Christian...

[Guest Monday Night Jericho]

Everywhere I go this guy is praised like a god. I think he's a decent wrestler, quite good on the mic and it's good to see fresher faces on the RAW brand opposed to the Klique show, but I really don't see this magnificent wrestler that everyone else sees in him. He seems to have problems with pacing his matches and working the crowd into them - just general 4-5 minute matches he seems to not know how to get the crowd into what he's doing and uses too many rest/choke holds. I wouldn't mind it led somewhere, for example Eddy sometimes uses a few at the beginning of a regular match (not recently though) but he uses superb heel traits to keep the crowd interesting. But the thing is with Eddy it usually leads onto a huge comeback which draws you in, Christian I don't think does it. He's like Malenko or Nagata in terms of crowd psychology, minus the great ability to work the mat, the superb carrying skills, psycho, and the cool strikes etc. He's solid but that's more or less it in my view yet I hear everyone rave about how underrated he is.

 

So, thoughts?

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Does anyone even care enough about Christian to make a response? I know I don't.

 

Here's the thing, while everyone was creaming over Jeff Hardy'z "death defying" leaps off ladders through tables and whatnot, Christian was the guy taking the real bumps. That's where my appreciation for him came from, and I think a whole lot of others here also recognized that.

[Murmuring Beast 0]

Edge never took a bump in any of those Ladder Matches. Not one.

[Guest Monday Night Jericho]

Yeah he was probably the guy who helped hold together the TLCs but he wasn't the only one. But as a singles guy he may of only had a couple of matches that stand out in my mind as being good, and he seems to be highly overrated by the IWC IMO. His ring work just seems to be bland and he struggles with working rest periods into his matches. Hopefully he'll get a better grasp as he begins to work a better schedule with better workers.

[Guest godthedog]

i seem to remember edge taking a MANLY nutshot from a ladder to the ropes. i also seem to remember edge spearing jeff hardy from a ladder.

[Guest Rob Edwards]

Edge was involved in the spear at the end of TLC 3 which was probably the biggest bump in recent WWE memory

[Guest the 1inch punch]

he's an above average worker, however, he's better than just about everyone else on the Raw Roster

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

And where Edge took the groin shot on the ropes, Christian missed it completely and landed to the floor.

 

I don't think the Christian-love on this board, on in the IWC in general, is enough to warrant a thread about him being overrated.

[Murmuring Beast 0]

Edge was involved in the spear at the end of TLC 3 which was probably the biggest bump in recent WWE memory

 

Yea, but how big a bump was that for Edge? That was all Jeff.

[Guest Monday Night Jericho]

he's an above average worker, however, he's better than just about everyone else on the Raw Roster

 

Jericho, Helms, Morely and Rock are names on RAW that surpass Christian. And then there are more such as Rico, Goldust, Booker, Storm etc who are at a similar level - maybe slightly better or worse depending.

Edited June 10, 2003 by Monday Night Jericho

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Edge said he corked his head on the mat on that spot and couldn't remember anything afterwards IIRC.

[Guest Rob Edwards]

Edge was involved in the spear at the end of TLC 3 which was probably the biggest bump in recent WWE memory

 

Yea, but how big a bump was that for Edge? That was all Jeff.

I know I wouldn't fancy landing on my knees from that height

[Guest bravesfan]

Yea, but how big a bump was that for Edge? That was all Jeff.

 

Jeff took a flat back bump. Definitely nothing to sneeze at....BUT, Edge not only landed squarely on his knees, but the force of his momentum drove his neck into the mat as well, as he carried out the motion of the spear.

[Guest razazteca]

Christian only needs a big flashy finisher to get over, he has almosted everything else covered and by that I mean he has decent promo & interview skills.

 

I hope he does not become the next sacificed heat machine for Kane to be forever stuck in tag team division.

[Guest JRE]

Anyone who doesn't see Christian as awesome....is one BORING person.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I see Christian as "average" - which is the same way I see 95% of all wrestlers in the WWE.

[Guest Rob Edwards]

I see him as below average, he bumps well and has good charisma but beyond that it's all choke, stomp, resthold, stall

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

I like Christian because he is very entertaining, and he is a suicidal bump machine, which probably matters more to me than any other aspect of wrestling. I'm weird though.

 

Anyway, his matches have been bad for a while. I'm hoping that on PPV with 10-15 minutes against a good opponent, he can show some of the ability he had flashes of when he first started in WWF. Besides the ability to kill himself for my amusement, which he never really lost.

[Guest CanadianChick]

And where Edge took the groin shot on the ropes, Christian missed it completely and landed to the floor.

I remembered that. That had to be one of the sickest bumps I had ever seen. And then he was back up a minute later! And people thought Jeff Hardy was crazy in those matches...

[Guest Vyce]

Does anyone even care enough about Christian to make a response? I know I don't.

 

Here's the thing, while everyone was creaming over Jeff Hardy'z "death defying" leaps off ladders through tables and whatnot, Christian was the guy taking the real bumps. That's where my appreciation for him came from, and I think a whole lot of others here also recognized that.

So he sells well.

 

That's good, but that's not enough, combined with everythign else, to make me believe he's something great.

 

He's pretty good, yeah, but frankly, as you note in your first sentence.....I just don't really care about him. And he doesn't really give me a lot to care about.

 

WWE has (had?) a golden opportunity to really make a star out of him with his new look and run as IC champ, but let's see what becomes of it.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

I see him as below average, he bumps well and has good charisma but beyond that it's all choke, stomp, resthold, stall

To save myself a lot of wasted time and trouble, I'll just say I'm firmly in this camp when it comes to Christian...

[Guest Star Ocean 3]

It's just the usual cycle around here. A wrestler gets consistently praised, so people decide to find flaws in the wrestler and decide he's overrated. Then everyone thinks that way, and others decide why there's so much hate going on. Repeat once, after second time everyone decides wrestler is OK and the cycle ends.

[Guest Mindless_Aggression]

I've never seen Christian as worth a damn outside of the TLC matches. He's NEVER had anything even CLOSE to resembling a good singles match. But boy, he sure can choke and stomp a lot.

 

Friggin Jamal has a bigger moveset for God's sakes.

[Guest Austin3164life]

I think Christian can be good, but he hasn't really been given a huge opportunity. His natural charisma is showing, and he is over as a heel, but I don't think we've seen his potential.