Steenalizing Professional Wrestling

The following is just an article that sprouted into my head last night following the very good in-ring segment with Kevin Steen and Jim Cornette. Before you write me spiteful emails about this, just realize this is strictly my opinion. I do not claim Kevin Steen is going to change everything in one fell swoop, merely I am writing in appreciation for what he's done in wrestling over his career. With that, I hope you enjoy.

He’s fat and grotesque. He’s got a farmer’s tan most of the time, other times he’s simply pale. He clearly used to have acne as a child and his face shows it. He looks like the guy that does the landscaping at your local city buildings but believe it or not, he’s the future of the professional wrestling business. Who exactly am I talking about? One man and only one man, from Montreal, Quebec Canada and his name is Kevin Steen. There are many that are surely going to read these words and go haywire, screaming and acting like morons because they just can’t accept such a large statement about a man so physically unimpressive. Believe me though; this is certainly the way it is. Ring of Honor is truly honored to have Kevin Steen in their company and not because I said so, just listen to the fans the next time you watch a ROH event. The fans love Steen despite his overly rude and hate filled antics. They appreciate and respect the fact that he is incredibly athletic despite being portly and unassuming. They are amazed at how well Steen can cut promos despite English being his second language. More than anything, they notice that he’s what wrestling has needed for decades; a different outlook on wrestling.

Steen represents the oppressive nature of many wrestling fans that have followed the great entertainment medium that is professional wrestling. For too long, the image of the pro wrestler has involved fake tans, overly developed and generic muscular bodies and short haircuts. It’s been called many different names from the “robotic”, to the more descriptive term “the FCW look” that is both a jab at the feeder league as well as its parent company WWE. We’ve all noticed this; from the Randy Ortons to the David Otungas it all starts to blend together. The move sets are even quite similar and the matches formulaic and furthermore; archaic. Kevin Steen breaks every bit of that mold, sporting a T-shirt and shorts in his matches. He doesn’t want to look like a walking neon factory, all he wants to do is perform and that he does greatly. I’ve recently found myself watching more and more Steen matches from various companies, most notably PWG. In these matches Steen does one thing fantastically, one thing no one else in the business today can even parallel him in and that is violence. Kevin Steen is the most violent and believable man in wrestling. Steen brings a combination of amazingly aesthetic wrestling acumen as well as guttural fighting spirit. In a nutshell, Kevin Steen brings the realism to a wrestling globe that is becoming more and more cartoon by the minute.

Last June, everyone began to talk about the now hugely popular face of WWE CM Punk following a promo on RAW now gleefully renowned as the “shoot promo”.  In it, Punk displayed true emotion and belief on the things that were boring and unoriginal about the WWE product and how John Cena represented to him what was wrong with professional wrestling and more so that everything had to change. What would spur that change? Himself. He did just that and within the summer, CM Punk became a household name once and for all. The problem however, is that someone beat Punk to the gun on the whole “shoot” promo angle. Just one day before that now legendary edition of Monday Night RAW, Ring of Honor held an iPPV named “Best in the World”. In it, Steve Corino furthered his reforming from evil storyline by inviting Kevin Steen to the building despite him being banned from ROH following a match with El Generico in December of 2010. The idea was that Kevin Steen was reformed just as Corino was, who now was being “sponsored” by another former evil man Jimmy Jacobs. In short, Corino lost his match that night to upstart Mike Bennett and was being beaten up after the match and Kevin Steen appeared to help out his former mentor. The crowd went insane for Steen who simply asked for a mic. With it, he created a now infamous promo to all Ring of Honor fans:

“Thank you, thank you. Listen I’m not going to take long. I know I’m not supposed to be here. Steve I’ve been tellin’ you for months that all I want is to make things right. All I want is to come out here and get a chance to apologize and I’m really thankful to get to stand in the ring today because Steve I told you this, so I could stand here and tell you. (And) tell you Jim (Cornette), tell you Cary(Silkin), the new owners, all the boys in the back, everybody here tonight, and everyone watching on the Internet. My name is Kevin Steen, and fuck Ring of Honor!”

The crowd popped for just a second and began to look amazed as Steen delivered a sick Package Piledriver maneuver to Steve Corino, laying him out. Immediately security rushed the ring, sending him away in a crowd surfer’s position that Steen turned into what looked like a crucifixion position. The crowd went wild for him and thus began Steen’s latest surge of popularity. These events happened exactly one night before Punk’s famous promo to end RAW on June 27^th, 2011. I’m not claiming that Punk knew anything about Steen’s promo nor do I claim that any of WWE’s higher ups and writers did either. All I’m saying is Steen has continued over the past eight months to be ahead of the curve in this business. From his promos, to his in ring style Steen is single handedly changing how wrestling fans of this era look at the products. It’s no longer about having a cool finishing move or a flashy set of tights. With not just Steen but also with guys like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and a few others; you must have more to you than just a single trait. You have to be believable over everything and you have to grab people with what you’re doing. “Working” the crowd has evolved, no longer do people take anything done in a wrestling ring at face value. With that, the workers must change the game. How do you do that? You work with what they already know. You make reference to real life things, such as Steen has done with Jim Cornette’s admiration for what he calls ROH’s “golden boy” Davey Richards. He mentions that he’s fat and that regardless of it, he’ll kick your ass and he’s so believable that you know it’s true. In short, Kevin Steen is what wrestling used to be but also what wrestling could never have imagined it would become. Kevin Steen is legitimate not because he has a MMA background, not because his moveset is simply composed of strikes and ground work but because Kevin Steen makes you believe what he does. Steen is simply charismatic and strange. Kevin Steen is a breath of fresh air in a business full of carbon copies and dull stories. Most of all, Kevin Steen is everything you want to hate but also everything you want to admire about the mostly wild and silly business that is professional wrestling.