INSANE Wrestling Fan Backlashes You Didn't See Coming
4. The Fans Turn On Jack Perry
In the age of relentless episodic TV, there can be no such thing as a Ricky Steamboat: a career babyface so endearing, skilled and authentic that fans could never bring themselves to grow resentful of them. It all - as the point has been made elsewhere - just gets too boring and familiar.
Still, if there were ever a candidate for the role, that talent's name was Jack Perry.
As Jungle Boy, Perry was such a fantastic and exciting underdog babyface. He was superb at wrestling in the long-form; in an arc not unlike that of a Young Lion, he showed more spirit and endurance with each in-ring outing. Showing and not telling, Jungle Boy's fictional story was easy to get behind (as was his tragic backstory). He was almost there; he just needed your belief (and a killer entrance theme) to make it.
He was very handsome - which as Shawn Michaels well knows, can work against a babyface - but he was also scrawny. The idea of watching him mature with a ground-floor investment was a uniquely compelling device for mainstream US wrestling, which under WWE's chokehold was impossible, unless you fancied going to watch Deep South.
The thing is, nobody took his evolution into a badass seriously, and this posturing was his undoing. And, when he was finally granted significant promo time, he cut a sarcastic, aloof figure, which repelled crowds and drove his heel turn.
Actually, the modern day Ricky Steamboat actually does exist.
And yet...