I was never a fan of his but I hoped him returning to WWE would be something big and change my mind. It hasn’t. His botches at Saudi cemented it for me. Any of you disagree?
He debuted to little fanfare and that’s usually a bad sign. I’ll give him a pass for the GRR botch because Cass is huge and they were all jetlagged and it was damn hot. He would do better with an advocate. I don’t remember any good promos from him, and his facial expressions are pretty bland.
It feels like they’re trying to shoehorn him back into that mid-2000’s character and ignore how good he’s become in-ring & on-mic, just because that growth didn’t happen on their watch.
Part of me hates that he’s been stuck in this spot as Braun’s “smaller” tag-team partner…But at least he won’t be completely forgotten in this role. 
They’ve booked him poorly since his return. Constantly sticking him with Strowman was/is a bad idea. they probably think that seeing as Strowman is popular (for some reason) then whoever we align him with will automatically become popular but instead Lashley just seems like a regular, meh wrestler next to Strowman especially as they’ve done nothing storyline wise. It has simply been a case of “Just stick him next to Strowman”.
Was hoping they’d have Lashley win the Greatest Royal Rumble by eliminating Strowman at the end and end this “Lashley is Strowman’s sidekick” nonsense they’re doing, could’ve started something with that.
I’m going to give him a few months before I can say for sure. He is not off to a good start. I think his lackluster return has been due to a large amount of the casual and newer fanbase not knowing much about him. Even for some hardcore fans, the mid-2000’s WWE was a time when a lot of people dropped off from following the product completely. A lot of these fans seem to have come back later due to CM Punk or Daniel Bryan. There also isn’t much character depth to him yet, so it’s hard to get behind him. Maybe it would have been a better idea to give him a little run in NXT to reintroduce that character to an audience.
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I’d hardly classify him as a failure only a few weeks in. He sounded pretty over to me last week, in the tag match against Owens/Zayn. I dont like him teaming with Strowman though.
I think you’re almost always doomed to fail if you debut as a face. Before the fans can love you they must hate you first. Going out there and trying to make the fans love you when hardly any of them know who you are in wrestling is often a death sentence. Being a heel is so much easier when trying to get over. Just look at almost all the NXT call ups that debuted as faces. Sami Zayn, Bobby Roode, Bailey, Adam Rose, Fin, Mojo Rawley. All considered failures by their expectations and people wanted them to turn heel within 6 months of debuting.
Just look at Cena and Rock. Both debuted as faces got shit on and were going nowhere, turned heel then got over. Then eventually turned babyface and became the two biggest stars of all time.
Its just wrestling 101.
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Turn him heel and watch everyone criticising everything do a 180.
Online “fans” are that predictable.
Sami, Bailey and Fin failures? They are on TV every week. Have all had significant feuds and storylines that put them on PPV’s and have given them title runs. They have sold a lot of merchandise. By what impossibly high standards have they been failures? It’s ridiculous you even put them in the same sentence with Adam Rose (who was an obvious failure). I don’t think anyone was expecting them to be the next Rock or Austin. But they are definitely in the upper-mid card and can be pushed up to the main event whenever they are needed.
It is way to early to call Lashley a failure. His semi-alliance with Stowman right now could be leading to a heel turn and feud after Backlash for all we know. His physical look will not be ignored by WWE.
Yes. And it’s not his fault but when your most noteworthy moment of your first run was teaming with the most polarizing political figure in decades and the WWE doesn’t want to highlight that + they won’t let you hype your MMA fighting because their champion already does that, you kinda get relegated to mid-card filler. Wasted opportunity. Shoulda brought him in to feud with Lesner
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I wouldn’t say failures for them but they didn’t meet expectations and everyone was begging for a heel turn. Look at Sami when he turned heel. His career took off and everybody talks about how much better he is as a heel. Now everyone wants Fin and Bailey to turn heel also after less than a year full time on the roster. You can’t be a babyface with depth to your character unless you have been a heel first and the fans turn you. Virtually every major babyface star was a heel first then the fans turned them (very few exceptions).
No telling where Roman would be at he is a heel first (not counting the Shield stuff).
Like most “babyfaces” in WWE, he has been a victim of terrible booking.
He needs a manager or mouthpiece (MVP, Dan Lambert) and needs a heel turn.
They’ve done nothing to explain who he is at all (as usual), so why should anyone care about him at all.
As a non-TNA follower and a guy who didn’t watch during Lashley’s initial run, this is my first weekly exposure to him. And my only impression thus far is that he looks damn impressive.
Other than that, he feels like an immediate also-ran… the guy who takes the pin as the tag partner (or third man) to protect the real main eventers.
Plenty of time to fix that, but that’s where I’m at with Lashley right now.
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My thought is that if they had planned for Lashley to be with Strowman from the get go, then he could have been the mystery partner at Mania and they could have had an actual run with the titles.
Guys, it’s been 3 weeks…
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He actually doesn’t have a great look. Sounds weird but something is off with his face. Hamster eyes or something.
He needs to talk to get his personality across.
Hasn’t actually been booked in anything besides dates let alone an actual angle and somehow it’s a failure…cruiserweights, womens division and Nakamura all over again…Self fulfilling prophecy.
Failure before it even did anything.
I don’t feel as though 3 weeks is a fair benchmark by which to measure the man’s run. Diehard quarters might be keen to have him continue where his TNA character left off and that’s understandable, it was really good. However, WWE-wise, his prevailing legacy is that of an ‘almost-was’ some decade previous, and that a ‘new’ (not to mention considerably larger) audience might need a minute to get a feel for the guy before the can get into anything about him, I feel this might one of those rare instances in which one can state “wait and see” unironically.
3 weeks isn’t a strong enough sample size to say if someone is a failure of not. Lashley hasn’t done anything noteworthy yet in terms of angles and storylines. As fans, we didn’t have time yet to build a connection with him. We didn’t have anything to get invested in with him yet. Until that happens, we can’t make a judgement about that.
As for Lashley’s mic skills, as I saw most of his TNA run, in the past 12 to 18 months, I thought he was doing really good. Sure MVP & Dan Lambert helped his heel character a lot but he could hold his own on the mic. Time will tell if he’ll be given that opportunity in WWE soon.
I think the reason he’s felt so bland is because what do they have to hype about his first run? Was he a world champ they want to brag about (ECW Championship is never mentioned) and was he in a major angle featured at WrestleMania (Trump is something never mentioned). So all we know about him is he’s a former member of the WWE Universe who has been elsewhere and looks impressive. Grrrreeeeeaaatttttt