Like those who work in a circus or live entertainment environment,
WWE has a long-standing tradition of having wrestlers who are related to
one another (or, in some cases, just unrelated duos they want to bill
as siblings) wrestle as tag team partners. The Usos (part of the Anoi'i
Family which has featured talent such as The Rock and Roman Reigns), The
Rhodes Brothers and The Bella Twins all come to mind. After watching
last night's Money In The Bank opening monologue (and seeing Bray go
nowhere), I figured now would be a good time as any to have one of the
most unusual, yet interesting true life sibling pairings to date debut:
Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas.
I know what you're thinking: Danielle, can I have a cookie? Sure, go 'head.
Otherwise, you're thinking that Dallas and Wyatt couldn't have gimmicks further apart and that's true. On one hand, you have Bray Wyatt, a southern redneck radical cult leader who lives in darkness and preaches to the "lost" (and also walks around like a spider when he should be wrestling) and on the other, Bo Dallas who seems to think he's the official Motivational Speaker for the Earth. Bray has a gimmick that works, fans love him and sing along with him to "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" while Bo gets laughed at, booed and ignored.
However, there's a huge difference between someone whose gimmick works as a heel and someone whom the audience wishes would get on a bus and leave the WWE forever. Right now, Bo is obviously the latter, dismissed for coming off as a complete wuss.
The problem is that the average wrestling fan doesn't know Dallas's history.
Spoiler Alert: he isn't a slouch.
Bo wrestled under his real name, Bo Rotunda before he came to WWE. If the name sounds familiar, it's because he's part of the Windham/Rotunda wrestling dynasty.
When he was younger, Rotunda won the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship three times. He was the first NXT wrestler to win a spot in the 2013 WWE Royal Rumble by beating Luke Harper and Leo Kruger (the latter currently rebranded in the WWE as Adam Rose) at the Royal Rumble Fan Fest. Bo Dallas lasted a very respectable 20 minutes -- even besting Intercontinental Champion, Bad News Barrett (the latter coming back into the ring and eliminated Rotunda sparking a fued and a title match for the Intercontinental Championship belt which Barrett retained). Bo held the NXT Championship for 280 days after defeating Big E.
Bo actually has an interesting history with Bray in both leagues. He's wrestled with Bray Wyatt as Bo Rotundo and Duke Rotundo to win the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice. (They also wrestled together as Bo Rotundo and Husky Harris previously). Yet, in NXT, when "Duke" changed his name to "Bray" and set up "The Wyatt Family", Bo was actually given the opportunity to join them. He refused. In response, Bray ruined Bo's triple threat match against Conor O'Brian and Corey Graves, leading to a later match between Bo and Bray. Bo ended up winning that night.
Of course, NXT is not WWE and rarely do the two occupy the same universe or have a parallel continuity.
Right now, Bo remains undefeated in WWE, albeit against wrestlers that aren't taken as seriously as competitors including R-Truth, Fandango and Titus O'Neil.
I'd love to see Dallas confronted with his "past" or, in other words, some of the guys he faced from NXT. It's not like the Bo Dallas character has been re-branded the way Isaac Yankem became Kane. He uses the same name and a silly "Bolieve" gimmick. He's not motivating anyone with it, he's getting heat for it, much as he did for his last few months in NXT (where he didn't even try to be Tony Robbins).
Most importantly, it's time to have him join his brother as tag team partner. Last night, they wasted a great opportunity to get that started. As you may recall, Daniel Bryan came into the ring to report on his injuries (which had excellent potential for a Barrett joke) but Bo Dallas interrupted the segment so that he could condescend and tell Bryan he was "climbing the ladder of life". Daniel Bryan humiliated Bo by referring to him as a "Bo-ner". It was amazing watching Dallas's face fall as he realized he was being told off.
It may have been almost imperceptive, but part of Dallas died right there.
Cut to the backstage area and Bo walking with his head down, looking dejected...right past Bray Wyatt who is sitting in his rocking chair in a dark room, slightly lit, waiting for his big Ladder Match. He slowly realizes who just walked past the doorway, gets up and watches as Bo walks. The camera goes back to Bray as he grins. Sheep mask.
Then we go deeper into it on RAW. You can even start a "universe" with RAW and NXT sharing the same space.
This time is different, though. Bo is starting to realize that his message and inspiration is falling on deaf ears. Instead of being accepted as somebody who pushes people to be great, he's been humiliated, booed and gotten so little back for such great effort. He realizes that it's time for him to accept the invitation. At first, he'll try to resist, but it makes a lot of sense. Bray is more over than Bo who realizes that he may never get over at this rate but, together, they're an interesting pair. Bo could be spouting out demotivational thoughts. Might be a little Sandow-ish and on the comedy side, but you insert a bit of darker humor to it, it works. He can pop out at the end of matches (both ones he's in and ones he's not) and tell people that they couldn't win a match against a first grader and to hang up their costumes.
Bray could even distance himself even more from Luke and Erick (already sporting a different theme than the usual Wyatt family's "Run and Hide") to the point where Bray and Bo could fight Luke and Erick. That match might set a WWE record for most amount of cheating and interference, actually.
As a new powerful heel wrestler, it will be great to see him take on and create some long-standing feuds with previous NXT opponents either in singles matches or as part of a tag team with Bray. The possibilities are almost endless. Daniel Bryan got it half right last night: it was time for a Bo to leave, but, NOT Bo the wrestler.
It's time for the end of Bo-lieve gimmick -- and the beginning of a darker, more cynical Bo Dallas, which fits in perfectly with his brother, Bray.
Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas.
I know what you're thinking: Danielle, can I have a cookie? Sure, go 'head.
Otherwise, you're thinking that Dallas and Wyatt couldn't have gimmicks further apart and that's true. On one hand, you have Bray Wyatt, a southern redneck radical cult leader who lives in darkness and preaches to the "lost" (and also walks around like a spider when he should be wrestling) and on the other, Bo Dallas who seems to think he's the official Motivational Speaker for the Earth. Bray has a gimmick that works, fans love him and sing along with him to "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" while Bo gets laughed at, booed and ignored.
However, there's a huge difference between someone whose gimmick works as a heel and someone whom the audience wishes would get on a bus and leave the WWE forever. Right now, Bo is obviously the latter, dismissed for coming off as a complete wuss.
The problem is that the average wrestling fan doesn't know Dallas's history.
Spoiler Alert: he isn't a slouch.
Bo wrestled under his real name, Bo Rotunda before he came to WWE. If the name sounds familiar, it's because he's part of the Windham/Rotunda wrestling dynasty.
When he was younger, Rotunda won the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship three times. He was the first NXT wrestler to win a spot in the 2013 WWE Royal Rumble by beating Luke Harper and Leo Kruger (the latter currently rebranded in the WWE as Adam Rose) at the Royal Rumble Fan Fest. Bo Dallas lasted a very respectable 20 minutes -- even besting Intercontinental Champion, Bad News Barrett (the latter coming back into the ring and eliminated Rotunda sparking a fued and a title match for the Intercontinental Championship belt which Barrett retained). Bo held the NXT Championship for 280 days after defeating Big E.
Bo actually has an interesting history with Bray in both leagues. He's wrestled with Bray Wyatt as Bo Rotundo and Duke Rotundo to win the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice. (They also wrestled together as Bo Rotundo and Husky Harris previously). Yet, in NXT, when "Duke" changed his name to "Bray" and set up "The Wyatt Family", Bo was actually given the opportunity to join them. He refused. In response, Bray ruined Bo's triple threat match against Conor O'Brian and Corey Graves, leading to a later match between Bo and Bray. Bo ended up winning that night.
Of course, NXT is not WWE and rarely do the two occupy the same universe or have a parallel continuity.
Right now, Bo remains undefeated in WWE, albeit against wrestlers that aren't taken as seriously as competitors including R-Truth, Fandango and Titus O'Neil.
I'd love to see Dallas confronted with his "past" or, in other words, some of the guys he faced from NXT. It's not like the Bo Dallas character has been re-branded the way Isaac Yankem became Kane. He uses the same name and a silly "Bolieve" gimmick. He's not motivating anyone with it, he's getting heat for it, much as he did for his last few months in NXT (where he didn't even try to be Tony Robbins).
Most importantly, it's time to have him join his brother as tag team partner. Last night, they wasted a great opportunity to get that started. As you may recall, Daniel Bryan came into the ring to report on his injuries (which had excellent potential for a Barrett joke) but Bo Dallas interrupted the segment so that he could condescend and tell Bryan he was "climbing the ladder of life". Daniel Bryan humiliated Bo by referring to him as a "Bo-ner". It was amazing watching Dallas's face fall as he realized he was being told off.
It may have been almost imperceptive, but part of Dallas died right there.
Cut to the backstage area and Bo walking with his head down, looking dejected...right past Bray Wyatt who is sitting in his rocking chair in a dark room, slightly lit, waiting for his big Ladder Match. He slowly realizes who just walked past the doorway, gets up and watches as Bo walks. The camera goes back to Bray as he grins. Sheep mask.
Then we go deeper into it on RAW. You can even start a "universe" with RAW and NXT sharing the same space.
This time is different, though. Bo is starting to realize that his message and inspiration is falling on deaf ears. Instead of being accepted as somebody who pushes people to be great, he's been humiliated, booed and gotten so little back for such great effort. He realizes that it's time for him to accept the invitation. At first, he'll try to resist, but it makes a lot of sense. Bray is more over than Bo who realizes that he may never get over at this rate but, together, they're an interesting pair. Bo could be spouting out demotivational thoughts. Might be a little Sandow-ish and on the comedy side, but you insert a bit of darker humor to it, it works. He can pop out at the end of matches (both ones he's in and ones he's not) and tell people that they couldn't win a match against a first grader and to hang up their costumes.
Bray could even distance himself even more from Luke and Erick (already sporting a different theme than the usual Wyatt family's "Run and Hide") to the point where Bray and Bo could fight Luke and Erick. That match might set a WWE record for most amount of cheating and interference, actually.
As a new powerful heel wrestler, it will be great to see him take on and create some long-standing feuds with previous NXT opponents either in singles matches or as part of a tag team with Bray. The possibilities are almost endless. Daniel Bryan got it half right last night: it was time for a Bo to leave, but, NOT Bo the wrestler.
It's time for the end of Bo-lieve gimmick -- and the beginning of a darker, more cynical Bo Dallas, which fits in perfectly with his brother, Bray.