Day: September 3, 2004

The London column thing I mentioned a while back? Like a month ago now. Never could figure out a good last third. Might as well post what I got, slap on an ending and move on.

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I don’t see why anyone would be interested in Paul London. He looks no more important or special than dozens of undersized wrestlers who’ve come through the WWE/WWF/WCW collective in the last decade. London is a vanilla guy, with a vanilla name, a vanilla look, an actual new vanilla outfit and the ultimate in vanilla tag team partners. If I were a regular person who watched SmackDown, I’m not sure what reason I’d have to cheer for him.

Perhaps you’ve just caught the lie: I’m not quite a regular person. I am THE KING of predictions, but that’s not what I’m getting at here. I’ve watched enough Velocity to know London’s worth the effort of getting to know, because he’ll give that effort back to you in the ring. He’s a good seller and a great spot machine, which is only emphasized by the difference between WWE style and Paul London style. London is versatile enough for varying tones of matches he’s asked to deliver, from tag team beatdown victim to a light weight highlight reel to a smaller guy stuck in the world of much larger men. There are few people on the roster I’d rather watch.

The thing is, I’m not a typical viewer; I am not the guy who has had their fill of wrestling for the week when the edit credits for SmackDown appear. I don’t believe those people share my same opinions of Paul London. It’s not really their fault they’re unaware of what they’re missing; London’s barely existed as a SmackDown wrestler prior to this tag team title run. In the biggest possible moment for all guys of his size and stature in the last six months, London was notably absent from the Cruiserweight Open. His biggest SmackDown moment, before he and Kidman won the tag team titles, probably was being destroyed by Brock Lesnar on his first night in, and that’s probably not even in the top group of Brock Lesnar destructions. If you don’t watch Velocity, you might’ve thought he just disappeared into the vapors, like his ex-partner Spanky.

London’s a good enough worker to get over in some situations without a character aspect, but that’s not the style of the WWE. Feuds are based on opposing personalities, with titles existing as reasons for those personalities to interact to begin with. Without a title and without a personality, London is only destined to fall back into the Velocity abyss from which he came.

If they don’t get London personality before they take away his title, this reign would have been a fruitless experiment. The reason for anyone to care about him will be gone, and he’ll be back to Velocity full time. Which might be good for me (and you?) who enjoy the WWE, but it’d be another wasted chance for him, and a wasted oppurtinty for WWE.

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And now it looks like Kidman’s getting the personality, while London is still Big Guy Fodder despite being one half of the tag team titles. That’s a lesson for the kids – make sure you’re the one who blows the move.

Is it “the WWE” or “WWE”? Did anyone ever decide this?