20 Incredible WWE Ruthless Aggression Era Moments Nobody Ever Talks About
19. Velocity Going Nuts
While the main roster was infested during Ruthless Aggression with some of the worst, greenest, most generic developmental atrocities you'll ever see - most of them were too bland to even be perversely entertaining - WWE did very, very gently flirt with the stylistic revolution on the nascent independent circuit.
They signed Paul London, a fantastic, now severely underrated wrestler. He was super-talented, but also handsome and telegenic and thus, in the eyes of WWE and its soapy approach, more marketable than the rest. They still stuck him on C-show Velocity and had him feud with Akio for ages.
WWE did not care about those matches, and possibly thought they hadn't booked half of them already, but the wrestlers did. They worked in vain, but treated every last one as an opportunity.
Hyper-sonic aerial battles worked at a pace so blistering you could scarcely believe they were held under the WWE banner, the series wasn't just an exhibition of movez. A lot of thought went into it. In one match, Akio caught a London kick and sent him flying with a backflip. Usually, this counter only happens to allow the opponent to land on their feet and mount another attack. It's athletically impressive, but contrived.
This was an actual attack; London bumped legs-first on the ropes and then on his head with a horrific (awesome) corkscrew motion.
More wrestlers should apply this level of intent to their work.
- MS