Originally Posted by Tom Guycott
In all honesty, though, that is the problem. *He* needed to hit a home run right then, and because he didn't his self made momentum gets quashed? Contrasted to, say, Jeff Hardy, who's promos while he was getting his initial WHC pushe were initially cringeworthy? Or how about the obvious shit promo Reigns is for the most part (improving, but still). Didn't stop him.
I'm reminded of a couple different things here. Is is a paraphrase from CM Punk (because I don't remember the exact quote, so I will generically use Cena as the first example) where he says PPV buyrate is down from a Cena* headlined show has all sorts of excuses, but the next PPV being down, with no Cena*, and its "the fault of Miz and R-Truth".
Second is Mick Foley's story about the "return of Cactus Jack", where basically HHH's expression sold the deal. "All I was doing was revealing a t-shirt. If he would have laughed it off, it would have been dead in the water. Instead, he sold it like he saw a ghost." If Hunter shrugged that moment off, it would have not only killed exitement with fans, but oddly somehow been Mick's fault it didn't get over?
He got blamed for being a bad promo, instead of being given room to improve (think of how far everyone's favorite photoshop, David Otunga stepped up on the mic. He went from gawdawful to going around giving school lectures on bullying). Ryder was basically given the laugh reaction to the Cactus Jack shirt.
Let's look at Ascention (yes, I'm still on topic). They were booked in NXT to be a tag team force to be reconed with. On their call up, they get the pseudo-LoD overhaul, and claim to be better than tag teams they have never (or in some cases could ever) face. The squash a few job teams, esentially getting a tag team version of Ryback's booking... but are continually bashed on commentary for doing so, as opposed to when Ryback did it, he was put over. Then, they get jumped by a bunch of "legends" teams. They also cut shit promos, even the canned ones. The promoing is their bad, but getting their nuts cut off from the booth and going from world beaters to buffoons who barely beat an "over the hill" New Age Outlaws isnt exactly how you go about establishing these guys as the future... especially when that win didn't lead anywhere. The only thing here that is the fault of Konnor and Viktor is that they aren't that good on the stick. For that, they should get a mouthpiece or more practice. But all the rest of that is not in their control. It could have, and still could be handled better.
Zack giving a shitty promo (such as it was, even) shouldn't have doomed him from the world forever, especially when people got more opportunity from worse.
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