10 Specific Ways WWE Stars Can Recover From Awful Booking

9. Bobby Lashley

Charlotte Flair Upset
WWE.com

Roman Reigns isn't working out as the company's top babyface, likely because he is the company's top heel.

Lucky there's a Family Guy!

Yes, in order to engineer cheers on Bobby Lashley's behalf, WWE attempted the sit-down interview route that famously allowed Mick 'Mankind' Foley to connect with WWF crowds. Hilariously, said sit-down interview was considerably creepier than any of the old Mankind vignettes, in which the character was framed as a tormented cellar-dwelling psychopath with rats for mates. Lashley described a harrowing childhood in which his three sisters left him for dead in the woods with an uneasy smile that suggested he had killed and eaten them in retaliation.

The methodology is simple here: do not depict your new leading man as a horror movie villain. Alternatively, reinforce his selling point as a massive man capable of doling out major punishment by doling out major punishment to the outer reaches of the RAW roster, crucially, in the heel role, as a subverted bully version of Braun Strowman as a means of setting the two behemoths on a collision course.

Lashley, and there's no less blunt way of stating this, is f*cking weird - and with steep competition in the big bathturd babyface stakes, any face run, much less this face run, is a complete non-starter.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!