WWE: Cesaro cannot be held back for much longer

Cesaro’s 2014 has been an interesting one to say the least. There were ups and there were downs. And then there were downs. The former United States Champion appeared to be on top of the world following WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans. He emerged as the first ever ‘Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal’ winner in spectacular fashion. Then, the following night on RAW, Cesaro announced that he would be dumping Zeb Colter to become a Paul Heyman Guy.

At the moment it felt like a smart move. Cesaro and Paul Heyman on paper could’ve been an unstoppable force. And the potential feuds to follow were limitless. Would Heyman turn on his new client when Brock came back thus putting Cesaro in the main event scene? One could only hope. Instead, things would just fizzle out and the fallout between Heyman and Cesaro was never really explained. What we do know now is that in hindsight – this was the beginning of Cesaro’s downfall.

Cesaro was beyond over coming out of Mania. The Cesaro swing was arguably the hottest move as far as the crowd was concerned and it was taken away over time due to him being cheered too much as a heel. After revealing that he was no longer a Heyman Guy, Cesaro would go on to lose multiple title matches against the likes of Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus for the IC and U.S. titles respectively. Present day, he finds himself competing on WWE Superstars, the least watched of WWE’s five weekly shows. This past Monday night in Detroit, we saw him wrestle in a tag team match with Tyson Kidd against Los Matadores.

The Cesaro and Tyson Kidd versus Los Matadores tag team contest was the second and final match of Superstars, which is filmed before RAW airs live on the USA Network every Monday night. Superstars has never been a show to further storylines; its purpose is generally to entertain fans as they file into the arena. Looking back on the Detroit show as a whole on Monday, there were much more positives than negatives.

The fans went wild over Jericho, Lesnar, Cena and Ziggler. The only time they broke into “negative” chants (We Want Mizdow! CM Punk! and NXT! chants showed the restlessness and disapproval from Detroit’s biggest wrestling fans) toward the company was during the match between Gold and Stardust against New Day that seemed to last forever. You can expect to get stinkers like these just about every week to take up a couple of segments. After all, RAW does run 3 hours and 15 minutes. Don’t tell that to the passionate wrestling fans with short attention spans that want to be entertained from start to finish though . The Cesaro/Kidd vs. Los Matadores match could’ve easily eaten up all of that time during the RAW broadcast and guess what – you wouldn’t have had to deal with any hostility from your fans. As a matter of fact, as far as pure wrestling goes, this was the match that got some of the best pops of the night from the Detroit faithful. The powerbomb/blockbuster finish was so good that Cesaro and Kidd had to stick around to enjoy their handiwork on the Titantron with the rest of us.

We’d be hard pressed to give you the numbers on sales when it comes to t-shirts for Cesaro and we’d be lying if we told you that we knew how he is viewed backstage on a whole. We do, however, know how Vince feels about him.

Much has been made about McMahon’s comments during his appearance on Stone Cold’s podcast earlier this month, and rightfully so. Vince said that Cesaro “doesn’t quite have the charisma, doesn’t quite have the verbal skills,” to be a top guy in the company. He would go on to say that it could be because he’s Swiss and that he just does not have that “It” factor. While there is a whole lot of wrong with these comments, especially the “maybe it’s because he’s Swiss” comment. And the knock on Cesaro’s verbal skills, I’m starting to think that there was some purpose behind these comments. It’s Vince’s job to light a fire under his employees collective ass, and these comments about Cesaro got the “smarks” behind Cesaro even more than they already were. That said, there has been a consistent gross underutilization of Cesaro’s overall incomparable skill set. With the Rumble and WM season coming up soon, one can only hope that we will pick back up from where he was following that magical night in New Orleans.

Maybe hooking up with Tyson Kidd, who has done some incredible work as a heel on NXT by the way, to shake up a stale tag team division on the main roster isn’t the worst thing in the world for Cesaro. As evidenced by their performance this past Monday night, both men seem to be passionate about working together and we know both men can put it down with the best of them. With Natalya as their manager, this could turn out to be a great babyface run for both men with one or the other eventually making a huge turn ahead of WM 31.

What we do know is that the fans aren’t going to give up on Cesaro. It’s impossible to take your eyes off of him when he enters the ring, and I’m sorry Vince, but the guys verbal skills are just as good as anyone in the company – you’re just not getting it. Maybe it’s because he’s Swiss?

images via WWE