Great execution on Jay Lethal storyline in ROH

[scottyshowman82]

There are times when you watch a wrestling show and a lot of seems to be same, it all clusters together and you wait for the good stuff to happen. But every once in a while you get something special that comes alive off the screen and you tell yourself, ya this is good, this is interesting, this is something a little bit different and intriguing to watch. I really enjoy ROH as a whole but the situation I want to focus on is the one brewing between Jay Lethal and ROH management specifically ROH new figurehead and former champion Nigel McGuinness. Jay Lethal has always been a natural and great in ring performer. I think the most high profile thing that Lethal did was work with one of his heroes Ric Flair. Lethal's interaction with Flair stole the show and made people take notice that he had something special in him and possibly had superstar potential. Oddly enough Lethal would find himself leaving TNA and making a nice splash in ROH winning their TV title shortly after arriving and having a nice stretch as champion. However this man that showed so much personality in TNA and potential has as of late hasn't been making that many waves.

Someone had to ask themselves along the way how do we make Jay Lethal interesting again? I think what they came up with is pretty damn cool as they made Jay into a rebellious angry anti hero. But how do you take this responsible, easy to get along with, nice guy and make him a problematic wrestler on the roster. You take a nasty villain like Kevin Steen have him do something disrespectful to someone that Lethal holds very dear. And that's what happened when Steen spat in the face of Jay Lethal's mother. I think it was a brilliant move whoever thought of it. Anyone who followed Lethal in TNA knows he is very close with mother and has so much respect for how she raised him. Now Lethal switched and the rage he now has makes perfect sense. On top of all that you have McGuinness,the new authority figure, who has been up and down the roads with Lethal and respects him. It does seem when someone becomes the head of a brand there always seems to be someone to rebel and challenge the new boss in wrestling landscape and McGuinness admitted himself he certainly did not think it was going to be Lethal.

Jay has snapped trying to defend the honor of his mother and will not take anything less than an immediate meeting with ROH champion Kevin Steen. McGuinness cannot give Jay what he wants and knows how he handles Jay will directly influence how other ROH stars treat the new authority figure. Warnings have been said and the situation is ready to explode. If the mission was to make to help Jay Lethal live up to his potential and make him a compelling character again ROH gets a solid A.

 

[Papa Pillman]

There is alot about this I agree with whole heartedly.

Lethal, for all the talents he does have, was never anything more than a bland character when portraying himself.

Now if he was impersonating someone else, bar the door. He made the Black Machismo character work for far longer than he rightfully should have been able to, and his Flair was so spot on that I wish some organization would have brought him in specifically to play a Flair gimmick in the vein of his Savage gimmick.

When he returned to ROH his TV title run bored me, there were solid matches and decently well constructed stories between him, Ciampa, Bennett, Roddy, etc. but he was just so... just there.

All of that changed with this program. Lethal has proved with this current storyline that he is capable of being a captivating character without just being the "Darrell Hammond" of pro wrestling.

Good for him, and good for ROH for putting him into a position to do something he could be successful with.

Where we disagree...
I don't see Steen as a villian. I don't think the majority of the fanbase does either. Steen is the Anti-hero that you speak of. Where ROH went wrong(or perhaps right) with the Steen/Cornette story is they unwittingly created a Austin/McMahon type dynamic. Cornette wasn't intended to be the bad guy in charge, with the anti-hero making his life miserable, but that is how it came off to most. Because Cornette sucked and everybody wanted him gone, and Steen is incredible and everyone wanted him pushed to the top.

This has made Lethal interesting, but pitting him against perhaps the two most over men amongst the core fanbase right now, Steen and Nigel, has turned this into a scenario where the only way the payoff works properly is a Steen/Lethal double turn where Kevin becomes recognized as a babyface(he already gets the best reaction, so this isn't hard) while Lethal fully transitions to heel. I think that has got to be one of the major end games here.