You know who is criminally underutilized? Christian. He’s been all over the card, worked WWE and TNA, held belts in both, and he’s been working great matches on television for the last twelve years. Hell, doing some research to get his debut date, he popped up on TV about a month before I started watching WWF, so I guess I’ve really been watching him ever since he hit the big time, and that’s kinda cool.
Teamed with Edge he cemented a legacy as one of the top tag team workers in the business, and anyone who watched the two knows that they made for an awesome team. Natural chemistry, great humor, and they bumped their asses off. Their feuds with the Hardys and Dudleys helped make all three teams into superstars, but alas, all good things must come to an end. Even if they reek of awesomeness. Even if it meant no more kazoo’s.
I’ll admit that I didn’t take well to Christian’s initial split from Edge, he was just a little punk heel after their feud over the IC belt, and to say I wasn’t a fan of his work with DDP would be an understatement….that said, I’m not a DDP fan by any stretch of the imagination, so that really didn’t help. The Unamericans angle came at a time when I was unable to watch wrestling (I was away at school and we got neither USA or UPN, so no wrestling unless I was at home), and I do feel as if I missed out on something there….I mean, Christian and Lance Freaking Storm.
I remember really getting into the character during his segments with The Rock, though, and I mean, I still wear one of the Peep Show shirts to this day. I was a fan. But he was cutting great promos, and putting on entertaining matches and hell, he was keeping up with THE ROCK, and he was still finding his way into the midcard to linger. Eventually he found his way into a team with Chris Jericho, and an angle with Trish and Lita, and that all came to a head with Christian vs Jericho at Wrestlemania 20 in a match that would have set the tables for the biggest run of his career…..except that he hurt his back and spent months sidelined, and while he returned to the feud he left off with, a lot of the momentum had faded and thus he found himself feuding with Hurricane.
This was when he became Captain Charisma, and this was when he lived up to the old rule of thumb in wrestling of “make your own spot”. They gave him some mic time, and he ran with it, creating the Peep Show, and despite being a heel, having a large fanbase of “Peeps”, of which I was happily a member. He became the cool snarky heel, and to top it off, all of his matches were solid. He created momentum for himself, he got the fans behind him, and he had people wanting to see him in the main event. His segments with John Cena made us want him to kick the crap out of him and take the belt, for the peeps. It didn’t happen, unfortunately, and his move to Smackdown and lack of a push killed his momentum, and a few months later he was out the door and in TNA.
I could keep recapping his career, but let’s sum up the next few years easy, he went to TNA, he worked some good matches, had some good feuds, won the NWA Championship a few times, and then found his way back to the WWE. He spent a year on ECW, helping stars-in-the-making like Jack Swagger and Ezekiel Jackson to get over, and since then? Holding pattern, went from Raw to Smackdown and has come close to wins in important situations without achieving them. He’s back where he was when he left the company for TNA.
But what do you do with the back half of Edge and Christian? Well, you take advantage of the fact that he oozes charisma and the fans love him regardless of if he works face or heel. So you turn him heel, you have him work Kofi, you have work MVP, you have him kick the crap out of Matt Hardy, and you have him work a big match with Rey. The benefits? He’s over, he can work great matches, and he’s definitely a better spot for the number two or three heel then as the number seven babyface. Give him back the Peep Show on a semi-regular basis, once or twice a month, let him be the snarky, smarmy, little asshole that he perfected almost six years ago. Build him up, and then find an excuse to jump him back to Raw to punk out John Cena like he should have back in 2005.
Hell, Money in the Bank is the PPV after Fatal Four Way, have him win it, turn him, have him work a program with Kofi, then have him jump to Raw to beat Cena for the belt.
I’d pay for that PPV.
I’d pay for the PPV a few months down the line, after beating Cena in the rematch or two he always gets, where he faces Edge with the belt on the line.
I’d pay for the Wrestlemania where Edge vs Christian is for the belt in the main event.
Do I see WWE doing this? Nah, they’ve got Cena, he can be Superman and carry the company on his back for as long as he wants. He’s Hulk Hogan without the iconic status.
Christian could definitely be more of the modern day Roddy Piper.
Or better yet, he could just be Christian, and that alone, reeks of awesomeness.
For the Peeps, by the Peeps.
