by Jeb Tennyson Lund
OnlineOnslaught.com/CitizenScholar.net

After spending two weeks dwelling on how wrestling can manage to bum me out, I was delighted to see something on Monday that would draw me back to wrestling week after week. When the main events fizzle again — or when "Kane: Abnormo-Rapist" becomes the focus of a sit-down interview where he admits he was sexually abused as a kid, then rapes Jim Ross — I'm still going to want to see what happens with this Eugene guy. To Hell with everything else.

I'm curious about Eugene for a lot of reasons. Is this a three-month story that will be disposed of after reaching a quick conclusion? Will Eugene take a Smart Pill and turn into Lanny Poffo when the gimmick becomes stale? How good can he get? But, most importantly, I want to see if Eugene's match style will start to infect the matches around him. No matter what, I'm going to be watching.


Character
The way WWE storylines maintain his character will determine how enjoyable Eugene can be in the long run. Already, the WWE has distanced itself from making him too overtly stupid. At this point, he seems a kind of giddy savant: a bright, talented and capable person whose brain simply has trouble conveying that talent/brightness. "Rain Man" surely couldn't take care of himself, but that film showed that he was by no means the fool.

Thus far, the WWE has done a good job of keeping Eugene near that "Rain Man" formula. Even though he needs a minder, you get the sense that he knows more of what's going on than Regal — or anyone else. It's a tried-and-true formula, from King Lear to the present: people love it when the fool is innately wiser than his masters, or at least smarter than they think he is. With Eugene, you get the subversive sense that he set off the pyro during that Conway match because maybe he was the only person who knew that the match was boring. He certainly stopped paying attention to Regal and Lawler at the announce table. Personally, I'd like to think it was because he knew they were full of it.

But the WWE will have a hard, narrow road to travel when it comes to making Eugene "smart" without making him too intelligent. As soon as he demonstrates common capability in all ways, the charm is gone. He's just another wrestler, which is what his gimmick was designed to help him avoid becoming.

The temptation to change him will probably be too great, and WWE writers have proven to be the sort of people who let no urge go resisted. You get the sense, after a while, that the true impetus for some gimmicks is either a drunken bet, playground dare or just idle exploring—

Booker One: I bet you can't make Kane a necrophiliac incompetent.
Booker Two: Can so!
Booker One: Can not!
(Later in the day....)
Booker Three: (musing aloud) Hmm, I wonder if Kane could survive a fatal inferno.... I wonder if you can electrocute a pie.... I wonder if a vampire bat was in a submarine, and one of those submarine "Piiiiiinng" noises happened, would the bat know where the torpedo was...? If dogs can smell fear, can they hear shame...? What would it be like if trees could throw up...? Do whales burp...? I wonder if we could base a three-month feud between Jericho and Batista on whether Canadian Bacon and ham are actually two different things....

—at least, that's the only excuse for what's happened to Kane that doesn't involve a group of people getting karmically pimp-slapped with the "Cosmic Idiot" label.

The fact is that the Eugene character is in just this sort of Kane-like danger. The moment stagnation sets in, the temptation to make him smarter or dumber will be almost overwhelming. "Dumber" has the more obvious drawbacks, because he then becomes almost malicious comic relief. "Look at the unique savant" doesn't carry with it quite the stigma that "look at the 'retard' " does.

The pitfalls of making him smarter are less obvious but equally negative. One, as mentioned above, is that it makes Eugene virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the roster. (After all, perfectly normally developed wrestlers continually do monumentally stupid things, like run into dark rooms backstage, or turn their backs on their opponents for 60 seconds while staring at the Titantron.) Two, once he's changed, it's hard for him to revert to original form, without running a depressing Flowers for Algernon-type story. I read that story, and I don't need it spiced up with chairshots.

Three, if his savant character is disposed of, it will give off a negative stigma. I don't mean to suggest that each fan will say, "WWE said, 'Let's throw away the retard now that he's boring!' They're saying the disabled are disposable!" But the fact is that his "affliction" is a touchy enough subject that people will stop and consider whatever happens to him. Maybe they won't agonize as I have about whether he's "retarded," "mentally handicapped" or "developmentally disabled" — or whether he's afflicted, gifted, special, blessed, cursed or what have you. But people will care a little more.

This much should be obvious after these last four weeks. With no matches on his resume and only perhaps 15 total minutes of screen time, "Eugene" signs were as numerous as any other wrestler's at this week's Raw. He may have even had the most. People really seem to care what happens to him. In this respect, the WWE is lucky in that it has secured fan interest and perhaps even emotional involvement in one of their wrestlers. The only problem is that, when we're interested, we pay attention. And it's when we're really paying attention that WWE's predilection for radical and annihilating character changes offend the most. Anyone who says otherwise should feel free to email Booker T fans about their opinions on his current flirtation with Papa Shango-like inanity.


Style
Beyond audience signs, what really made me notice people's enthusiasm for Eugene was reaction to his ring style. Simply put, people went nuts for some basic chain wrestling, armbars and headlocks. The moves and psychology of the match might have been lifted straight from a 1985 WWF jobber exhibition, and the audience ate it up anyway.

The only explanation is that people want to see Eugene do well, because his doing well makes him happy. This is excellent, but the worry that looms in the back of the mind is that the writers will give us too much of a good thing. When response to his matches levels off, bookers will be tempted to push him up the learning curve even faster. "This match got few cheers?—have him whip out a moonsault next week. The moonsault's gotten tired?—okay, Eugene just added a Stone Cold Stunner to his repertoire."

(I was momentarily terrified this week when he hoisted Conway on his shoulders and started spinning. An F-5, to wow the audience and stick it to Brock Lesnar, appeared all too possible.)

Rick Scaia suggested to me that Eugene's "development" stop at about the Hurricane level: diverse and entertaining, without too much flashy ability. I agree that this is a good stopping point. Because if he approaches Benoit-esque levels of skill, it progressively debases Benoit and stretches Eugene's gimmick beyond believability. Again, once the gimmick fails, he loses his individuality and thus his relevance.

If he absolutely must be more dynamic, perhaps the best idea is to have him randomly imitate a 1980s superstar's move-set for each match. Thematically, it fits the "slow learner" aspect of his character and explains how he already knew how to wrestle. It also justifies his not performing the difficult high-spots that have become the modern staple. Finally, it provides an extra treat to old-school fans; with each match, they can wonder, "Who will Eugene be now?" (For younger fans, this will be just like playing "Mokujin," the weird log-person from Tekken 3. "Who is he now? Is he Nina or Anna?") If or when that gimmick begins to get stale, he can slowly begin imitating the move-sets of 1990s wrestlers or people currently on the roster. That still might be pushing it.

Again, the point is that the more Eugene becomes just like any other wrestler, the less I (and others) will care. I was excited to see him do an armbar — whereas I couldn't have cared less when Dupree did one the first time. Both were new wrestlers; both in their first matches. But Dupree's wasn't — forgive me for this term — special. Similarly, even though a Shining Wizard is much more interesting than an armbar, it isn't special to me either.

As cruel as it may seem to say it, given that we're discussing someone mentally deficient, the character and the audience gain more by keeping expectations low for Eugene. Joy or satisfaction can be found in small things as well as in great ones. Each fan, each wrestler and each booker weary of pay-per-view main events in which wrestlers hit their finishers twice and their opponent's once — just to provide a different sort of excitement — should take that lesson to heart.


Infectious Style and Enduring Character?
The effort to take joy in small victories may be Eugene's biggest contribution to the Raw product. At a time when WWE management wants to promote a lower-risk and lower-impact style of wrestling, they have a wrestler whose character practically necessitates it.

If we take it as read that Eugene simply cannot be that good in the ring, that means that his tactics for winning must involve slowing the other person down and making that person grapple on his terms. If all Eugene knows is a low-impact old-school style of wrestling, that's how he'll engage each opponent. He hasn't the wit to adapt to their style to win, but he wants to win. Headlock and submission takeovers can slow the match and keep it within the range of his abilities.

In a narrow perspective, this means that there is a plausible justification for one old-school match per show. In the long term, however, prospects for more low-impact matches are far greater. On one hand, wrestling's relentless presence, its abundance and its constancy can induce burnout in viewers. But on the other, said abundance can subtly, slowly and constantly alter expectations. Just as a slow increase in moonsaults and hardcore matches over several years brought us to an expectation of intense, speedy high-impact matches, so too can a few low-impact matches, here and there, help contain the tide of risk and needless spectacle — maybe even begin to reverse it.

By no means do I expect the Eugene character to effect all this on his own. In fact, it's just as likely that WWE wisdom will compromise and destroy his character within six months, leaving no impact on wrestling as a whole. But if they can preserve his character, then there are a lot of possibilities. After all, we've seen low-impact matches in the past. Maven v. Orton comes to mind. In that case, however, what most people saw or expected to see was a low-impact (or "sucky") match between two wrestlers, not because they were trying to exploit a style, but because they were too untalented to do any better. Eugene, as a character, gives us a reason to not only expect that style but also celebrate it.

Eugene as a fun-loving savant, with a precocious and unexpected perception, can be a viable and entertaining backstage character. (Think of the humor of a Jericho-and-Trish-esque moment of romantic cowardice spoiled by Eugene bumping into one of them and saying, "Oops. Sorry.... You know she likes you.") So long as he still seems to stumble and be awkward with himself, momentary flashes of insight will retain a sense of accident, uniqueness and charm. Eugene should often be baffled with and jostled by the present, yet comfortable in the past, with a child's sponge-like absorption of facts, matches and tactics.

He can have a great impact in the ring, but this can only happen if he is legitimized by a stable and plausible character backstage. Once that is secure, an anachronistic and low-impact style in the ring becomes not only justifiable, but also expected. Once that is expected of him, fans might no longer balk at the prospect of low-impact matches featuring other wrestlers. After all, if they enjoy it weekly from Eugene, that appreciation of moves and psychology could eventually be transferred to other workers.

Eugene is not the only solution to WWE's injury woes and periods of stylistic stagnation, but he could be a part of it. Or he could be wasted, like so many characters and stories before him. Until then, I'll be watching and entertained. Ashamed a little, perhaps, by my entertainment, but entertained nonetheless.

E-MAIL JEB LUND
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Jeb Tennyson Lund is the Pope of Online Onslaught. If you want to read his sadly less wrestling-oriented columns, go to www.citizenscholar.net.

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