10 Precise Moments Wrestling Fans Rejected Internet Darlings
4. Ricochet - WWE Raw, January 20, 2020
Ricochet's act was practically engineered to get over in front of a specific audience.
Incredible aerials, kick pads, that bit in the match where does a pose so you know when to applaud. That's a snarky, reductive look at his genuine in-ring excellence, but it simply means that even on autopilot he could generate noise - which is just as well, since he works for WWE.
NXT wasn't so much developmental but an exercise in deluded procrastination for the world-class workrate guys of the late 2010s. They knew they were f*cked one day, if they had a brain in their head. What was Vince McMahon going to do: watch a shooting star press and experience an existential crisis under the belief that everything he thought he knew about wrestling promotion was wrong?
No.
He was going to watch that shooting star press and say "Slow down, it is too exhilarating".
Ricochet is a decent promo rendered abysmal by WWE's scripting, more so than normal, and his career all but died - until he leaves, anyway - on the January 20, 2020 Raw. He interrupted Brock Lesnar and claimed he wasn't afraid of him. Then, in a terribly unconvincing line poorly delivered, he asked Lesnar if he was scared. Lesnar kicked him in the balls, and Ricochet could not have looked like more of a f*cking geek.
Actually, that isn't true - he lost to Brock in 90 seconds at Super Show-Down - but by that point, fans had lost such faith in Ricochet that nobody expected the annual David Vs. Goliath "Brock can actually go" match.