Missed 3:16: A Tale Of Two Christians

I, like many people with a pulse on the wrestling industry frequent Reddit’s Squared Circle on a regular basis. A recent thread asked Redditors to name the wrestler whose retirement was the saddest to them. My favorite answer came from the user, “a-listeraidan,” who wrote the following:

Christian cause WWE didn’t give a shit, it was just casually mentioned on raw 🙁 Christian at least deserved some sort of send off/recognition.

The comment got the most up-votes of all 247 comments on the thread.

Though Christian does not seem to agree with the sentiment that he’s retired, he has to at least be on the back nine of his career, which begs the question: what’s his legacy? It depends on how you look at it.

If you view TNA between 2005 and 2008 as a credible promotion as I do, then he certainly gets a bump. But in WWE, despite being in the world-title mix in 2011, albeit on SmackDown, many will see him as nothing more than Edge’s sidekick and a midcard wrestler who lacked intangible qualities that could have made him a star like Edge (size, build, durability, corporate favor, etc).

Admittedly, all those qualities make up for about 40% of what held Christian back in WWE. The other 60% of what held him back falls on the WWE writing team’s inability to make a commitment to the Christian character.

Take his initial split from Edge as an example while comparing the trajectories of both men’s careers from there. While Edge got to more or less play himself while feuding with some main-event talent, Christian played the role of a midcard character with little room to advance, floundering in meaningless lower midcard title feuds before heading up the Un-Americans, a group of anti-American Canadians, with Lance Storm and Test.

It wasn’t until 2003 that people really got to see what Christian was capable of. He was given a haircut and became Chris Jericho’s sidekick before memorably turning on Jericho to set up a match at WrestleMania 20. After an excellent back-and-forth affair, Christian used Trish Stratus to help him pick up the victory before the two shared a smooch on the entrance ramp.

Now aligned with the company’s top diva, it seemed as though Christian was poised to finally break the glass ceiling and become a main-event player… until suffering a back injury that caused him to miss time. Though he regained his spot in the midcard, the company was reluctant to give Christian the break he felt he earned. For that reason, he left WWE in 2005 but quickly popped up in TNA as “The Instant Classic” Christian Cage.

Right from the get-go Jeff Jarrett and TNA showed that they were serious about getting a return on their investment. They equipped Christian with a bone-chilling theme song that suited him, gave his debut the hype it deserved, and even gave him the mic time to show that he could win over a different audience.

Mike Tenay’s chime-ins nearly ruined the segment, but that’s not the point.

The point is, Christian made a commitment to TNA, so naturally the company made a commitment to him, making him the focal point of their programming for the next three solid years. They even put the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on him nearly three months to the day he debuted. Though it might have seemed rushed on the surface, it came off as very natural.

I bought into the initial Christian Cage title reign and every run after. The TNA run sold me on just what the guy was capable of.

After proving his worth in North America’s second-ranked wrestling promotion, Christian returned to the big leagues in 2009, hoping to replicate his success. Unlike his TNA debut however, his return to WWE killed any momentum he could have had in his return to the company.

Unlike the TNA debut, which was filled with pomp, circumstance, and suspense, Christian returned on a whim to confront the talented, but also very green and unproven ECW champion, Jack Swagger.

Todd Grisham’s commentary, as enthusiastic and charismatic as it was, certainly didn’t help matters. Plus, a big return to the WWE on the rebranded ECW show really worked against him.

Christian would find his footing, though it took time. After weathering through another injury, he eventually captured the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in a very anti-climactic moment against Alberto Del Rio in 2011. From there, a feud with Randy Orton would ensue, and while that was mediocre and predictable, Christian turned heel. As natural of a villain as he had proven himself to be, Christian would soon be relegated back to the midcard where he would stay until he eventually just stopped showing up.

Somewhere in the Amazonian rainforest that is the Christian’s career is a missed 3:16 moment.

Actually, there are several moments you can point to, but I’m going to discuss one in particular that I haven’t already covered.

In the summer of 2005—when John Cena was drafted to Raw a couple months after winning his first WWE Championship—plans called for Cena to defend his championship against Captain Charisma at Vengeance after Christian and associate Tyson Tomko crashed Cena’s Raw debut on Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel.

The problem was that Chris Jericho had given the company his three-month notice and creative found themselves in need of a memorable way to send Jericho out.

Their solution? Turn Jericho heel and add him to the Christian-Cena match.

Sure, it created an interesting dynamic and gave Jericho something important to do. But in the process it left Christian, who lacked the mainstream star power of his two opponents, out in the cold. Shortly after Vengeance, Christian was drafted to SmackDown and eventually phased out entirely prior to signing with TNA.

The solution would have been easy.

The beauty of Jericho is that he has an overall persona that is conducive to both the midcard and main event portions of the roster. WWE could have paired him off with anybody and Jericho would have found a way to make his send off (or on-screen firing depending on how you look at it) memorable. There was plenty of talent coming over from SmackDown and I fairly certain Shelton Benjamin was the Intercontinental Champion at the time. Just saying.

John Cena, meanwhile was a new champion, and while over, was not even close to a finished product in the ring. Christian meanwhile was enough of a veteran that he could made a series of matches with John Cena look both thrilling and believable. There is no doubt this is the direction creative should have gone.

How about those promos?

Christian had labeled Cena with a variety of funny monikers, such as an “Ali-G rip off,” “Marky Mark,” and someone who “talks like Snoop Dogg but looks like Corey Haim.” The face-to-face encounter on Jericho’s Highlight Reel was the moment that really set the table, however.

While Christian did well in generating “cheap heat” by comparing Cena to Mark McGwire—who is something of a pariah in St. Louis—a more realistic approach might have suited him better (a la CM Punk). While Cena looks the part and literally checks off all the boxes for what the WWE machine looks for in a breakout star, Christian does not. But under closer examination, it is easy to see that he is not only entertaining, but just as deserving of a top spot as Cena was, if not more so given his longevity.

In such a promo, there would still be plenty of room for Christian to be the comedian that he is. The difference is that with this approach, he would have given himself more of a chance to be taken seriously by fans while also stamping his ticket as a legitimate threat to Cena both on screen and off.

But of course it’s easy for me to say this is the approach Christian should have taken. It’s the same formula that made him so successful in TNA.

For the next four years of his career, Christian embarked on a crusade to prove to WWE upper management that he, like Edge, could be a main-event player in the post-attitude era.

And boy did he prove it. For the four years Christian spent in TNA, he was viewed by the company as one of the top two or three guys during that span.

Regardless, it cannot be denied that Christian had not only a wildly successful career, but a unique career. He is the only wrestler to start his television career in WWE, go to TNA and win their biggest prize, and then return to WWE to win one of their’s. Captain Charisma has had a career that should indeed be celebrated as opposed to criticized.

As successful as he was though, it’s fair to say that he was capable of so much more, at least in WWE. As driven of an individual as Christian is, he would likely tell you the same.

Wrestledelphia.com columnist Jack Goodwillie can be reached at . Follow him on Twitter at .