5. Cultural Compensation
Rick Rude arrived in the WWE at a time when society placed a premium on physical appearance: We wanted our superstars from the silver screen to the baseball diamond to the squared circle to be Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Rick Rude was all of those things, and he used them with genius to boast bombastically in crowds across the country, creating a true hatred for the man that hasn't been used with such artistry since. Until, that is, Damien Sandow. He has arrived on the scene on the tails of the Information Age, in a period when intellect and information are as highly valued by a good majority of us as good looks and appearances are. And similarly to "Ravishing" Rick Rude, he uses his apparent advantage to separate himself from, and to insult in ultimate fashion, every audience member in attendance. Sandow's character harkens back to an era when novelists like Hemingway made the mould for a Man of the World, using the mind for machismo as much as the body. It was a 1920s that saw men ruling the ring like the late Billy Sandow. Sandow questions our manhood not with his physique, like the "Sexiest Man Alive," but with his narration as a fustian scholar. And it makes us hate him all the more.