DEJ Experience District DEJ District's Eric: Throw this against the wall, history proves it will stick May 1, 2008 - 11:44:54 PM

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WWE is currently taking some strange strides to stir things up and shake themselves out of their usual post-WrestleMania funk. William Regal, Raw's general manager and reigning king, abuses his power and insists Monday Night Raw go off the air before the conclusion of the show's championship main event; new ECW play-by-play announcer Mike Adamle, the butt of many jokes based on the horrible job he's done thus far, tosses down his headset and walks away from his post, followed by his color commentator Tazz, leaving the show announcer-less; and without spoiling anything, let's just say Smackdown's title picture will not look the same after the show goes off the air Friday.

What happened to the good ol' days when WWE would debut new wrestlers right after WrestleMania and jostle the roster (instead of our already-wavering faith in the company's ability to write entertaining television)? We'd get a few weeks of vignettes before the big event, and in the weeks that followed, at least one new wrestler would step through the ropes. I might be missing a few examples, but allow me to bring into evidence these exhibits: Hunter Hearst Helmsley in 1995, Mankind in 1996, Edge in 1998 (well, his vignettes started after WrestleMania, and it took them four score and many moons before debuting him, but humor me here), Brock Lesnar in 2002, and Umaga in 2005. Even Ricky Steamboat missed out on a WrestleMania payday in 1991; he sure did breathe a lot of fire in vignettes on Superstars and Wrestling Challenge leading up to WrestleMania VII, but it wouldn't be until afterward that The Dragon would make his return.

As is evident by WWE's bizarre booking, they want to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. And there's been a minor clamoring for WWE to hold a draft to reshuffle the roster. Add to those two things the fact that spring cleaning seems to have started (so long, Squire Dave Taylor and B. Mahoney), and it's obvious something needs to change. What they're doing now feels like too much, and while a draft might be in order, it would just come across like your cheap mom dumping the half-full bag of stale barbecue chips into the half-full bag of stale cheddar and sour cream chips and acting like Santa Claus just dropped it down the chimney. Thanks for nothing, Mom. Oops, sorry. What I'm getting at is, there is no better time than now to call up some of the tenured wrestlers in developmental to give them a shot at the big time.

Would using this space to suggest Colt Cabana be the first one called up be too obvious? Too bad. He absolutely should be on Raw, Smackdown or ECW. He would inject some much-needed comedy and personality into a WWE roster, along with some fine technical wrestling and, down the road in the midst of a hot angle, good brawling. And let's be honest with ourselves here: A developmental territory is where a wrestler spends time to develop his character... how much more developing does Colt need, for crying out loud? Colt Cabana proved in Ring of Honor that he is a major-league talent, and he needs the stage on which he can prove this to be correct.

Matt Sydal, another former ROH talent, could also easily be called up to the main roster. His personality just started peeking out at the end of his ROH run, so once it's developed, it could offer an interesting dimension for this fantastic athlete. TJ Wilson is another developmental wrestler who gets mentioned on occasion, at one time in the same breath as Teddy Hart, and now, hopefully, for Wilson's sake, that'll end. Wilson has been at this game for a while and has the Hart pedigree attached to him. Plus he's a good wrestler whose skill would be welcome on a weekly WWE TV show. And my colleague Dusty would injure me if I didn't mention Mike Mondo, whose work in Ohio Valley Wrestling really was tremendous. It wouldn't take much to repackage the former Spirit Squad member to make that run forgettable -- not that calling on the past is a bad thing, but some gimmicks are better left in a shipping crate. Mondo is an energetic character, a magnetic personality, and a natural antagonist, so he would assuredly be a high-quality addition to the list of WWE superstars (not just as a manager, for any uninspired WWE writers who read these things... in my imagination).

And who knows? By WrestleMania 25, one of these men could be ready for something big. In one year, Triple H and Mankind were on the verge of stardom, Edge was an entertaining midcard/tag team wrestler, Brock Lesnar was winning his second WWE Championship, and Umaga was in a co-main event that garnered a lot of mainstream media attention for the show. Who's to say there isn't a developmental wrestler out there who couldn't shoot up the roster and give us a fresh face to look at by the time my plane lands in Houston?

It's too late to preview a new wrestler leading up to WrestleMania like in years past. But we're not too late to get an influx of future superstars on the roll call, and that would be a lot less jarring than the oddball booking WWE has employed in the past week.

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Eric Nelson is the "E" in the DEJ Experience. Look for the guys' audio broadcast on PWTorch.com/members (approximately) every Wednesday, followed by Eric's written contributions on Thursdays, Dusty's on Friday, Kevin's on Saturday and Jeremy's on Sunday. Also, submit your questions for Ask the Experience in the appropriate thread on the PWTorch.com VIP Forum, or e-mail them to theaudioexperience@gmail.com

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