Dear WWE: What is The Big Show's role now? - FanRag Sports (blog)

It is almost that time of the year when a fatman breaks into our house to put presents under a tree. Because of that, even if only indirectly, the WWE product is likely going to suffer. It knows that we are busy this time of the year. In turn, it isn’t — at least normally, it doesn’t — put out its most engaging angles the week leading up to it.

Even with that in mind, we ask the WWE some questions.

What’s The Big Show’s New Role?

The Big Show returned to Monday Night Raw last week, and he looked phenomenal.

Personally, I’ve always felt as though Big Show has been the most mismanaged talent in the history of the wrestling business. When he was younger, we had this giant human who could utilize dropkicks and powerbombs in the squared circle, but he was also booked as though he was a monster who was always on the wrong end of everything.

His prime is well gone now. There’s no real reason to try to repackage him as anything other than an aging veteran at this point. It is truly sad from a wrestling point of view.

With him returning, it will be interesting to see what the WWE does with him. Is he going to be a spot-starter of sorts like he was during his return — just there to help advance other’s stories? Or will he get a mini-push before retiring at some point in the somewhat near future?

Here is to hoping this thinned out version of Big Show can get some traction with the fans, and the WWE could do something, anything, with him.

Is Mark Henry A Thing Again?

Speaking of aging, bigger, veteran WWE acts, Mark Henry was featured on the previous Monday Night Raw, too. He was put over by Titus O’Neil in a squash match.

But why?

Is Henry in line for a farewell tour? Was this punishment for O’Neil? Was it just a random segment to help fill a three-hour program?

It is probably the latter, but it is not yet clear.

Given that Henry has been with the WWE since before Nixon was in office, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising that the big man is going to retire in the near future, and the WWE is simply allowing him a few more “last chances” to get in front of the WWE Universe before hanging up the boots.

If he’s not on TV this week, then we’ll know it was just a random filler segment.

Are Angles Going To Actually Advance on SmackDown?

We are a full week removed from SmackDown’s last Network Special, yet we don’t really know what — if anything — is changing as far as stories are concerned.

The company hinted at a Miz-Ambrose feud moving forward, but it now appears it is setting up an Ellsworth-Ambrose angle.

Save for that, and Becky Lynch getting her rematch, we don’t know what is next for WWE World Champion AJ Styles, or the SmackDown Tag Team Champions, and aren’t 100 percent sure what is next for the Miz.

Are we going to get any clarity this week? Specifically, who’s next for the champs leading into the Royal Rumble?

Is Rusev An Evil Genius Or…?

I don’t love where the WWE has gone with the Big Cass and Ezno-Rusev and Lana angle. It gives me the creeps that we are all meant to pretend as though Enzo’s brains are located south of his neck.

Put that to the side: Is Rusev an evil genius?

He is currently playing a character so “genius” that he has been able to parlay his wife into bait for wrestlers he doesn’t like. When a wrestler takes that bait, he beats them up with a vase in a hotel room.

This sounds like half Cinemax After Dark and half Monty Python.

Either way, it is a character that’s more — but only slightly — complex than the one in which the WWE hoped you would hate simply because he was born outside of the United States.

Are Rhyno And Heath Slater Back To Oblivion?

The appeal for the former SmackDown Tag Team Champions was in their ability to overcome, get jobs, feed kids and win the titles in a surprising way. Now there’s no titles, they have jobs, the kids are (mostly) fed, and the only thing left to overcome is not getting lost in the tag team shuffle.

With the duo already losing their rematch to The Wyatt Family, is this the end of Rhyno and Heath Slater as an important act?

Generally speaking, whenever comedy acts get pushed this hard, then their run is over, they go back to oblivion. It is what inevitably awaits James Ellsworth at the end of whatever in the hell the WWE is doing with him. For Rhyno and Slater, though, they are actual wrestlers with real talent.

Both are worth an attempt at saving, especially Slater, who as an uncanny ability to entertain the masses despite this being his only sincere push since the Nexus angle.

We should have a better idea of what, if anything, awaits the duo on Tuesday. Don’t be shocked to see the WWE panic, and pull the plug on the mix-matched tag team.

SUMBER