10 Things In Wrestling That Can’t Be Taught
5. Adaptability
WWE’s version of character development is thus: if Performer X turns heel, Performer X must speak in a disingenuous cadence in order to patronise their opponents and the audience.
This is precisely the means with which Cass delivers promos in his guise as a singles star.
Making his entrance by feigning to lap up imagined applause, and only cutting promos with a tut and an eye roll once those disrespectful* fans will just simmer down, all seven feet of Big Cass, the character, is indistinguishable from Alexa Bliss and her five feet of mendacity.
*They aren’t disrespectful, nor do they emote in any way whatsoever, highlighting the artificiality of the act as much as its indistinct tedium.
Chris Jericho is a veritable agent of evolution. Sensing that his Y2J act was beyond stale in 2008, he repositioned himself as an “honest man”, debuting an almost Will Self-esque vocabulary designed to raise the ire of audiences. Over the years, he evolved from a man so superior that he didn’t have to talk, to a camp wonder who created a talking point from a clipboard.
Jericho was able to do this because he possesses much in the way of…