His name is Enzo Amore, and he’s a certified G and a bonafide stud and you “Can’t..teach..that!”. And him right there? That’s Big Cass and he’s seven foot tall and you “Can’t..teach..that!”. Badda boom, realist guys in the room..
..but my question isn’t ‘How You Doin’?’, but rather, “WHAT are they doing?”
As one of the hottest prospect of NXT, when they finally made their main roster debut on April 4th, fans went nuts. They chanted along to every single word both Enzo Amore and Big Cass spoke during their intro, they had the thousands of fans in attendance in the palm of their hands.
Confronting the legendary Dudley Boyz was very beneficial for them, as experienced tag teams go, Bubba and D-Von are two of the best in the business, and their in ring work as well as their microphone exchanges were some of the highlights of Monday Night Raw each week.
During a tag team tournament match with fellow NXT promoted tag team, The Vaudevillians to determine the number 1 contenders for The New Day’s WWE World Tag Team Championships, Enzo would unfortunately suffer an injury, halting their momentum.
Credit to WWE, they didn’t halt them altogether, and whilst Enzo recovered for the next few weeks, Big Cass remained on the show as a singles competitor. This very much gave the company an early opportunity to test the waters for Big Cass as a solo performer, which actually worked quite well, boding well for the future.
Since Enzo’s return, minus a fatal four way tag team title opportunity, the duo haven’t really been in the hunt for gold, instead being placed in other feuds unrelated to the tag team titles.
They teamed with John Cena to take on The Club (Styles, Anderson, Gallows), a rivalry which after the draft, Enzo & Cass would continue with the 2 former. Despite carrying momentum from beating The Club, they would lose to Kevin Owens & Chris Jericho at Summerslam, which very much pressed the pause button on their run.
Strangely enough, the following night on Raw, Big Cass was called upon as a singles competitor once more, as he was given a spot in the vacant Universal Title match (won by Kevin Owens), and the following week went back to teaming with Amore again.
Post Summerslam has been quite a disappointment for the duo, which has seen them lose meaningless matches against the very poorly booked team, The Shining Stars. Although they’ve picked up some good victories in 6 man tag matches, or 5 on 5 matches, the matches haven’t really furthered them in the rankings of WWE, or progressed them.
My big problem, came in the month of October, and their Susan G. Koman promo.
Granted, it’s a great gesture for WWE to have superstars come out with some of the breast cancer survivors and present them with title belts, nobody can argue that.
My main problem was actually with Enzo & Cass. They were out there trying to relate as many of their catchphrases to the struggles of breast cancer and beating breast cancer, it almost felt like a comedy skit, which I’m sure is not how they wanted it to come across.
My take on it was that WWE knew full well that the crowd enjoys chanting along to their phrases, so exploited this to get them to cheer for the Susan G. Komen cause, which people are obviously already in full support of.
Their promo felt cheap, forced and it made the catchphrases feel very..tiresome.
On Monday Night Raw during the month of October, Enzo Amore & Big Cass were actually undefeated, having collected victories against (with Roman Reigns) Jericho, Owens & Rusev, then the following week against Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel before Enzo ended the month with a singles victory over Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows in back to back weeks.
The October 31st match against Luke Gallows was a ‘Trick or Street’ match, which was basically a street fight but with the use of pumpkins and other Halloween props. Whilst this match was never one to be taken too seriously, I felt it further damaged the reputation of Gallows/Anderson, and put Enzo/Cass on the tightrope of falling into the comedy bracket of WWE.
Whilst understandable that a tag team title reign will take time (WWE seems intent on having The New Day surpass Demolitions Tag Team Title record), I do think it would be beneficial to involve Enzo & Cass in something productive and credible in the meantime.
Whilst I enjoy the entertainment value of the two, and appreciate the fantastic microphone work of Enzo Amore, I do think their act is getting quite stale with no real direction.
My suggestion would be as of Survivor Series, to have them feuding to become the #1 contenders for the tag team titles. Give them a real purpose, and also give fans a real reason to get behind them.
I’d have them face off against Cesaro & Sheamus, put on a series of matches against the two of them both singles and as a team, resulting in an eventual match to determine the #contendership for the tag team titles.
Thinking about it, there would be no shame in losing to Cesaro/Sheamus, as they are very good athletes, so by no means would a loss dent their reputation. On the other hand, a victory wouldn’t damage the opposition as WWE are currently building the high tensioned feud between the Swiss & Irish superstars, so that could then lead to their split.
With that one feud you’ve not only built both tag teams up, but you’d be furthering the tag team division, crowning #contenders AND started laying down the bricks for a further rivalry between Cesaro & Sheamus.
I see that as very logical booking, and as an added bonus, by that time The New Day will have overtaken Demolitions record of holding the Tag Team Titles, so it would be very possible that WWE will be looking for new Tag Team Champions in the process, enter Enzo & Cass.
By no means am I saying Enzo & Cass have been a ‘flop’ or failure since arriving on the main roster, in fact they’ve actually been one of the most over/popular things on Monday Night Raw, and still are! I’d just like to see a lot more purposeful activity on their part through creativity, and to start building them up as a more serious team, rather than a comedy duo.
It’s time for the NXT graduates to be given the opportunity to establish themselves as big time players on the main roster, because so many have potential, and somehow end up failing, I really hope they don’t fall victim to this.
Whilst they have a lot more charisma, appeal and fan relationship than the likes of Tyler Breeze, Apollo Cruise and Neville, it’d be foolish to assume their role on the main roster was set.
I think and want more from them, and with the right creative backing and direction, I think they could carry the tag team division for years.
What are your thoughts on Enzo & Cass?
Do they have what it takes to be the faces of the tag team division?
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