My latest piece on Upgruv.com and their free app is the best and worst of RAW and SmackDown Live. Here’s an excerpt:
WWE is entertainment, casting the right people for the appropriate roles is key.
In the top storyline on SmackDown Live, animosity continues to grow between AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose. Each are using a pawn in their games of disrupting each others lives. That pawn is James Ellsworth.
What makes him the perfect pawn is his smaller size. His unique and odd look. He’s an underdog in over his head on a stage he never thought he would be on. Fans get behind him because many can relate to something about him and this situation.
James Ellsworth is the biggest star right now because he’s pulling off his role and getting a reaction for it better than anyone else at the moment.
This isn’t Mixed Martial Arts where quality is measured by ultimate physical skill set. This is entertainment where it’s measurable to sitcoms. You need characters.
Look at history and what works. The performer who can get the biggest reaction by doing as little as possible is the success. It’s all about the simple things. It’s also a formula for longevity. Ellsworth can get picked on and run away all in the right context and time. Then, that one time he superkicks someone or does the smallest thing to alter an outcome, it gets a biggest reaction of the night. That’s the beauty of the art that is professional wrestling entertainment.
Some guys can do 55 crazy moves but if that’s all they do with no personality and aren’t relatable, then the moves mean nothing.
Ellsworth started in WWE in enhancement matches. The squash matches where an unknown guy or girl loses to the regular on the roster. We’ve seen a lot of this lately with Braun Strowman and Nia Jax. The irony is he’s now enhancing the two top stars he’s working courtesy of his actions. The smallest things he does carries over and enhances the reaction of what Styles or Ambrose do.
A distraction and being a pest to Styles helps generate a huge pop for Ambrose when he gets the win.
CLICK HERE for why it was a mistake to have Rusev in Goldberg segment, why Nia Jax beating Bayley is smart and more
