Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back with another episode of upNXT! The BDE chat all about the June 13th, 2019 edition of NXT, including Kushida vs. Drew Gulak in a Submission Match and Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch vs. Undisputed Era.
The lads also discuss Braden’s attempt at eating the Godzilla Ramen, the Toronto Raptors heading into Game 6 of the NBA Finals, NJPW Dominion and NXT UK!
Finally, the boys announce their plans for the upNXT: Takeover Tailgate event at Wide Open in Toronto on August 10th 1pm-5pm. You can buy your tickets at www.postwrestling.com/nxttailgate.
Check out The BDE’s new Pro Wrestling Tees store and grab an upNXT shirt here!
He’s not a great character though. He might be a good plot device, the unbeatable guy that must be overcome or impending doom of the bad guy. But he is essentially Asuka except he was largely protected (didn’t lose clean, destroyed guys etc). If he got built up on his way up and then lost clean to Hogan in WCW he would have nothing too fall back on.
I like him well enough, but he doesn’t have a character beyond Bad Ass that doesn’t lose. Which is what I was getting at. His entrance is magic, his mannerisms in the ring are great etc. but they work because he is dominant and winning. If he got shut down clean early once he faced the top guys he would not have a character to fall back on. He’s not a great promo. He is charismatic because of his intensity, but it only works because he is booked to win all the time. In WWE he is 30-5-6 with 2 of those losses coming in his last matches and prior to his comeback he had never lost a straight singles match (Triple threat loss, Elimination Chamber loss, 3-1 handicap loss). So he was booked as essentially unbeatable in a 1 on 1 so his gimmick works and he is cool. If he had come in and worked his way up to fight Triple H then got pinned clean in the middle of the ring 1 on 1 (like how Asuka tapped out to Charlotte) he would have been greatly diminished. In WCW he did not lose for about a year and a half, putting him over huge as a monster. And his first loss was not clean.
Essentially his character is “unbeatable guy” which isn’t really a character because it cannot survive being booked differently. Again see Asuka.
I mean if I ask you to pitch a character and your pitch is “Well I never lose.” ok but who are you? “A guy who always wins.” That is a story about a character not really the character.
I’m not suggesting it is wrong to like him (so did Iback in the day he was cool, the story was great long term booking etc), but he was never a great character or worker, he was a great unstoppable force to chase down the heels in NWO or Evolution, and to be pitted as something to overcome. Which is a great thing to have, it is what Brock is essentially these days he isn’t a great character (I mean he almost never speaks) he is a force of nature with which our characters must contend.
Essentially ask yourself this, would you love him if he did all the same stuff, and then routinely lost to the top guys in the company. Essentially the Braun character that we have now. Told he is an unstoppable monster but loses to Reigns and Brock.
Yes. I love people who are genuinely good and kind in real life. My top 5 male celebrities are people who are charismatic and positive. That’s why I love Van Damme or Drew Gulak. Again, it’s super subjective. It’s what I feel when I see them or listen to their interviews. I feel we would be best buds.
See I never got “good or kind” from Goldberg during his run. So that may be where we differ. I mean if you got that from out of character interviews and you like the man and want him to succeed that is also cool, but different from his character in the world of pro-wrestling. You mention Gulak, I love his work, but his character is a heel and not someone I would want to hang out with. As I said my option on Goldberg is that I loved his run, but if he were say 50-50 booked, or beaten cleanly by the top guys in the company, I would not see him as special because his intensity and dominance where what stood out about him, not his mic work, character work, or in ring work. Now he had the charisma and intensity to pull off the unbeatable guy gimmick which most people don’t (see Ryback as an example of someone that was faux Goldberg and it didn’t work). He also had the right timing for his run with a good heel faction to work against which is what that sort of run needs, odds stacked against him getting to the top.