NoDQ.com > Columns > The Shooting Range: WWE Stars of Tomorrow #3 Posted by Michael Clancy on 11/13/2009 at 07:31 PM
The Shooting Range
WWE Stars of Tomorrow #3
In the third and final part of the Shooting Range’s look at the bright young stars of WWE who could potentially be the next Undertaker or Shawn Michaels this column will be looking at some of the recent talent on Smackdown to breakthrough onto the big stage.
Dolph Ziggler
Cast your mind back to Monday night Raw, December 1st 2008 and a young Dolph Ziggler, aka Nicky from the Spirit Squad was about to have his first singles match since adopting his new persona. It had been a rocky road for Ziggler leading up to that night, despite having enjoyed a lengthy tag title run with the Spirit Squad, the group had been routinely embarrassed, both inside the ring and out of it, by a new re-formed Degeneration-X which led to the group being shipped back to Ohio Valley Wrestling for further development in November 2006. Now some 2 years later Ziggler was back from the wilderness and ready for a new beginning on Raw but it wasn’t going to be easy; Kenny Dykstra, the only other Spirit Squad member to be given a singles push had just been released over on Smackdown, a fact that would not have gone unnoticed by Ziggler. By December 2008 things weren’t looking to great for Ziggler either, having made his first television appearance since his repackaging back in September, he had yet to have a match on Raw and was even suspended in October for violation of WWE’s Wellness Program policy. To make matters worse his in-ring debut was against none other than Batista. By being fed to The Animal, WWE seem set to crush in a matter of minutes what they had spent months building up in backstage segments that saw Ziggler introduce himself to members of the Raw roster. And yet something miraculous happened, Batista actually put over a member of the under-card roster. Admittedly Batista eventually won the match with an emphatic Batista Bomb but the match not only lasted longer than 2 minutes, a large portion of the match saw Ziggler get in some impressive and innovative offence; it suggested that there may be big things to come from this kid.
Fastforward almost a year and Ziggler has gone from strength to strength, his move to Smackdown in the supplementary draft seemed to make sense with the blue brand being a more fitting place for young talent to improve their craft whilst still getting good exposure. His in-ring ability and microphone work has undoubtedly benefitted from feuds with established talents such as Rey Mysterio and The Great Khali and in John Morrison he has found an evenly matched nemesis with whom he can have some classic encounters with. With so much going for Ziggler it would seem he is destined to one day hold the top gold in WWE, and yet despite the talent he possesses in the ring, there is something that puts him across as very flat, his gimmick.
The WWE Universe has seen the cocky heel gimmick for so long now that it is getting very difficult to bring something new to the angle. Ziggler’s gimmick has been done time and time again within the WWE, and is currently being done various members of all three rosters, and Ziggler’s problem is it has been done so much better than he is doing it. Superstars cannot simply play the arrogant bad guy and expect the audiences to boo every time, there has to be more to the character. There may be a ladies’ man angle in the gimmick somewhere but his relationship with Maria was so underplayed it pretty much slipped under the radar. At the moment Ziggler’s character resembles Randy Orton during his Evolution days but without the big names to back him up there isn’t much to get excited about.
This is not to say that there is no hope for Ziggler, he has undoubted skill in the ring and that is only going to improve the more TV time he gets on Smackdown. Some will argue his numerous Intercontinental Title losses have hurt his credibility and that he should be holding the belt, but John Morrison is at a stage in his career where it is more important for him to have an extended title run, it means Mr Ziggles will have to wait. In terms of credibility, the defeats have not been too detrimental to Ziggler’s push, each title match has made him seem like a genuine contender and if he continues progress, as well as tweaking his current gimmick, Ziggler will be holding gold in no time, both Intercontinental and beyond.
Eric Escobar
Escobar’s place in this article could be called into question after recent reports suggest that WWE management have been less than impressed with his Smackdown appearances to date and he has been sent back to Florida Championship Wrestling to improve. However the powers that be did see fit to put him on the original Team Smackdown for Bragging Rights and place him with one of the company’s top heels in Vicky Guerrero so they must see some promise in this youngster.
Like so many of the new talent in WWE at the moment, Escobar spent several years in Florida Championship Wrestling where he feature in matches with the likes of Sheamus, Drew McIntyre and Primo Colon. He saw his fair share of gold during his time in FCW, winning the tag titles with Primo no less than 3 times and even capturing the FCW Title. Having been on a WWE development contract since 2005 it seems like Escobar had paid his dues enough to earn a call to the main roster and that call came in September when he was introduced to the WWE Universe during the Tenth Anniversary of Smackdown celebrations as the new man in Vickie Guerrero’s life. In terms of exposure there are few things that will guarantee boo’s from the audience than being placed alongside Vickie Guerrero. And yet his debut match did nothing to suggest he was a long term prospect, winning in unconvincing fashion against Matt Hardy, the match was a dull affair with a sloppy finish which saw Escobar take advantage of a Vicky Guerrero distraction, earning him a place on Team Smackdown in the massive 14-man tag match at Bragging Rights. Having Escobar on Team Smackdown seemed like a massive mistake, realised by everyone at the time except for the WWE booking team. They did realise their error eventually however and in a dramatic U-turn switched out 5 members of Team Smackdown, replacing them with more established talent, a move that was embarrassing for pretty much everybody concerned. It is unfair to suggest that Escobar was the reason for having five members removed from the team but his presence clearly didn’t help fill the creative team with confidence in the build up to a big pay per view. The bottom line is Escobar was pushed too far too quickly, placed in a reasonably high profile role when he had yet to establish himself on WWE television. Having been absent from Smackdown these past few weeks it seems like interest in Escobar has cooled and it will probably mean another spell in FCW for the Puerto Rican superstar. At any rate it is unlikely that Escobar will be headlining Wrestlemania in the near future.
David Hart Smith & Tyson Kidd
In a time where the tag team division in WWE is overlooked and tag teams are often comprised of two singles competitor’s being thrown together because the creative team have nothing better for them to do, it is good to see that DH Smith and Tyson Kidd are staying true to the old school traditions of tag team wrestling. Dressing in similar clothing, having a team name and actually pulling of some traditional double team moves, The Hart Dynasty are a nod to the glory days of tag team wrestling. Their old school take on tag team wrestling is unsurprising considering both men have been raised in the old school traditions of the sport; DH Smith the son of the legendary British Bulldog, and Kidd a graduate from Stu Hart’s infamous wrestling dungeon. A great combination of size and speed, the two youngsters complement each other perfectly, a chemistry that has benefitted from years of working as a team in the development territories.
Despite being a tag team for some time, Smith and Kidd made their debuts on WWE television as solo performers; Smith first appearing on Raw in October 2007, whilst Kidd had to wait till February 2009 to make his in-ring debut on ECW. Kidd arguably made the bigger impact of the two, notching up a series of impressive wins on the extreme brand before DH Smith was brought in to ECW and along with Natalya Neidhart, The Hart Dynasty was officially born. With no other established tag teams on ECW the stables switch to Smackdown was predictable and since then they have spent the majority of their time feuding with Cryme Tyme, with mixed success. The Hart Dynasty’s biggest triumph to date is surely being part of Team Smackdown who were victories over Team Raw in the huge tag match at Bragging Rights, although their contribution in that match was minimum. For now there doesn’t seem much for the Dynasty to do on Smackdown, there are only so many times they can have a match with Cryme Tyme and expect the audience to be interested and as long as Jerishow hold the tag titles, it is unlikely Smith and Kidd are going to be in the title picture. Time is very much on the side of these two, as long as they can keep appearing on Smackdown each week, improving in the ring and gaining exposure, there is a very bright future ahead for these two. There is always the danger with a young talented tag team for WWE to split them up before they’re ready to fly solo, this would be disastrous for The Hart Dynasty; if they can stay together long enough to go on an extended run with the tag titles they could bring back some much needed importance to the division, who wouldn’t want to see a Hart Dynasty vs. Legacy match for the tag titles at some point in the future. In terms of their future solo careers it is impossible to predict what the future holds for these two, pessimist may say that Kidd is too small and DH Smith too generic to ever make a big impact in the WWE Title scene, but they have a load of potential and if they are kept together for some time they could be the start of a new golden age of tag team wrestling in WWE, and that would be a great achievement in itself.
This concludes The Shooting Ranges examination of the rising stars in WWE, part one and two of the series are still available to read in the nodq.com columns section. As ever lively discussion or general thoughts on this column are greatly appreciated at shootingrange69@aol.com. Until next time, peace and love.
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