A Penny For Your Thoughts Wrestlemania Countdown Day 3; Checking in to the Ambrose Asylum

Columns, Top Story

Flipping around the internet wrestling community, including here at IP of course, the general consensus is that this year’s Mania only really has 4 matches anyone actually cares about. I’ve already covered two of those, (no, yesterday’s column is not one of them), and the fourth I’ll be covering tomorrow. So today let’s talk about the one that has arguably the most anticipation heading into Mania; Dean Ambrose Vs BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRock *beat* LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLesnar.

First of all, full disclosure; I cannot STAND Brock Lesnar. He doesn’t love the business like the full-time roster does, he’s WAY too stiff in the ring half the time, and he just generally reminds me of every knuckle dragging bully who ever beat me up in school. He just rubs me the wrong way. That said, I fully understand his appeal to others, and that he is in fact a pretty huge draw.

Conversely, I absolutely adore the former John Moxley, our very own lovable lunatic, Dean Ambrose. He’s consistently entertaining and is one of the very precious few things that keep me from giving up on Raw entirely. He cuts effective, unique sounding promos, he has his own style of working and talking that stands out, and he consistently puts on no less than 4 star matches whomever he’s paired with.

He’s also criminal overlooked by Vince and Creative. I mean, I doubt anyone here is going to argue with me when I say he is EASILY the single most over guy on the main roster right now. He is what Vince desperately wishes Roman was; a genuinely beloved face the fans fell in love with organically. Dean is the closest thing they’ll ever get to having Stone Cold 2.0; he never had to change a single thing about his character to turn face. He just does what he does with no apologies to anyone and over time it won the fans over.

And it’s this weird, beautiful, bizarre organic realness about Dean that makes his match with Brock so interesting.

As my Pulse Colleague BD pointed out when I recently commented that Dean is basically the spiritual successor to Mick Foley, he is so without near the insane self-destructive risk. Dan believes in Foley’s logic of “Real looks better” and is always willing to take a ridiculous beating to sell the mtch, but he does so a lot more wisely and carefully than Mick ever did.

Which makes the recent bits with Mick and Terry Funk passing Dean the psycho Hardcore nutjob torch all that much more telling. We KNOW Lesnar is going to beat Dean within and inch of his life but we also know Dean is the kind of guy who’ll take 5 decent punches to land one good one. That’s what makes his character so entertaining. He’s the kind of guy who’ll keep begging his opponent to hit him, then shout “QUICK! LOOK BEHIND YOU! A THREE HEADED MONKEY!!!” and wedgie the guy when he turns to look then three stooges the guy square in the balls.

So on that level alone, we know the match will be fun. Possibly match of the night. Lesnar will beat the holy high hell out of Ambrose but Dean will make him work for it. And it will be violent, and there may even be blood. Like the Divas match and the IC title match, it has every potential to completely steal the show. And to maybe prove to Vince that he put the wrong Shield alumni in the main event with Tripsy.

Tomorrow; The Only Belt that Matters

Penny is a now divorced intersexed disabled lesbian in BC Canada. She's been watching wrestling and reading comics since she was a kid, and knows her stuff. She lives with her pets and passes her free time writing, drawing, doing paid photoshop work (including logos done for Pulse's Own Mike Gojira), and is a part-time Queer model.