I'm still a huge fan of Del Rio's in-ring work and ring psychology but it appears that the crowd couldn't care two cents about him if his life depended on it and I was wondering where did it go wrong? He was progressing nicely after his debut and I didn't mind him winning the Rumble. After he lost at Wrestlemania, he seemed to be in a funk until winning MITB. And we all know what happened once he cashed it in. Do you think things would have been better for him if he had won the title at Wrestlemania or that he waited to cash in the briefcase? Also, why don't they do more with his character when the opportunity is right there in front of our faces? He's rich. Use it more to his advantage by paying off guys to do his dirty work or bribing referees or something.
I feel like we've discussed this one a few times already, but yeah, I think he would have been 100x better off beating Edge at Wrestlemania to win the title instead of losing there and then losing to Christian and then losing to Cena and then losing to Punk. The original plan had been Del Rio winning the belt and then dropping it to Orton right away, however, so either way he was kind of boned.
And just ONCE I'd like to see him buy a better spot in the Royal Rumble ala Ted Dibiase.
If those were the best ideas they had for a Del Rio title win, and he was dropping the belt right away either way, why do it at all? Either push a guy as something special or push someone else. I'll never understand this company.
ReplyDeleteWhat really killed him was when they had him cash in MITB and win the title because WWE was touring Mexico... and then 3 weeks later he loses the belt to Cena because FUCK YOU INTERNET.
ReplyDeleteVictim of circumstance with Edge at 27 and the following feel good moment with Christian at Extreme Rules and it's all been downhill from there. In retrospect, they probably shouldn't have had him go and win MiTB and cash in so quickly. His little mini-feud before Survivor Series last year with Cena was terrible.
ReplyDeleteAs a wrestling fan though, who cares? Would you rather have Del Rio as a champion or what we've had in the last year with CM Punk?
Threadjack: SI.com has a piece up on Canada's greatest athletes. Iron Mike Sharpe is not on the list. :(
ReplyDelete2 problems with Del Rio right now: he's boring as all fucking hell, and he hasn't won once on PPV in 2012, including 3 straight losses to Sheamus and missing WM entirely (though I think he was hurt).
ReplyDeleteThreadjack: Developmental guys Chad Baxter and Lucas Di Leo were future endeavored today, who ever the hell they are... The post-election roster cuts begin!
I think Del Rio & R-Truth both got screwed over due to Punk's sudden ascent.. Del Rio is an ok worker but his character is boring as hell.
ReplyDeleteR-Truth was doing awesome leading to his feud with Cena which got aborted so quick because of Punk, then the dumb face turn and he's back to "what's up" except with little jimmy.
Del Rio was boring, uninteresting and a heat sink even before he won the Rumble. As far as I'm concerned it remains a waste of a Rumble win and I couldn't have been happier when he jerked the curtain at WM by jobbing because it was more than he deserved. As far as the MITB situation, it was a travesty because the E completely blew their mainstream media opportunity with Punk so that Del Rio could carry the belt on the Mexico tour, not because of any short shrift Del Rio got.
ReplyDelete(If it wasn't already obvious, I *really* don't like the guy... he's barely above Randall Q. Dumbfuck and Triple H during his Hulk Hogan Politician phase in my books.)
I think Del Rio could have recovered from the Edge and Christian feuds, but nothing killed his stock more than inserting him into the Summer of Punk angle. Poor guy just got completely exposed as a one-note character.
ReplyDeleteADR has never gotten to look dominant or powerful over anybody who matters. They didn't "drop the ball" they never picked the ball up.
ReplyDeleteDo a storyline where Riccardo turns face by swindling all of ADR's cash because he is sick of being mistreated by him. This leads to them facing each other 1 on 1. ADR doesn't take him seriously and gets upset then quits. Keep him off tv for 6 months or so and start running vignettes about how he went back to his roots and now lives in a small Mexican village where is family is from. Then bring him back as a face, a bad ass Mexican warrior type.
ReplyDelete*Better* idea. Everything you just said, except replace the last sentence with, "Then bring him back in a bullfighter costume as...El Matador!!!!"
ReplyDeleteIn this thread alone there have been a few great suggestions for ADR storylines that actually play off his character and his wealth, which sort of speaks to the problem --- it's remarkably easy to have a "rich guy heel" and yet WWE seems content to just do the absolute bare minimum with Del Rio's character. The reason Dibiase or JBL were so over was not just because they played the hell out of that role, but also because they actually acted like a rich guy would within the context of the pro wrestling world. They paid people off, they bought numbers in the Royal Rumble, they had groups of hired goons protecting them, they bought sympathetic faces (Virgil, HBK, etc.) and treated them like dirt to make the faces seem like underdogs, etc. Del Rio just comes out in his car and has Ricardo announce him, but besides that, he's a completely generic arrogant heel.
ReplyDeleteI dunno if WWE's refusal to get some real quality rich-guy angles for Del Rios going speaks to creative incompetence or due to backstage politics. We all know that Dos Caras is one of the few guys that actually has a bit of influence over what he's doing since he can leave WWE at any time for equally-green pastures in Mexico. It wouldn't surprise me if this makes the powers that be resentful and thus they 'punish' him (and thus also shoot themselves in the foot) by treating him like just another heel.
The answers's pretty simple. As soon as CM Punk dropped his "pipe bomb" on RAW, his dose of reality killed all interest in ADR's stereotypical act. Then when ADR won the title from him, fans shit all over it because it was the last thing they wanted to see. He hasn't recovered since. Why? Because NOT A DAMN THING has changed about the character in more than a year.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know he always was a face in Mexico. So why not turn him face against CM Punk? Or Big Show? Or Antonio Cesaro? Or Wade Barrett? We have SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many heels and on the face side not enough good wrestler.
ReplyDeleteHe was never going to be the marquee of the organization so they used the tried and true formula: build him up so beating him would mean something then use him to put over the top guys. He has expressly stated he doesn't know how much longer he wants to wrestle, so an all out push to the top is out.
ReplyDeleteyou might really be onto something here. a lot of us have the feeling that since Brock Lesnar's push and him leaving Vince doesn't want anybody to become really BIG. I can really envision Vince thinking that they can't build up someone like ADR being "above" most of the guys on the roster - because "what if he decides to leave?"
ReplyDeleteas Phrederic mentioned before, they didn't actually "drop the ball" with Del Rio. but they had something in R-Truth (and even, a few months later, in the team of R-Truth and The Miz) and didn't capitalize on it.
ReplyDeletejob creators!
ReplyDeleteOne of those guys and I think maybe both asked for their release.
ReplyDeleteUpvote, I was just thinking about this the other day. Using the Hogan method of building up a monster, they came up with something in R-Truth for a nothing PPV. The Punk thing cut off his momentum, and they tried to make him a comedy act, but still had enough cred to make Awesome Truth a legitimate threat. Remember how awesome that visual was of them closing the cell.
ReplyDeleteOf course, they never got a chance to get further heat on HHH (wonder why?) and then were later fed as planned to Rock/Cena. But building a mid-card guy as a threat for a month got them a guy for two PPV main events in 5 months.
beat me to it -- see my comments above. Upvote for you as well.
ReplyDeleteWell said. One of the things about the Attitude era, which gets missed when people focus on the sex & cursing, is the nuance that characters had. Stone Cold beat peoples' asses, but did with both intellegence and fury. Rock evolved from a smiling babyface to a guy who wanted to tell you about what was wrong with social security. Foley came across as a complex character with multiple aspects to his personality. Even the undercard had a little complexity (Steve Blackman, Al Snow, etc).
ReplyDeleteThe current era is littered with guys who are NOT complicated - Del Rio is one example - where their motivation is unclear or non-existant. Take a trashy storyline with Cena & A.J...other posters have pointed out that it doesn't make much sense why they'd cover up an affair...why does Vicky care? I don't read these books, but Twilight, Harry Potter, and Hunger Games illustrate that you can gear stories towards a kids audience and still draw adults by making the stories compelling and doing good character development. I've never sat on a "creative" team, but this just looks like poor storyboarding, no filters on bad ideas, and undeveloped or
one-dimensional characters with no depth.
Does anyone know what the reasoning was to having him lose to Edge at Mania 27? I mean, if they knew that was going to be Edge's last match then it makes absolutely no sense (screw the "career thank you" BS.). And if they didn't know that and planned on having Edge drop the belt at a later date, well, that still makes no sense. Del Rio has never really recovered from that loss.
ReplyDeleteDel Rio should have went over Edge and dominated the WHC scene on Raw for like half a year, before making a face in the same way JBL's long reign helped make John Cena. As much as the recent Sheamus-ADR feud may have bored people to tears, Del Rio dropping the WHC to a freshly turned Sheamus last year after a 6-month reign would have been a really cool pay-off.
It's so insane that Vince thinks that way, because the answer to "what happens if he decides to leave" is probably "absolutely nothing." Unless the wrestler can A) Dominate a legit fighting sport or B) Has the talent to become a movie star, how else are these stars burning Vince after they leave? TNA still isn't an option for top level ex-WWE stars, aside from the burn-outs like Jeff Hardy.
ReplyDeleteAnd if they do leave to become mega famous movie stars or UFC fighters, guess what? They'll make Vince 10x as much money down the road when they come back for Mania dream matches. My lord, he's just so nuts.
I think he's been pretty entertaining. I'm a fan of ADR. Imo people are mad he got booked to cash that mitb in at summerslam against punk.
ReplyDeleteIt's been said before but I'll say it again. ADR has done most of his best work on smackdown this year, and I don't think that many people watch it.
Yeah, the French guy did. Don't know why I left that out.
ReplyDeleteDel Rio needs to adopt Mil Mascaras' persona. Specifically, everything fake about Mascaras that people hated. He can kiss babies on his way to the ring, stand on his tippy toes, suck his stomach in, and pretend he's the greatest hero on god's green earth.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Truth get got sort of buried for fucking up a spot at Survivor Series or something?
ReplyDeleteYeah we've discussed this loads. Endless possibilities with such a character, yet they don't even try. Someone on this blog posted some brilliant ideas, like him starting up an El Cartel and being investigated for bribing officials etc
ReplyDeleteTruth had a wellness policy violation
ReplyDelete> I mean, if they knew that was going to be Edge's last match then it makes absolutely no sense
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing, WWE and Edge *didn't* know that it would be his last match. Edge didn't go get his back checked until after WM.
Twilight is about as one-dimensional as you can get.
ReplyDeleteThe rest are good examples though, even if Hunger Games is a blatant ripoff of Battle Royale.
I think the key to getting ADR over is Ricardo. Everyone loves Ricardo, so use him to get Del Rio over.
ReplyDeleteI'd have Ricardo begging ADR to form a tag team and finally have Del Rio relent and they actually move their way up the ranks and win the belts.
Or you could have ADR get jealous of Ricardo and fire him for some heel heat.
OR you have some other heels like 3MB go after Ricardo and ADR comes out and kicks their asses.
For me, what killed Alberto Del Rio was that he was very needlessly inserted into the incredibly awesome CM Punk/John Cena feud, and completely killed the chemistry and flow of the characters and story. John Cena and CM Punk (and even Triple H) felt like real people talking about real matters who had a real issue with one another. Then Alberto Del Rio comes in, and he's so clearly playing a character. And while Punk and Cena's promos felt real, ADR's came across as a guy reciting lines, repeating the word "destiny" over and over again. And then from there, the Punk/Cena storyline was splintered into two significantly less interesting stories (Punk/Triple H and Cena/ADR). After that point, I couldn't get into him.
ReplyDeleteIt's usually brought a lot here about how fans want to cheer/are begging to cheer someone but can't because he's heel or whatever, I'd put Ricardo in that group.
ReplyDelete