A Stunning Entry into WWE: Was It a Good Idea to Lay Out the Winner of Tough Enough?

Not the best debut for Mr. Leavine, is it?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Andy Leavine won WWE Tough Enough. I'm not going to pretend I was emotionally invested in him or the show because I watched maybe fifteen minutes of it total before the end last night, both scheduled and the part where it spilled over into the intro of the actual RAW telecast. I have to admit, the guy's got a good look and seems WAY better suited for immediate success than Maven, the winner of the first season of the first incarnation of the show.

However, his entry into WWE after winning the competition was inauspicious to say the least. He was greeted first by a slap from Vince McMahon that segued into the worst sell-job off a Stone Cold Stunner that I have ever seen in my life. I chalk it up to jitters and greenness, but it wasn't the sell-job that had most people up in arms. It was the act of the stunner itself that made folks upset. Why lay out a guy in his first real act as a WWE superstar? Wasn't the whole point to create a new, hot act through 10 weeks of personal investment? To squelch it there just seemed pointless to some, not as much to me, but to those who watched the show, yeah, I can see where they might be angry.

Maybe it's because I didn't watch the show and thus didn't really have much of an attachment to him. I don't know. Maybe it's because I also think that there's almost no way for someone to get completely derailed nowadays, or even ever. Heat is very much elastic. Look at Dolph Ziggler. Earlier this year, his push was bungled about as hardcore as you can fuck someone's momentum up. He's still over. He still can garner heat, although Vickie Guerrero does have a lot to do with that. Then again, Vickie didn't quite get that horrible Enri... what the fuck was his name again? The guy who was on the roster for a hot second before getting future endeavored last year? So forgettable.

This feels to me like one of those situations where the WWE really did something dumb, but where Andy may end up being fine because hey, he does have the talent enough that four WWE/WCW alumni saw it. Then again, I just don't see what the hell their philosophy in making guys "pay dues" is anymore. It's like, they're afraid of creating a Brock Lesnar, but like AnonymousJX pointed out, there are those who've been snakebitten by WWE's asinine "building" practices like Ki who point out that they don't want world-humbled indie wrestlers either and look for ego. It's like they're looking for the guy who's egotistical, but not too egotistical, almost as if they're trying to break people. Well, the breaking process doesn't really lend itself to getting guys over like the tried-and-true process of a slow build through the card does.

Yeah, I know that TE doesn't exactly seem like the kind of slow build vehicle I'm talking about, but then again, who said anything about the winner going right from the training dojo to main events? This is where the lack of a defined midcard and tag division hurts them the most.

So yeah, maybe my glibness over how Andy Leavine was treated is a bit wrong here. I want to think he'll be fine, but then again, their track record, both with TE in the past and NXT, seems to indicate that he might be in trouble. This points to a fatal flaw in how WWE treats true rookies, and that things like the Nexus angle, which we can all agree was executed well from debut until at least SummerSlam, are the exception and not the rule.

Hopefully, eating a stunner doesn't mean that Andy is the latter and not the former. If that's the case, and I'm USA Network, then I'd be pissed.

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