Damien Sandow is without a doubt one of the best talents that WWE has to offer. He has a nice look, a great gimmick, and he’s a natural in the ring. So the question is: Why isn’t the WWE utilizing this man to his full potential? Now for the last couple of years the WWE has had a major problem that even WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross brought up on Twitter, WWE hasn’t been able to produce credible heels.
A solution to that problem is staring them right in the face and his name is Damien Sandow. I can’t speak for anybody else when I say this but whenever I see Sandow I see a guy who could be this generations Mr. Perfect or Ravishing Rick Rude, that’s how much potential I see in this man. Just little heel tendencies and his outstanding gimmick shows that this man could be a bigger star than he really is, If they put the Intercontinental Championship on Sandow then there is no doubt in my mind that he can restore prestige to the title and make it something worth focusing on. Damien Sandow could have multiple classics and feuds with many young rising stars with the WWE like Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre, Wade Barrett, Xavier Woods, Antonio Cesaro, Sami Zayn, Adam Rose, Seth Rollins, Kofi Kingston & Dolph Ziggler if given the right opportunity.
I have to admit that during Sandow’s first run in the WWE as Idol Stevens as part of the “Teacher’s Pets” managed by Michelle McCool back in 2006, I wasn’t that impressed because I didn’t get to see much from Sandow. However, I did hear the buzz about Idol Stevens from the fans who watched OVW tapings and when I finally saw the tapes I was impressed and wondered to myself why didn’t he get a better opportunity when he was on the SmackdownRoster? Maybe if he showcased his skills on Smackdown like he did here than maybe I would’ve had a different opinion about him, but before Stevens could do that he was sent back down to OVW until he was official released from his WWE contract.
Upon his return in 2010 I very was happy to see him back but the gimmick that he was using before was not going to help him make an impact on the big stage. He was then placed in a tag team with Titus O’Neil but despite the team being tag champions they weren’t exactly standouts at the time. Sandow began to change his gimmick to being the “Intellectual savior of the unwashed masses” and would immediately capture FCW Jack Brisco 15 Championship from Seth Rollins, The FCW 15 Championship was at the time one of the hottest topics in the wrestling world because of the instant classics between independent standouts Seth “Tyler Black” Rollins and Dean “Jon Moxley” Ambrose. Usually Indy fans would have a hard time adjusting to one of their heroes losing a title but not when it came to Sandow, It didn’t take too long for his gimmick to capture attention of wrestling fans and management alike and before you knew it Sandow made it to the main roster. His debut vignette was enough to create intrigue to his character and his debut performance did not disappoint either.
His main roster in-ring debut was on May 4, 2012 and since then the only crowning achievement in Damien Sandow’s WWE career has been his Money in the Bank victory from 2013, Many of us thought it would lead him to a major push to the World Heavyweight Championship, but unfortunately he would lose his cash-in match against World Champion John Cena who was still injured and was viciously assaulted by Sandow prior to the match. This drew the anger of many wrestling fans including myself because we felt that Sandow was robbed because there is no way that an guy who is still injured, came back early and was attacked before the match was supposed to beat a fresh Damien Sandow cleanly even if the match quality itself was great. Ever since then, Damien Sandow has been on a downward spiral in the ranks of the WWE losing to the likes of The Great Khali, Darren Young, Sin Cara, Sheamus, R-Truth and Rob Van Dam with a losing steak of over 40 matches. Damien Sandow doesn’t need to be put on the “MVP” route, he should be getting built-up on a credible level and not losing to lower card guys in under two minutes. For now we’ll have to see for ourselves if Damien Sandow will ever get those opportunities that he truly deserves.
