10 Candidates For WWE’s Next Bizarre Push
Who will be this year's Jinder Mahal?
In recent years, a very strange and f*cking tedious trend has emerged in WWE: post-WrestleMania season, the promotion, scrambling to fill TV time in the absence of the departing part-time roster, decides to play a game of pin the push on the jobber.
In 2013, Curtis Axel earned a push for the plaudits he received readying Brock Lesnar and The Rock ahead of their returns to the squared circle. Axel was altogether less successful, failing to transmit any serious personality. He fared better as a dope. Three years later, WWE decided to Make Darren Young Great Again, inviting the obvious ironic criticisms WWE had to be blind to not see coming. Fans took a hard pass.
In 2017, Vince McMahon, engorged by the sight of Jinder Mahal's engorged veins and intent on monetising the WWE Network in India, antagonised fans by pushing the plodding Jinder Mahal as WWE Heavyweight Champion. This, despite low broadband speeds prohibiting a culture of streaming services. Also, WWE pay-per-views are shown as part of the company's TV deal with Ten Sports. Also, the Indian fandom didn't even perceive him as a star before or after he shocked and flummoxed the world. Weird. Really weird. And boring.
The WrestleMania 34 card, again, is dominated by acts we won't see in May: Brock Lesnar, Triple H, The Undertaker, John Cena...
...there is a void to fill and, bizarrely, WWE tends to fill it with filler...
10. Titus O'Neil
Titus O'Neil is very well-liked...
...by the WWE office but, Adam Wilbourn excepted, not by the fans. Which makes him the ideal candidate!
Titus comes across as a chap impossible not to admire, and thus difficult to criticise. An ultra-dedicated charity worker and doting dad, he is, nonetheless, not...very...good...in the ring...at all. Nothing about his offensive repertoire belongs in this century. He's slow and uncoordinated. His work isn't believable, undermining his menacing heel character in 2014, nor engaging, undermining his jovial babyface character in 2018. One facial expression apiece - grunting/beaming - underscores that he is a one-dimensional performer.
Nonetheless, WWE tends to stumble ar*e-backwards into various PR furores in 2018; from naming the Women's WrestleMania Battle Royal after the Fabulous Moolah to blotting the Women's Revolution by accepting Saudi Arabian money, the company has learned that PR ain't easy, which might result in a PR-friendly singles push for a man spotty in the ring but spotless outside of it. If it does happen, it won't work.
Dave Meltzer said it best: "Titus isn't that good, but he's got a good look, and he's tall, and he goes ur-ur-urh."