had a little revived attention tagging with Miz, but the damage was done by that point. Damien Mizdow was also so far removed from the original gimmick it was ridiculous.

Making matters worse is that despite being a capable performer, Stevens’ mind for creative stinks. When TNA gave him some freedom to come up with a new gimmick, it sucked. That just made it look like WWE had a valid reason never to push him seriously.

This is what I lament more than anything. Sandow as WWE/World champion is something I'm not sure would have worked entirely, but a long IC or US title reign would have been fantastic, and he could have made the most out of it.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I will never get why Sandow couldn't have come out of the Miz feud with an IC or US title reign. The whole thing wrote itelf. Mizdow spent the bulk of his time carrying around a toy belt to emulate Miz when he was champion. Even when Miz and Mizdow were tag champs, Miz would carry both belts and Mizdow would have two toy belts. So it would make sense that Mizdow would vow to become a champion to make up for the fact that he had to carry around a toy as tag team champion.

Makes way more sense than making him a discount Macho Man when, for all of his success in emulating people, he just couldn't emulate the Macho Man voice.

[thehottag]

Every time WWF had a boom period, it always had a thriving midcard. In the '80s, Vince raided the territories, & so you had guys with toop-of-the-card talent across the board. The IC title was a springboard for future world champions, & the tag division was stacked too.

In the Attitude era, Raw needed to be fun all the time because otherwise the viewers would switch to Nitro. This meant everyone, from the headliners to the curtain-jerkers, needed a gimmick and/or a storyline. 'Nothing matches' couldn't be afforded, because otherwise your competition would reap the benefit. It may have led to 'crash TV' in some cases, but it was also an environment where midcarders were allowed to get over.

Now? WWE is so desperate to create the next 'mainstream star' that they don't really care about anyone else. What's weird about that is they have more TV time than ever before, which means they have more opportunity to promote lots of wrestlers than ever before. No, Mizdow wasn't going to be a legend, or a world champion, but he didn't need to be. Nothing wrong with an over character in an over storyline to get the crowd invested.

[A Platypus Rave]

Jan 30, 2022 0:22:46 GMT -5 @dax said:

Been said over and over, but I hate the main event or bust mentality. There's nothing wrong with being the next Scotty 2 Hotty instead of the next Rock. WWE should want a strong midcard with acts like Sandow, Elias, and Zack Ryder.

and it's one of those things that feels like the WWE people heard some wrestlers, writers and fans referring to "midcard hell!" at some point and instead of... either A. ignoring it or B. make the midcard seem like a decent place to be...

they decided well then we shouldn't bother making the midcard seem important cause no one else does either...

but like not everyone is going to be the next Hogan... and even if everyone was 100% able to reach that level... you can't have a roster of Main Eventers.

There's only so many main event slots to go around... and hell Scotty 2 Hotty was basically employed by the company longer than like any of their "guys".

[Gremlin]

Sandow, Elias, Slater, and hell even Ziggler are the definition of baseball’s utility player. Great at the game but not a star player. Name one utility player that was a superstar. I say maybe Bert Campaneris. Then everyone says who?