Great-ing Gimmicks of the Past – The Reject Shannon Moore

Columns

Great-ing Gimmicks of the Past: The Reject Shannon Moore – ECW, 2006

History


Shannon Moore had changed drastically since his days in Three Count. After his 2005 release from the WWE, Shannon had become covered in tattoos and shaved his hair into an enormous Mohawk. In addition, he’d changed himself into an angry punk rebel and was now calling himself the “Prince of Punk”.

He also spent his time away racking up some indy credits. In July of 2005, he’d entered a tournament to crown a new AWA Light Heavyweight champion, losing to Krazy K Kirby Mack in the finals. He’d also signed with TNA, where he’d found himself in a feud with AJ Styles. Moore even had a clean win over Styles.

Which meant that the WWE re-signed him in March of 2006 before Styles could get a win over him.

In July ECW started playing video promos showing that Moore was coming. They featured Moore in urban environments where he portrayed himself as a social outcast. His moniker had also changed. Now he was the Reject, Shannon Moore.

August 15 had a quick interview with Moore. And by quick, I mean that it consisted of only two words – Question authority.

The next week the camera caught up with Moore again. This time he told us that the system is oppressive.

A week later he was backstage again. This time his words of wisdom were to fight the power.

Shannon Moore was backstage yet again the following week. He claimed that he was the Prince of Punk and also claimed to be bringing sexy back. That brought CM Punk into the picture. Punk called Moore a poser and slapped him in the face before walking away.

Moore faced off with Punk the next week. Punk quickly decimated Moore and put him away with the Anaconda Vice.

Punk again defeated Moore with the Anaconda Vice the following week. The only thing different was a multi-angle collision as Mike Knox pulled Kelly Kelly out of the crowd and took her to the back.

And actually, that was that.

Analysis

Shannon Moore came back to the WWE with a new look and valuable exposure from the competition. It’s reported that the one thing that convinced Vince McMahon to re-sign him was the fact that he held a win over AJ Styles. They could have had him come in and trumpeted him like a highly demanded free agent before sending him to the cruiserweight division on Smackdown. They could have even had him do an interview where he claimed to have beaten the best out there and that he’d returned to the WWE to do the same there.

But they didn’t.

In the end, the whole “Reject” thing (much like a lot of the early days of the ECW relaunch) fizzled. After all the videos and hype regarding his launch, it’s like the creative team had nothing for him when he arrived. All he was used for was to help get CM Punk over.

Where are they now?

Shannon Moore remained with ECW until February of 2007, when he was switched to Smackdown. All aspects of the Reject were gone. In September he defeated Jamie Noble, which marked his first win since his return to the WWE over a year prior. Today he remains on Smackdown where he is in a tag team with Jimmy Wang Yang.

CM Punk remains with ECW today. He recently lost the ECW title to Chavo Guerrero after a six month run with the belt.