10 Awesome Things You Don't Remember About WWE's Ruthless Aggression Era
9. The Devil You Know
When WWE relaunched ECW as their C-branded show on SyFy in June 2006, they had to work with the remit of the channel the show was on, and duly created a vampire character to satisfy that outlandish genre fetish.
Well, given that WWE has made a megastar out of a giant undead zombie wizard for a quarter of a century now, its not as odd a decision as youd think.
Accompanying Kevin Thorn (aka Kevin Fertig, the former Mordecai from SmackDown in 2004) was his valet Ariel, supposedly a vampire tarot reader. The two would pair up on ECW for a year until Ariels release in July 2007, which came about due to a backstage misunderstanding with Batista.
What a waste of talent this was, given the real-life Shelly Martinez commitment to the role shed been handed.
To get Thorn over, Martinez displayed a focus on the Ariel character that bordered on method acting. Given that outré wrestling gimmicks like theirs require nothing less than Undertaker/Kane levels of complete investment to pull them off, she was instrumental in providing the charisma-free Fertig with colour and depth.
He had the tendency to look like a giant sulky child instead of an intimidating, dread vampire lord, which would have been a kayfabe-killer had Ariel not stepped up her game.
Indeed, it can be argued that prior to her release, Ariel was more over than Thorn was, and she wasnt shy about getting her hands dirty, either, throwing herself into every aspect of a heel managers job with gusto.
WWE are constantly looking for stars that attract the lucrative Hispanic demographic, so its hard not to see this as a missed opportunity on the WWEs part. Had the company not chosen to back Big Dave over Shelly Martinez in a he-said-she-said nine years ago, who knows where her career might be now?
Remember, this is how Trish Stratus started, and shes now a record-setting Women's Champion, a wrestling icon and a WWE Hall Of Famer.