Greetings fellow wrestling fans and welcome to The Stockwell Section – the first after an increasingly long hiatus. This is my first post since February and for those of you wondering, I haven’t posted in a while because of a number of personal reasons which have all affected my time. Anyhoo, lets jump straight back into action.
I recently watched the Night of Champions PPV and as you all know, the PPV saw the crowning of a brand new World Heavyweight Champion – that being Mark Henry. Now I, like many others must admit that if you told me Mark Henry would be champion this time last year, I would have laughed and said something along the lines of “if that day ever comes, I will boycott WWE” – likewise, I’m pretty sure the idea of having John Cena and Henry would have made people cringe as early as this year but here we are, with both men as champions and for the most part, we’re all sitting here praising Henry and his work and agreeing that given the current state of WWE, he makes perfect sense to be champion.
Do I like Henry as a competitor? No. Have I ever liked him? Not really. However, his most recent run has been quite wonderful to watch. WWE have booked Henry incredibly well in the past few months and he has become quite enjoyable as an on-screen character – granted, the man who fathered a hand with Mae Young is not something that excites me when I think of the main event matches to come but in the current landscape that is WWE, Henry has come to be a star that I am particularly interested in.
Why is this? Simply because his been pushed and handled so well – something that sadly, many men in the company do not receive these days. In fact, when you go over the entire roster, I can think of only two other stars who have steadily and effectively been pushed as well as Henry – Sheamus and Cody Rhodes.
On one hand we have Sheamus, who has been on the receiving end of a major face turn which as my memory serves, has been successful thus far – he has taken on the biggest heel in the company, saved the top babyface from a beatdown and ultimately teamed with him too. The response seems to be that people are enjoying this face run from Sheamus and now that he has somewhat cemented his allegiance to the light side, I can see him going further and tearing through the heels much to the delight of fans – and on that note, which better star to pit him against first then Christian.
As for Cody Rhodes – he has been booked extremely well since June last year when he adopted the dashing persona. Since then, he has broke his nose and taken to wearing his protective mask and Cody has developed a unique and ultimately interesting character. Cody’s rise has been consistent and well timed, from his feud with Mysterio earlier this year to his recent paper bag escapades – up until his most recent matches with the likes of Orton. I do sometimes wonder whether Rhodes has helped himself in his development but creative regardless has much to do with it also, and they have done a fine job with the young star.
I suppose my point is that simplicity works – Mark Henry has been pushed as a dominant heel working his way through the roster, Sheamus has slowly been given the chance to show that he is a good guy with tried and tested formulas and Cody has developed slowly from a narcassictic good looking young man to someone who hates what everyone else looks like and is still insecure about his own looks since he broke his nose. All three ideas have been pushed well – not down our throats and without complicated and ridiculous twists and turns. Sometimes, the general public like things that are simple – one only has to look towards the music of the John, Paul, George and Ringo in their earlier years for a great example.
Mark Henry may not be an ideal champion and he may not be a man who people want to headline their chosen company but he is quite simply (pardon the pun) the most well booked man on the roster today and he isn’t someone who we just expect to be champion which I’m sure most would agree, nobody this time last year expected this at all.
