Friday, March 04, 2005

#102. Leopold's Concentration is Good, Orlando Jordan

Fourth chapter of you-know-what is up, and I'm enjoying the writing process quite a bit once again, even if the experience and the story are so different from the last time. This installment features an intervention scene that might ring as a little clichéd, but is absolutely necessary in establishing Oswald and his life, as much as talking about pet behaviors is with Leopold. At any rate, I find it all really fascinating, and I can't imagine why...

Booya! Boo-ya! Oz just got his groove on! That's right, Orlando Jordan is United States champion having defeated John Cena for the United States championship last night on Smackdown. Yes, it required the interferrance of the Basham Brothers (co-secretaries of defense) and JBL himself, but the fact of the matter is, Oz has gold! His hard-earned work, as chief of staff and as ring lackey, has paid off. No, it's not unusual for someone to win a championship, or to defend it for that matter, without technically having done it fairly. Being associated with JBL, the particulars of Orlando's victory are no surprise, but the inevitability still tastes as sweet.

He's a guy who puts himself out there and makes his opponents look good time in and time out. Call it the Jericho Method. It's what Orlando was basically brought in to do, and this skill ultimately ingraciated him into a position to build a personality, a profile, he could not naturally build himself. He's been couched into greatness, and he's not there yet, but this is a huge step, and he's got nowhere to go but up. And the difference between someone like him and someone like Test (whom I still admire and wish the best of luck when he returns, wherever he returns), is that it's not just expectations he's building on, but himself. If you can't do that, then you're sunk. You're Eric Watts, you're Brutus Beefcake, you're Ahmed Johnson. But Orlando has the goods to fulfill the potential those who believe in him know he's capable of. No one sees the great ones coming, and Orlando has that potential. Even if he ends up being another Booker T, that's nothing to sneeze at. Booker is, after all, a five time (five time, five time, five time, five time) world heavyweight champion, even if it looks as if he'll never ascent to become a WWE version of one.

But Orlando can. He's just starting out. His obvious model is the man he defeated to become United States champion, John Cena. The man headed to WrestleMania next month in the classic journey to the heavyweight title started out as a punk with no gimmick and no momentum. gradually, he built one, and still lost mostof his matches. But he continued to refine, until he became someone no one could ignore. And he did it by constantly giving back. John Cena is not greedy. When it's good for him to win, he wins. When it's good for him to lose, he loses. He's made the United States championship something to talk about, whether he's fighting Rene Dupree, fighting just about everyone to keep it, fighting Booker T to win it back, losing it to Carlito Carribbean Cool right away, or allowing himself to lose it again just before the biggest show on the wrestling calender, thus forfeiting one of the greatest spectacles possible for a wrestle, holding the two heavyweight titles available to you. It's how Ultimate Warrior did it.

So unlike Warrior, who never seemed to quite understand what was good for him, and thus ruined a great career, Cena does. Call him the next Austin (as it seems so obvious), or the next HBK. And then look just behind him and see Orlando Jordan.

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