Enzo: my name is enzo amore and I am a certified g and a bonafide stud and you can’t teach that. this here is big cass and he’s seven feet tall and you can’t teach that. badaboom, realest guys in the room, how you doin’?
Cassady: (improvised remarks about Dudley Boyz opponents) and there’s only one word to describe you (period) and i’m gonna spell it out for you: s-a-w-f-t
Here’s the thing; I just wrote all that out from memory. I’m 90% sure that I’m 100% correct on the entire spiel, because I’ve heard the exact same fucking lines every single RAW since Wrestlemania. And the fans eat this shit up, reciting the whole routine, word for word along with them, while popping like they’re cheering for Hulk Hogan in the 90s all the while.
Personally, I’m already bored of Enzo and Cass, and I’m at the point where I know that 4-5 clicks of the 30 seconds forward button is sufficient to skip the entire entrance routine, see that they’re wrestling the Dudley Boyz for the 74th time, and then start clicking some more to skip the match outright.
I remember seeing Enzo and Cass in NXT in the few times I’ve actually been able to watch NXT since I don’t have The Network. I was surprised to see just how over two guys were with a niche Full Sail University crowd, and how it must be easy for regular fans to memorize the routine, when they’re hearing it every single week. I thought that it was impressive how over they could get in Orlando, but I had doubts of their ability to remain over if and when they ever made the main roster.
Their schtick of reciting the same lines, disparaging the opponent for a hot minute, and Cass spelling out SAWFT again and again, has amazingly remained over with live audiences, but has already alienated me and made me actively root against them and not respect their abilities. A friend of mine have already pointed out that if their opponents were allowed to have microphones when these promos were occurring, then undoubtedly guys like Xavier Woods and Bubba Ray Dudley would have eviscerated them verbally, when their lack of ability to improve speaking, nurtured from months of rehashing lines would likely leave them speechless on live television.
Furthermore, neither of them are particularly good wrestlers. As a solo act, Enzo Amore has no future in the Vince-run main roster, since he’s pretty much like the Guido-equivalent of Spike Dudley, and is entirely reliant on his ability to sell and take punishment, but would be entirely unbelievable as a legitimate physical threat to win matches, much less win singles championships. Colin Cassady, in spite of his Vince McMahon boner-inducing physical stature, can’t really wrestle either. He’s formulaic, completely reliant on a routine match, and even his finisher is slow and can be telegraphed as far away as a Fast & Furious jet runway.
As individual performers, they’re about as memorable as Test and Daivari, so it’s a good thing that their individual shortcomings are hidden behind the veil of tag team wrestling. However, as wrestling fans are astutely aware, ultimately every tag team is eventually split up, and that will probably not be a good thing for Enzo and Cass; that is, until the inevitable reunion occurs, garnering one last hurrah of pop and nostalgia, before the act grows stale and redundant, again.
The irony of Enzo and Cass is that the reasons why people are cheering the heck out of them are ultimately the reasons why these same people claim to hate John Cena. Cena is often accused of having too-canned promos and being a formulaic wrestler; which is exactly how Enzo and Cass can both be described with their weekly speech and checklist matches. The difference is, despite how much people don’t want to believe it, Cena has developed tremendously as a performer and expanded his arsenal throughout his career, and his feud with The Rock made very prevalent, his ability to improvise and actually work a mic and a crowd. It’s been several months since Wrestlemania, and I struggle to name five moves between both Enzo and Cass combined, and they have yet to deviate a single word from their canned entrance.
The good news for me, and anyone else also bored with Enzo and Cass is that ultimately, every tag team has a fairly short timeline (except The New Day, hopefully), once they reach the main roster. They arrive to great anticipation, there’s a little bit of a honeymoon period in which they don’t lose any matches, they get a title shot, fail, get another title shot, succeed at it after the interest has already begun to wane, successfully defend it a few times, and then lose the belts to the next ones in line eventually. And the unfortunate Enzo concussion, along with the arrival of main event accessories, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows have kind of thrown a wrench into the tag team division, to where I can’t imagine Enzo and Cass having more than a transitional tag title reign, mostly as a reward for getting over, but not really a lengthy one.
Now that’s sawft.
