{"id":43021,"date":"2017-05-30T13:57:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T18:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=43021"},"modified":"2017-06-08T19:00:46","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T00:00:46","slug":"rising-stars-fading-stars-finn-balor-mickie-james-goldust-elias-samson-shinsuke-nakamura-charlotte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/05\/30\/rising-stars-fading-stars-finn-balor-mickie-james-goldust-elias-samson-shinsuke-nakamura-charlotte\/","title":{"rendered":"RISING STARS &#038; FADING STARS: Finn Balor, Mickie James, Goldust, Elias Samson, Shinsuke Nakamura, Charlotte"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-2121138252\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h3>RISING STAR OF THE WEEK: Finn Balor<\/h3>\n<p>Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose &#8211; all three of these guys have been given prime spots in the babyface main event picture and each one of the former &#8220;Hounds of Justice&#8221; have struggled in finding their footing, 60% I&#8217;d say from poor booking and the other 40% falls on the shoulders of each Shield member: Seth and Roman both from shoddy babyface mic work and Dean just not knowing when to trade the &#8220;zany&#8221; in for a little &#8220;cut-throat outlaw&#8221;. That&#8217;s where the Artist Formerly Known As Prince Devitt comes in this week: so far he&#8217;s been properly booked by winning in top of the card matches and this Monday he got a chance to rub elbows with Paul Heyman, which in turn means he also indirectly rubs elbows with Raw&#8217;s only true literal superstar, Brock Lesnar (being his advocate and all). Mix that in with his organic and humanizing &#8220;whoops&#8221; at the &#8220;final five way&#8221; slip-up and Finn&#8217;s already shown some of that natural babyface charisma. It&#8217;s really a great start for someone that talented and that engulfed in the highly-scripted, highly-micromanaged WWE Universe. It will all payoff when he wins at Backlash and turns heel champion at Great Balls Of Fire with his motley crew of Balor Clubbers.<\/p>\n<h3>HONORABLE MENTIONS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Goldust:<\/strong> Dustin&#8217;s dreams of a return to relevancy sure aren&#8217;t shattered after this week. Awesome move by creative to bring back his classic persona of 1996 which I believe still has very strong legs in the upper to (yes, I&#8217;ll say it) top of the card hierarchy. I&#8217;m all ready for the appropriate Goldust curtain call that his career so well deserves.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elias Samson:<\/strong> Finally, the ominous guitar strumming amounts to something &#8211; I just wish it wasn&#8217;t to some clunky pre-match crooning. I actually think Elias&#8217;s lack of vocals gave his persona a little Johnny Cash cool (sure, Cash sang, but that was his actual bag, while Samson&#8217;s is pro wrestling and developing prominent trapezoids) so putting him in the position to actually put words to tune was tone deaf on Vince&#8217;s part. Despite this, he comes out victorious against Ambrose and is positioned as someone with upward mobility.<\/p>\n<h3>FADING STAR OF THE WEEK: Mickie James<\/h3>\n<p>While one veteran sees an upward swing, another sees the sadness of a loss without any sort of fanfare. Mickie James can no doubt still be a top star in the WWE&#8217;s bunch of very beleaguered female babyfaces, but having her lose to Bliss in an unceremonious three minutes is a great disservice to the product and a talent of her caliber. Such a shame considering that several months ago I took time to invest a great deal of my wrestling fandom into the women&#8217;s matches, now they&#8217;re seeming as passable and pointless as to when the butterfly belt was flying across a &#8220;Diva&#8217;s&#8221; waist. Where&#8217;s that trailblazer Stephanie when you need her? (I kid, I kid.)<\/p>\n<h3>DISHONORABLE MENTIONS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Charlotte Flair:<\/strong> Getting wrapped up into backstage bicker-fest with the rest of the Smackdown ladies is not a good look for the best female talent in wrestling let alone the entire division. And another Fatal Five-Way match? What kind of lazy booking is this junk? Oh, there&#8217;s that butterfly again&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shinsuke Nakamura:<\/strong> Just like Bayley and Enzo, he&#8217;s someone who should never be on the negative side of this column, but already I&#8217;m seeing a pattern I&#8217;m not liking whatsoever. Shinsuke&#8217;s being WWE homogenized with segment&#8217;s like the Smackdown opener and his overextended involvement with that loser Dolph. He&#8217;s the King of Strongstyle, not &#8220;Standing Around&#8221;. Let&#8217;s see a little more of the former.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK&#8217;S COLUMN:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/05\/22\/rising-stars-fading-stars-wwe-backlash-jinder-mahal-sami-zayn-breezango-randy-orton-becky-lynch\/\">RISING STARS &amp; FADING STARS \u2013 WWE BACKLASH: Jinder Mahal, Sami Zayn, Breezango, Randy Orton, Becky Lynch<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3121035364\"><div id=\"pwtor-3121000972\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>RISING STAR OF THE WEEK: Finn Balor Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose &#8211; all three of these guys have been given prime spots in the babyface main event picture and each one of the <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/05\/30\/rising-stars-fading-stars-finn-balor-mickie-james-goldust-elias-samson-shinsuke-nakamura-charlotte\/\" title=\"RISING STARS &#038; FADING STARS: Finn Balor, Mickie James, Goldust, Elias Samson, Shinsuke Nakamura, Charlotte\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,4309,27],"tags":[467,3037,126,1639,420,308],"class_list":["post-43021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-rising-star-fading-star","category-specialists","tag-charlotte","tag-elias-samson","tag-finn-balor","tag-goldust","tag-mickie-james","tag-shinsuke-nakamura"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JamesMickieGG_3x2_600.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43023,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43021\/revisions\/43023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}