With Trent Barreta gone and rumors swirling of more cuts on the horizon, Strange Bedfellows will focus on the likely candidates to join Trent on the unemployment line.
Evan Bourne: A bummed foot and wellness suspensions have kept Bourne away from the ring for almost two years. For a mid card act who sadly doesn’t do much more than form throw together baby face teams and sell to the stars, he has to be in hot water after the suspensions. I loved Bourne’s work as Matt Sydal in ROH but in WWE he has been reduced to a glorified jobber who takes a beating and hits a few beautiful highflying spots to get the crowds fired up. With PAC (Adrian Neville in FCW) and El Generico being signed plus guys like Gabriel and Kidd already capable of filling Bourne’s spot, is he really needed? The best thing that could have happened to Bourne was the injury Tyson Kidd recently suffered, as there is a hole in the roster that he can walk in and fill perfectly. Will he team with Gabriel in Kidd’s place or will Air Boom reform? Or will he be released once he heals? This is a hard one to call and while I’d love to see him stick around its not like he wouldn’t be fine in TNA’s X Division.
Mason Ryan: Yes, this guy still has a job. Besides looking like Batista he is also known for putting on some of the worst matches of any contracted star. Sure has a cool look and his long hair and beard have helped separate him from the Batista comparisons but that is the least of his worries. Green, stiff, and corny, he sounds like something that should be flushed down the toilet and I hope his contract is. His best chance of staying on the roster is to continue doing exactly what he has been doing over the last year, because he can’t get fired as long as WWE doesn’t realize he is still employed.
Camacho: The son of Meng! Once the shock of whom his father is and how much he looks like David Otunga, without his hat and glasses, wears off, you soon realize he also wrestles like David Otunga. Camacho has nothing going for him and his role of an enforcer might look like it works when he’s posing next to Hunico, but when he stands next to a typical WWE star he looks like a stocky dwarf. With Hunico on the shelf and nobody for this guy to ride via bicycle to the ring, what is this guy going to do? If WWE wanted Hernandez they should have just hired him.
Curt Hawkins: Unless he reunites with Zack Ryder I don’t see Hawkins having much more time to toil on Superstars. The deathblow of his career is the fact that he is just a poor man’s Zack Ryder. His biggest perk is his strong in Internet following. It isn’t that great of a perk when you look at how over Ryder is beyond his Internet cult following and he still can’t catch a break. Hawkins also isn’t getting any younger and with an incredible crop of young talent coming up in the WWE, many better than Curt Hawkins, how much longer will WWE pay a guy because he is well liked back stage and has Twitter followers? I’d prefer to see him and Ryder team back up but it probably would hurt Ryder more than it would help Hawkins, not to mention the Jersey Shore gimmick is already played out and the time to capitalize on the popularity of the show has come and gone.
Yoshi Tatsu: He debuted similar to Kofi Kingston on SyFy’s ECW as an ethnic wrestler that got some pretty big wins over Shelton Benjamin and William Regal right off the bat. Once ECW was canceled he came to Raw and I believe he won some type of battle royal before Mania, which led me to believe his push would continue. It didn’t happen and while he was winning on NXT and Superstars a good bit he never got the call up to the main rosters. Yoshi seems like someone that could work in WWE, even if it’s in more of a comedic Tajiri inspired role but for whatever reason WWE aren’t pulling the trigger. Luckily he hasn’t been doing jobs regularly on TV and Tatsu could debut with a fresh start if WWE want to push him but if they haven’t seen the “it factor†in him yet, is he doing anything new to change that?
Ezekiel Jackson: When Big Zeke joined The Corre he shoved down our throats with his repertoire of 10 scoop slams, a standing Rock Bottom, and a Torture Rack. The world seemed to be his oyster before he took to the mic and his soft timid voice echoed through the arena. He lost the IC title two weeks later and it seems like he hasn’t won a match since. I’ve read recently he’s been injured but he wasn’t being used when he was healthy. Zeke isn’t young and he has shown no improvement in the ring. The only thing that has changed about Big Zeke in the last 3 years was the fact that he grew weird hair and went from scowling to smiling AKA Big Geek. With Big E Langston debuting and Mark Henry likely to return at some point there isn’t any use for Big Zeke.
Derrick Bateman: Bateman has tons of energy and a personality that could easily land him a comedic role on weekly episodes of Raw or Smackdown. I loved his interactions with Daniel Bryan on NXT and the duo seemed to have so much chemistry that I was surprised WWE didn’t further the pairing when Bateman was eliminated. Bateman has a personality that reminds me of Colt Cabana and he has developed a new character “That USA guy.†The character has yet to see the light of day and I’m not even certain there are plans for an actual character or if it was just a joke on Twitter. Bateman’s feud with Curtis has proven Bateman is capable of being involved in an ongoing angle, developing stories through backstage segments and promos, and also telling a story in the ring. I really hope he isn’t a victim of the cuts but it wouldn’t be shocking to see him get the axe.
JTG: Ever since the departure of Shad, JTG has spiraled into lower mid card hell and has not even come close to finding a way out of it. At first he tried to do the Crime Time gimmick as a solo act, which tanked. He followed that failure with an even bigger failure as he aligned with Alicia Fox and was given a make over. The make up included dropping jeans for tights and his charisma for seriousness. The change didn’t even result in a TV run and he just continued to job out in tights, with even less of the crowd knowing who he was. Couple his inability to grow as a performer with his venomous Twitter rants about the company and it feels like he has some type of black mail leverage over someone to still have a job. If he is cut it will be two years over due.
Who is on your list? Throw me a tweet @DougGarbark and let me know!
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