10 Reasons WWE Is Incapable Of Creating New Main Event Stars
1. The Talents Themselves
Kevin Owens is an electric performer. He's totally believable. Everything he does looks like it hurts. He's astonishingly agile. His tense, passive aggressive promo style is something wrestling hasn't seen before.
And yet, an argument can be made that he is his own worst enemy. His offence is too flashy to truly despise, and too ineffective to position himself as the monster he is intended to be. His frog splash is spectacular, and logic dictates that it should be devastating, but it never puts anybody way. It almost embodies his self-imposed limitations as a performer.
What is infuriating is that Owens has mastered the space between moves. He has an inherent knack for drawing heat, even during rest holds. His mimicry of his opponent's crowd appeals is loathsome. When he revs up to deliver a move, only to roll out of the ring or deliver a pithy kick, he demonstrates a near peerless ability to raise the ire of crowds through intentional anticlimax. It's as if he turns down the volume right before the chorus kicks in. There's so much to hate about Owens - but he often cannot stop himself from seeking face pops. He's an imperfect perfect heel.
Owens is far from the only WWE performer with a propensity for overkill. That might just be the nature of the modern, content-stuffed wrestling beast - but Goldberg is received as a superstar, and he only does two moves.
There's surely a lesson in there somewhere.