At this point, it seems Vance Archer has gone the way of guys like Tyler Reks and Kung Fu Naki, and he got there pretty quickly, which sucks, and is kind of unfair for him. He gets a small push on ECW and gets into a program with Shelton Benjamin, but then Vince suddenly pulls the plug on ECW, so it kind of killed a lot of people's momentum. And now all of a sudden, Vance Archer is doing nothing, with only a handful of matches under his belt.
ECW was more or less a televised developmental territory that looked like a pseudo-brand on WWE, designed to develop tomorrow's stars. It's helped build stars like Punk, Morrison, Miz, etc., but guys like Archer, as well as Baretta, Croft, Yoshi and Tyler Reks, all of whom haven't fully developed into much, have all suddenly been thrown into Raw and SmackDown and are floundering. Either they fill vacant spots on TV or they aren't on TV at all. I'm glad they ended ECW, but overall I think it hurt a lot of people on the brand. Maybe there's hope with the upcoming draft, so we'll have to see...
Anyway, I kind of went on a tangent on underutilized talent, but that's sort of what this topic is about. I've found that I like Vance Archer a lot more than I thought I would. I thought he was a goof in TNA and could not take him seriously. Then he debuted in WWE, and right away I liked him better than I ever did in TNA. I main thing I like about him is his look. To me, he has this cold, serial killer look to him... more so when he first debuted without the beard. But anyways, the way he looks, moves, and executes his maneuvers gives me this vibe of a really evil guy whose quiet, calm and collected, but could fly off the handle at any moment. It sort of reminds me of Randy Orton's schtick, except it has a look that fits it better than Orton's Abercrombie & Fitch model look.
While I do like his look, I think the tramp stamp either needs to be covered with a singlet top, or added on to so it doesn't look like a tramp stamp. It opens him up to a lot of jokes, which would defeat any attempt to make him look serious. Plus while I personally like his character, I don't think he'd catch the interest of casual fans with it, as there's not much talk to him and stuff like that.
So overall, I like Vance Archer, and I don't think he's really gotten that fair of a shake so far. It's hard to tell whether or not they'll just keep him off TV and eventually release him. If so, I'd hope they at least give him more of a chance first, and see where he goes with it. But history has proven that guys have been let go without getting much of anything beforehand. Guess we'll have to see what happens...