10. Imitation Is Not The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
Every once in a while, WWE seems to stumble upon gold and is able to turn it into something totally priceless. Other times, they trip over a gem and manage to muddy it up. Thats what has happened with Curtis Axel and Damien Sandow, better known today as Axelmania and Macho Mandow. Sandows story is well-known and will be recounted later, as he finally broke free of the Miz but still thinks that impersonating others is the way to go. WWE had an opportunity to make a star out of that angle and blew it big time. Axel, by comparison, was the hapless guy who was attacked coming down the entrance ramp at the Royal Rumble and never technically entered the match. That didnt stop him from claiming that he had the all-time record for longest Rumble and should be going to WrestleMania. He started chanting Axelmania, and fans actually responded. For the first time in eons, Axel was somewhat interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsuWP7q-mQ But instead of building off of that, WWE chose to have Axel become delusional and start aping Hulk Hogans act, right down to the mustache and shirt-ripping gimmick. Sandow then took on Savages persona, giving us the Mega Powers 2.0. Its not funny, not entertaining and is doing absolutely nothing to help either man, as they havent had a match on Raw or Smackdown in nearly two months.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
