Bobby Roode has been one of the most over guys in TNA Wrestling, but it didn’t start when he became the leader of the ‘selfish generation.’ The man ranked number two on this month’s WZ Depth Chart has been one of the best parts of Impact since last year’s Bound For Glory Series began last summer. Enough has been said about what should have happened at the end of that tournament, and Roode should have beaten Kurt Angle and slowly turned on James Storm. Hulk Hogan said Roode was not ready, but he won the title a few short weeks later and went on to feud with AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy. We missed out on a few months of Storm and Roode when they hot shotted the whole thing, and it looks like we will get the payoff at Lockdown, but I am not about to give the writers all of the credit. Roode has done everything right to get over with the crowd and he gets them to despise him more than anyone else. The thing with Roode though, is that he has had that type of character all along he is just getting the big stage to show it now.
Roode started out as a part of Team Canada, and while I started watching TNA towards the end of that angle, it was one of my favorite parts of their show. Jim Cornette disbanded them (boo!) and Roode started his first run as “TNA’s hottest free agent” with Ms. (Traci) Brooks at his side. Roode treated everyone like crap, including Brooks, and he had a feud with Eric Young because EY got cheered more than he did. I consider this to be a ‘low point’ for Roode just because I don’t enjoy EY’s overly-goofy characters, but he did what he needed to do to make people hate him. After this, Roode feuded with Kaz over his treatment of Ms. Brooks then joined the Christian Coalition for a short time before starting Beer Money Inc. I thought Storm was moving past tag teams when AMW broke up, but Beer Money got over and fit right in the division by having great feuds with LAX and the Motor City Machine Guns. Beer Money went through phases as faces and heels, but they were over no matter what side they were on; then they oddly started losing air time.
Beer Money came back in March 2010 and acted as goons for Eric Bischoff, because they were tired of being pushed aside and they wanted to be noticed. They formed Fortune with Ric Flair then took the roles as Arn and Tully (respectively) during feuds with the ECW guys, then had a great series with the Motor City Machine Guns. They lost that feud (and the titles) and Fortune started falling apart, but more importantly there really wasn’t much left for them to do at the time. Storm and Roode participated in the BFG Series as friends, but you could see a feud between the two was eventually coming. Three of the final four (Storm, Roode, Bully Ray) in the tournament really brought another side to themselves, but I would say it’s safe to say we wanted to see Beer Money feud as friends or future rivals.
We got our wish, and Bobby Roode realized his dream and became champion, but he (literally) spit in the face of everyone he used to call an ally. Roode has done everything to get you to hate him, and he has done it in the right way which makes it that much more fun to watch. I love to hate him because he has been a scumbag of a person to everyone, but I don’t want him to go away like some other wrestlers. I want to see him get his ass kicked, and that is really what great wrestling is all about. The fans pay to see the good guy kick the bad guy’s ass and go home happy; Ric Flair usually got over on people but people always wanted to see Dusty Rhodes and Sting hand him a beating. Roode has that old-school quality, and he has drawn comparisons to HHH (Rick Rude and Ted DiBiase come to mind too) and I hope TNA knows what they have. People will pay to see Roode get beat, and if they do things right Lockdown could be the make up for what happened after Bound For Glory. Roode has a good character and move set, he really gets you to hate him on the mic and I hope he stays at the top for a long time.
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