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Alberto

Hey Scott,
 
I'm watching Lucha Underground and wondering if I'm crazy for thinking Alberto Del Rio/El Patron is the biggest of WWE's many missed opportunities of the past few years. As desperate as they are to find a Latino star who connects with the audience like Eddie Guerrero or Rey Mysterio, isn't Alberto the perfect guy? He's big, he doesn't wear a mask, he speaks English, he has a legit background, and he can work. Instead of the Mexican Million Dollar Man, shouldn't he have been the Mexican Kurt Angle?

Also, is there any reason why the WWE never took a serious look at Hernandez?

​Yeah, I don't know the deal with Hernandez, you'd think he would be perfect for them.  Alberto was just a case of them taking a guy who didn't need tweaking and forcing him into a style he wasn't comfortable with.  In the pre-PG era days, he would have been just like a Ted Dibiase, who came in fresh and worked his own style.  But hey, clearly they're all geniuses, so what do we know?  ​

Comments

  1. Hernandez looks pretty terrible in Lucha Underground. Like somebody strapped him into that machine from Princess Bride and cranked it up.

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  2. Mexican Kurt Angle would have worked so much better with his moveset.


    It was always kinda weird seeing a guy with the JBL/Dibiase chickenshit heel character busting out a rolling cross armbreaker as his finish.

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  3. Del Rio was a guy they seemingly gave plenty of chances to and pushed him right up the card but he just couldn't connect. If found him boring as hell. Shelton Benjamin is still the missed opportunity guy I always thought. Still not sure how he never became a start that's still in the main event scene today

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  4. I would have thrown money at the WWE to see him feud with HBK after their RAW match.


    I think he was butchered by creative giving him stupid characters.

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  5. Hernandez is 42 so that ship has sailed. They should have snatched him up for developmental in 2003 when RoH was doing nothing with him.

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  6. Idk, I love the Mexican Million Dollar Man character. There's something about it that connects with me. Obviously WWE made the character completely fake and unbelievable, so I don't blame ADR.

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  7. Del Rio was just the most boring guy. So incredibly bland both as a heel and face.

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  8. I know most people didn't like him as a face but that's where I began to appreciate him. He wasn't the most exciting face but he played it well. I think they missed the boat on him. They made him a generic heel who we're just supposed to hate because he supposedly has a lot of money that doesn't come into play outside of his car collection which they had to point out were rented anyway.

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  9. Shelton couldn't talk and didn't show a whole lot of personality. I always thought the MVP character would have worked for him - have him play the spoiled but talented athlete and give him an agent character as his mouth piece.

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  10. Mexican Million Dollar Man was a fine gimmick. The problem is that he was a rich heel who never did any rich guy stuff and wasn't allowed to act like a heel.

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  11. It is interesting in that these guys are much better when they are given freedom to be themselves or come up with what they want. Del Rio is good, the machine just forces them into this generic bland people.

    That E:60 show made Xavier Woods, Adam Rose, and Corey Graves into better characters than WWE did.

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  12. I have no idea how TNA didn't see anything huge in Hernandez and push him to the moon instead repeatedly trying to make Matt Morgan happen.

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  13. Alberto El Patron is one of my favorite wrestlers right now,but I'm hugely biased towards Lucha libre.

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  14. I think a lot of his current popularity and wave of good will he's riding is from the amount of ill will toward WWE. He left on bad terms and exposed a lot of their internal craziness; not quite on the scale that Punk did but it made people respect him more.


    He was basically another Miz "Guy who won the title who never will again and wrestles on Superstars" dude when he left.

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  15. Shelton was killed by the fact that the WWE wants everybody to be a character instead of letting them find one. People popped for his ring work.


    Honestly I think it came at a time where none of the main eventers wanted to be showed up in the ring that much. Triple H was in the middle of his Indian Deathlock/Sleeper Hold phase before he started getting good again after his late 07 return.

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  16. Neither can Randy Orton but he's been clogging up TV time for 12 years.

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  17. They should've just gone all in and called him the Mexican Million Dollar man. Even do the theme song in Spanish. That might have made him interesting

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  18. I hated face Del Rio in WWE but he seems a lot more lively from the one clip I've seen of him on Lucha. Loved heel Del Rio in his series with Ziggler but as mentioned below they did absolutely nothing with a character who had so much potential. I don't think he ever paid off a single referee or tried to bribe his way into a title match or anything? Shocking for a Million Dollar Man gimmick

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  19. Disagree, it would have made him a cartoon, a gimmick that would've lasted 3 weeks.

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  20. Orton has cut way better promos than Shelton ever did.

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  21. Ted was a big time technical wrestler and used a unique submission move as a finish....

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  22. I may have been the only person who preferred face Del Rio. He was woefully repetitive and generic as a heel. His face run was the only time he seemed fresh and seemed interesting.

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  23. It was the opposite for me, I found him generic as a face but as a heel he was really vicious and pissed off in the ring which I liked. Either way, they didn't make the most of him

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  24. The problem with face Del Rio is they took away his cars and fancy suits and made him cut these cheesy generic promos like Cena does. He became seriously uncool.

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  25. I always wished they had given him Teddy Long as a mouthpiece with the whole "I'm being held back" gimmick. It didn't work for Rodney Mack, but with Shelton, suddenly it has weight - clearly the guy's impossibly athletic, he's got a legit wrestling background, and people had no trouble buying him as a higher mid-card guy when he was holding the IC Title. Calling him the best and claiming he's had no fair chance to prove it makes sense, which makes it a great heel complaint.

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  26. I never saw Dibiase as a chickenshit. He was a guy who could win on skill, but chose the easier path when he could, because he had resources others didn't.

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  27. Disagree - he's dull as dishwater and the crowd looks like they're asleep when he's talking. Either way though, Orton isn't exactly a no-brainer, they can't afford to lose type of a guy. Shelton had such good in-ring presence, timing and ability I can't believe they never made it work.

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  28. I thought ADR's character was boring no matter what. He was the Mexican Million Dollar Man, without doing any of the stuff that made DiBiase's character great. He was just a dude who wrestled well and did a good job appearing mean and rough, and had 'rich' props along with a ring announcer that got more popular than him, none of this mixed well. And then as a face, ugh.


    It's a shame because I think Alberto's a very good worker that they could have made a huge star with.

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  29. Re: Hernandez

    The reason why wwe never gave him a real shot is.
    1. He was already too old.
    2. And too fucking green to push a single.

    Oh... and he can't talk.

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  30. Big fan of ADR either face or heel.

    I like wrestlers who are technically sound, it changes tge pace of highspot, highspot finish.

    Thats why I like orton

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  31. I really didn't mind ADR when he turned face. Maybe it's because he turned the same time the Miz did and I'm comparing him to that awful experiment.

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  32. He's fucking dangerous, too.

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  33. When ADR was simply rich mexican badass beating down Big Show in a parking lot, I was all aboard. When he became the mexican Jim Duggan I tuned out.

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  34. And yet they have Ryback and he fits all that criteria.

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  35. He had sweetass music and those cars were awesome. He just needed to actually be a heel.

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  36. Hernandez is like 10 years older than him, but other than that agreed

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  37. music was great, his first theme. No surprise since it was Jim Johnston theme, really reminded me of a nice classic kind of theme.

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  38. like they do with every cool heel when they turn face, they never learn

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  39. "[...] which they had to point out were rented anyway."

    which was the stupidest thing about it. if they wanted to do that "mexican aristocrat" thing, commit to it!

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  40. The Miz is underrated as well. he might not be a "main eventer" but he is a more than solid heel.

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  41. I think it was particularly surprising with Adam Rose.

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  42. outing myself as someone who likes to think up fantasy booking, that's exactly the character I came up for him. refering to himself as "The Perfect Ten" and being managed by Paul Heyman (which to me makes sense because the latter presents himself like an "agent").

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