Who is "Pretty Rickie"?

[truk24]

Can anyone tell me if this is a joke on the part of R-Truth, or if it is the return of Elijah Burke. At first I thought it was Burke making fun of R-Truth. Hopefully thats what it is, and I think this could be a huge push for him. Tell me what you all think.

 

[Tenta]

Nope, that actually is R Truth out there, and this isn't a joke whatsoever. And if this continues in the way that it is right, it will find itself soon in the JTMFTG. Here's why.

1. Simply enough, their taking away one of their good workers on Smackdown, and making him a comedy wrestler. This isn't like santino, where all we know about the guy's wrestling ability was that he wrestled a couple matches in FCW, and that's it. No, R Truth actually had a decent following to him, and while he was never going to be World Champion, he could at least shoot for a mid card title, or maybe find a tag team partner. Plus, it takes away something that got Truth over, and that was his entrance. It may not have been terrific rapping, but nevertheless, it was still able to get a pop, and get the fans cheering. Yet, now they seem like they're going to take that away from him, and base him on a character similar to Flavor Flave, circa 2007. Simply put, any time that you're being compared to Flavor Flave in professional wrestling, something is extremely wrong, and whatever you're doing just isn't working for the WWE's brass. Again, it wasn't like he was the greatest worker in the world, but he was surely above the status as a comedy jobber. And with this in mind, I'm absolutely perplexed that the WWE decided to make such a drastic switch for R Truth. Especially when one considers;

2. Jesse is taking a gimmick of a rapper now. Now granted, I understand they want to do something with Jesse, and that's all well and good. He has wrestling in his family, so if they decide they want to keep him around, that's completely their call. However, I don't understand the idea of giving Jesse a rapper gimmick, if it means that you're going to be placing R Truth in the comedic jobber category. In terms of talent, I'd consider the two equal, I suppose, but there's way you can convince me that Jesse is going to get near the pop that R Truth got with this gimmick. If he is, then I suppose more power to him, but I just don't see it happening. I don't see a stable of Cryme Time and Jesse getting over, nor do I see this Pretty Ricky gimmick getting over whatsoever. Which brings me to;

3. The overt stereotypes Vince has placed into this character. Basically, it seemed he played off a loud, obnoxious guy with gold teeth. I noted that Vince has a fond love for stereotypes in my JTMFTG piece on Saba Simba, and it seems that all Vince is doing is modernizing his stereotypes to better suit the times. I'll admit that this occurrence works against white people, a la Santino, but it seems minorities are the ones to get it the worst, and between African Americans and Asians, I'm not sure who gets the short end of the stick more often. Again, maybe I'm over analyzing this far too much, but I say poor move on the WWE's part, and hopefully something that won't last very long. If Vince keeps this running as long as he did Santina, I don't like Truth's chances. I understand that it's already been done, and there's no turning back. But, hopefully, they can spin this gimmick into something that works.