10 Things I Hate About WWE Champion Dean Ambrose
8. He’s A Wackadoodle
It’s a common complaint, but the WWE’s official line on Ambrose as the ‘Lunatic Fringe’ tends to fluctuate uncontrollably between the extremes of ‘lethally unpredictable wild card’ (which, again, they can’t really get into on a PG show) to ‘wacky cartoon character’.
It’s the difference between a ‘wild and crazy guy’ like Al Pacino in Scarface, and a ‘wild and crazy guy’ like Steve Martin in The Jerk. Or, you know… the difference between ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, and Al Snow.
There is, of course, a place for comedy characters in wrestling, and credible, badass performers as varied as Kurt Angle, Triple H and Austin himself have all performed in the WWE’s version of comic segments. Some of them have even been funny.
However, Ambrose leaps between ‘Lunatic Fringe’ and ‘Looney Tunes’ so often and so pointlessly that it badly affects the integrity of the character. It’s difficult to know how we’re supposed to be reacting to him from week to the next.
Right now, as WWE World Champion, he occupies a position of prestige on the Smackdown Live brand, such as it is. As it stands, there’s mileage in him appearing to be dangerous. However, at any given moment he could flick the switch and turn back into Bugs Bunny again, pushing the kind of childish slapstick humour that Vince McMahon finds amusing.