I constantly hear about how great MVP is from various columnists and message board posters around the internet. Apparently, he’s the next big thing and should be pushed to face Randy Orton pretty much immediately. Trained in front of all of us by Chris Benoit, he’s among the more differently styled workers in the WWE, cuts a great promo, and even has the crowd interaction portion of his moveset down cold. He’s basically got it all… so why doesn’t the crowd react more to him?
MVP just doesn’t get the crowd responses the WWE would look for when pushing a guy to the top. Often his entrances get only a small pop and, during matches, the crowd is completely silent until the ballin’ elbow drop. If the goal is to make money and entertain fans, how can the WWE justify pushing a guy who simply doesn’t get that great of a response, regardless of how entertaining and good he might or might not be?
A lot of MVP’s problem is that as good as he’s been, he has absolutely no nose for hot angles. Some guys turn whatever they touch to gold. Chris Jericho took the same silly mask feud that Kane had with Rey Misterio and turned it into a classic. MVP, through both booking and his own talent, doesn’t do that. Besides his memorable feud with Matt Hardy and notable one with Chris Benoit (for reasons that had little to do with MVP himself), what else has he done that’s notable? He was the U.S. Champion for what felt like ages, but he failed to deliver any singularly great matches in that role. He had a losing streak as a heel, but that never really paid off in any meaning way either. He turned face by almost casually allying himself with other faces, and his Raw feud with Regal never even really began.
This past week on Raw, MVP was given another chance to really shine. He had a match with Triple H that he was destined to lose. Here he needed a huge performance to boost the company and fans opinions of him, similar to the matches Chris Jericho, Tajiri, Shelton Benjamin, and Jeff Hardy have had with Hunter through the years. In losing to Hunter in an immediately forgettable match, MVP has merely added another missed opportunity to his ever growing list of them.
MVP needs a heated feud and great matches for him to ever reach his potential and be pushed to the moon, as the net seems to deem his destiny. Until he does that, he’d be just another flash-in-the-pan, pushed short term before he’s over for the fans to turn on.
