Rhino is never going to be taken seriously is he?

[Trent Valentine]

I feel like I've given up on The War Machine. It seems he just can't catch a break in TNA. I mean sure he won the TNA Title, but he only held it for like a Cup of Coffee before having meaningless feuds with mid carders who haven't done a damn thing in a long time.

Then they decide..hey, lets play off an angle involving his real life problems with Alcohol, sticking him in a pointless feud with James Storm which had Storm mock Rhino's drinking problem at every turn...even pouring a beer on his unconscious corpse. In all my years of watching wrestling, one thing I learned is that Alcoholism angles never work. It did nothing for Rhino nor Storm.

After teaming with Christian, he vanished and then resurfaced as a babysitter for some (kayfabe) green rookie(Jesse Neal) who f***ed up so many times it caused Rhino to lose his s*** and gore him into next week...which lead to him jobbing to Bobby Lashley. After that he feuded with Team 3D and later joined them along with Jesse Neal to teach the young punks of TNA (Hernandez, Morgan, The Pope and Suicide.) A lesson. It looked like to be a good angle too, the veterans are insecure about these guys taking their place and pushing them out. Course..when that ended, he did nothing.

Which brings us to today. The EV.2 Angle. Rhino had the chance to stand up for his blood brothers against Abyss and once again he gets trampled.

Lets face it...Rhino is never going to be a main event player. He should be in high profile matches like Hardy, Anderson, Pope, Angle, Styles and others are. But its like he's never going to reach the glass ceiling. What is it that he's lacking? Will he ever reach for the brass ring?..or remain as fodder?

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

Here's the thing about Rhino: Without Paul Heyman booking him like a beast to cover for his obvious weaknesses in the ring and in the personality department, it's REALLY hard to take him seriously at all. He's a good hand to have around, but he's not the main eventer that ECW managed to make him seem like. That was purely the result of Heyman knowing how to book his guys to the best of their potential.

[The Genesis of KoOS]

I hope not, he's horrible.

[Deleted]

The guy works as the muscle for someone else, but not as a stand alone guy.

Master Blaster!

[MolotovMocktail]

They keep trying him as a face, and it never works.

[Andrew is Good]

I like Rhino, and I think that, TNA has a bad problem with, ok, now he's heel, oh wait, now we need him babyface. It's been worse since Hogan has arrived, and it really takes the steam out of a guy. Eric Young is the perfect example who's TNA career is pretty much over, because they turned him so many times that now he's dizzy and having no real direction to go. Rhino I think had that problem. Team 3D have been horribly misused since the new regime, by turning the recently turned heel team (they went with Rhino about a month or two before the new regime) and now, oh, Hogan thinks the Nasty Boys will have good matches with Team 3D, let's forget anything that happened beforehand, and turn them babyface (Hogan did say that he thought the Nastys and 3D would have good matches on RVD's radio show).

But, with Rhino, it does seem like it's been his whole TNA career. I think with bringing in a new title, it gives him something more to compete for. I also think Dixie likes him. When it came out Dixie didn't want to release some people when there were rumours people were going to be released in masses, Rhino was one of the people I was thinking Dixie wanted to keep, as he turned down a WWE contract to stay with TNA when the new ECW started.

I don't agree that Rhino got trampled. I mean, you have to make the monster look strong, which TNA has a hard time doing, but it's smart to have Abyss go over.

[Ian Austin]

His feud with Christian was a TNA highlight.

[golding]

Within a week of each other we have "I thought Abyss was supposed to be a monster?" and "Why is Rhyno getting trampled by Abyss?" Sometimes TNA just can't win with some people.

[Trent Valentine]

Sept 9, 2010 22:44:05 GMT -5 golding said:

Within a week of each other we have "I thought Abyss was supposed to be a monster?" and "Why is Rhyno getting trampled by Abyss?" Sometimes TNA just can't win with some people.

Abyss has been used in major angles over the years (despite how daft they are.) and is on TV every week squashing a hapless victim, looking like a monster.

Rhino is usually used to put over guys like Bobby Lashley and Kurt Angle (During that frontline v.s MEM scenario.) Rhino has been misused ever since he lost the title and deserves better than he's getting now.

[zeez]

I like Rhyno but he's never shown the kind of charisma that would make me want to build a company around him. He's a nice midcard talent and maybe as an occasional title challenger but I don't see him being the top of the heap ever.

No offense to Rhyno. I still love seeing people get gore'd. Cracks me up.

[Lenny: Smooth like Keith Stone]

I think they should make a Detroit themed stable with the Machine Guns as the main competitors, and Rhyno would be their bodyguard/enforcer. Throw Nash in as their crafty veteran.

I mean TNA is basically "Gang Warz 2010" as it is right now... might as well toss the Detroiters a bone.

[Shameful_Lobsterhead]

Rhino's best feud in TNA.... -Against Christian
Rhino's best matches in TNA... -Street Fight against Christian


Without Rhino feuding with Christian, he really has nothing to do imo.

[Handsome Halfbreed]

I don't think Rhino ever recovered to form after his neck sergery many years ago. Not that he never physically recovered properly... just he never got any traction as a dominant singles atraction as the man beast or war machine. Rhino in TNA reminds me of Scott Norton's wCw run. Jim Cornette says it best: All the pieces are there but the picture on the cover of the box isn't pretty enough to bother putting it all together.

[captaineasychord]

Rhino was one of the few guys to come out of ECW with any real heat left. Taz got cut off at the legs, so to speak, Mike Awesome got humiliated and jobbed out in record time, and RVD was getting acquainted with the glass ceiling in WWE. When "Rhyno" came to WWE, he had the advantage of his biggest advocate Paul E. being a booker, so he was more or less allowed to be "The Man Beast" - or as close as they could get within WWE's well-established limitations.

Jobbing to a plant is a fairly ignominious way to lose any job, but luckily, he's a wrestler, so such behavior is as close to normal as it could ever be. When TNA brought him in, he found a way to get some heat back, until TNA (read: Jarrett) made one of the most selfish and counter-productive decisions in company history, then or since.

If I recall, Nash opted to fake another heart attack or alien abduction to get out of jobbing on a PPV, which is always a blessing in disguise, and never more true than at this time. So at the PPV, they have Rhino, who is already in some kind of Russo-special Monster's Ball or what not, clean house in that match, persevere through some shitty multi-man #1 contender gauntlet, and lay a clubberin' on Jarrett to the crowd's rapturous delight. TNA had done the impossible and managed to truly get someone over as a bad-ass in the span of one night, only to crush him at the nearest opportunity and give Jarrett his binky back on a primetime Impact special the very next week. As Bones said to Kirk, "He's f***in' dead, there, Jimbo" or something to that effect.

Then they get another golden opportunity with the horror that was to be WWECW soon to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public, and Rhino (as the Unified ECW champ at the original company's closing) buries this notion as the act of necrophilia it was (and still is - /looks at Tommy Dreamer and shrugs/). But as we all know, it was much ado about nothing and went away like everything else without serving any purpose.

When the feud with Christian wasn't completely exploitative and demeaning, the matches were pretty decent, but mid-card matches in TNA mean about as much as preseason NFL. Since then, I almost feel silly for being a serious mark for Rhino during the height of his ECW run. Every now and again, if I pull out any circa-2000 ECW, I'm still blown away by the work he did with the Sandman, and it's a damn shame that Paul never got to have the big money RVD/Rhino match he should have, but c'est la vie.

[nerdinitupagain]

The failures of most ECW wrestlers post-ECW is a testament to how amazing Paul was at hiding their flaws. Rhino has a lot of them in the fact he's an extremely one dimensional character.

[Urethra Franklin]

Maybe if he shouted louder during promos, people would hear him.

[Deleted]

IMO Rhino needs that ECW freedom he'll never get again. He can't really talk so he has to get it done on the backs of angry curse words and smack talk. He does intensity well, he just doesn't ever need to be waxing philosophical about anything.

Rhino is not a wrestler who should come out and tell you how displeased he is with what happened last week. Rhino is a wrestler that should come out there, tell whoever is in the ring to go f*** themselves, then drop the hammer.

[Mozenrath]

Sept 11, 2010 15:11:08 GMT -5 Handsome Halfbreed said:

I don't think Rhino ever recovered to form after his neck sergery many years ago. Not that he never physically recovered properly... just he never got any traction as a dominant singles atraction as the man beast or war machine. Rhino in TNA reminds me of Scott Norton's wCw run. Jim Cornette says it best: All the pieces are there but the picture on the cover of the box isn't pretty enough to bother putting it all together.

I agree with you. After all, think of how red hot he was in WWE before his neck got hurt. They were pushing the hell out of him, and he was in probably the best shape of his career.

I loved him with Edge and Christian as their crazy backup. Went something like this when he decided for some reason to leave the arena with them while still in his ring gear.
"Hey Rhyno, you going to get dressed before we leave?"
"Hehhhh hehhhh let's go!"