10 Wrestlers Fans Have No Idea What They're Truly Capable Of
5. Keith Lee
The fate of Keith Lee is parody at this point. Total, deadening parody.
Again: if you were to have forecast the inevitable reality, when Lee defeated Randy Orton at Payback last year, you'd have taken a kicking. Lee had just emphatically, cleanly and swiftly defeated a major WWE star. But the signs were there already: he had to cover up what was perceived as a not particularly telegenic physique, and the result was more reassuring than the performance. Lee's power game was stripped back. He did not, conspicuously, rattle Orton with his jaw-dropping moonsault.
Cynical whispers suggested very soon after that Bruce Prichard - with one carny glance cast towards the throne - thought that Lee didn't how to work. This is something that, bullsh*t or not, probably should have been determined before he defeated one of the most decorated acts in company history in six minutes.
Keith Lee has since been instructed to work like a big man, which is just woefully counterintuitive. He got over precisely because he's better than a generic hoss. He is capable of hurling that awesome frame of his at an excitingly impossible speed and exploding into incredible aerial feats. The juxtaposition is, or was, amazing, and Lee's amiable disposition meant that it wasn't just an athletic novelty. Fans connected with him.
He growls and works like a vaguely updated Big Show now. Cool.
Cool cool cool.