Oftentimes, when someone wins a world title, the fans turn on them. Suddenly, they go from being “overlooked by the company” to “pushed down our throats” or the crowd gets bored with them quickly, justifying it under the guide of that performer being more entertaining chasing a title rather than holding and defending one.
Last year, that problem struck Dean Ambrose, who won the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank in June to much fanfare only to find himself in hot waters by August.
With an awkward appearance on the Stone Cold Podcast, Ambrose was told in so many words that he was lazy and riding on the coattails of his previous work. Something wasn’t clicking and perhaps, instead of trying to solve the problem and figure out a way to rile up the crowd, people thought he was content in staying stagnant, which would translate to a lack of work ethic.
Eventually, he would drop the WWE Championship to AJ Styles, who would receive rousing endorsements all throughout his title reign, with many fans arguing he never should have dropped the belt to begin with or at least should be earning it back soon to return to the status quo of post-draft SmackDown. Is that because Styles is the better worker, the new and shiny toy in comparison to Ambrose, or because he was given better tools to work with?
Many moons ago, Ambrose won the Intercontinental Championship, heading into WrestleMania with the title in-hand. If the reports are true that John Cena’s proposal changed as many matches as it did, then toward the end of 2016, Ambrose likely wasn’t factored into the layout as being champion for WrestleMania, but when other plans changed, so did the Intercontinental title picture.
In any scenario, WWE clearly values Ambrose enough to entrust him not only with one of their most prestigious belts, but as he mentioned on this week’s Raw, it is THE title on the red brand while Brock Lesnar sits at home for the majority of the year. That is a lot of responsibility to put on the shoulders of someone you think isn’t a hard worker, isn’t it?
Still, The Miz included a jab about being lazy in his promo regarding Ambrose, which brings up the topic again. Is Ambrose truly coasting or is there a different problem?
From my perspective, it’s a little of both, but largely not a laziness issue.
For one, we know Vince McMahon is perhaps the hardest working man in the company. People like that can see much more value in those who are like-minded than those who they think are lazy. Ambrose would never have earned any respect from Vince if he were the type of person to not put himself into his work, so the continued pushes and title reigns speak in contrast to any negativity held on WWE’s behalf.
Second, The Miz has been speaking lots of truths in his promos, but they’re all from a certain point of view: his heel character. Yes, he’ll say things about John Cena being robotic that most of us can agree with, or he’ll defend himself to Daniel Bryan when accused of being a bad wrestler who works too safe of a style, but The Miz is also the bad guy here. There may be venting and there may be truth to what he says from time to time, but it’s all through the filter of a villain. Just because The Joker says Gotham City will turn on Batman doesn’t mean it’s true. Lex Luthor constantly goes on diatribes about how Superman is a problem, J. Jonah Jameson calls Spider-Man a menace and Kylo Ren believes the First Order will establish peace in the galaxy rather than the Jedi and Republic—and yet, they are consistently proven wrong by the end of the stories.
This week on Raw, Ambrose was more energetic and lively than we’ve seen him in a while. Why is that? Did he just wake up on the right side of the bed that morning or have a fantastic lunch? Did he finally just get hit with the realization that Renee Young is his wife?
Rather than a laziness situation, I think we have a case of someone being bored because they aren’t being challenged, similar to a student in school who is failing because he/she isn’t mentally stimulated in class.
In those cases, rather than just excelling with ease an being happy about their job being less stressful, people retract. They see such little value in what they’re doing that they in turn put less effort into it, which makes them appear to be distant and lacking in work ethic.
Dean Ambrose is a creative guy and he does his best work when he can think outside the box in promos and even his in-ring performances. What if WWE just keeps holding him back, telling him he needs to cut more specific promos with rigid outlines of what to say, which makes him not want to invest a ton of energy into his performance. Then, when you’re working house shows and live events to the extent he is, you’re burned out when you are told that you have to lose another match.
The move to Raw might be the best thing for Ambrose, as it opens up some fresh feuds for him in the future. A program with Samoa Joe, for instance, could end up being one of the highlights of the year if they are able to let loose and not be held to a strict standard feud. Braun Strowman has been bringing a lot of fun to Raw recently, too, so that has a lot of potential to be another great feud for Ambrose if WWE wants to go that route.
Likewise, Ambrose may be itching for a heel turn. If that happens, we could see an amazing feud between he and Finn Balor or even a revisiting of Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins with the tables turned as Rollins is now playing the babyface part.
There’s a chance this is all a matter of a creative guy who isn’t being challenged enough or given enough room to flex his artistic muscles, rather than someone who doesn’t actually want to put in the time and effort for his employer and his fans.
Given Ambrose’s track record of being an eccentric character and one of the most entertaining people even back in the days of The Shield, I definitely subscribe to the more optimistic side of things, but where do you stand? Is Ambrose lazy, or is this a different issue? What steps do you think Ambrose and WWE should take in trying to rectify this perception?
Tell us our point of view in the comments below!
