Damien Sandow: Babyface?

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While watching SmackDown this past week, I felt like Damien Sandow's character had taken a rather sharp change in direction. Sandow's more pompous attributes had been scaled back and his keenness to fight, specifically to fight World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio, had been revved up to a hundred and ten.

This change in demeanour comes off the back of several months of bumming around in “Creative have nothing for you” purgatory, and a losing streak which seems to have become almost ritual amongst newly minted Money in the Bank winners. Sandow was a sentimental favourite to win SmackDown's Money in the Bank match this year. Us wrestling nerds enjoy his work, but with a member of The Shield and WWE's newest pet project Fandango in the mix he didn't feel like the first choice from WWE's perspective.

But he won, knocking then-friend Cody Rhodes off of a ladder to do it. After a short feud with Rhodes which saw Sandow come out on the losing end, Rhodes took off in a new direction and Sandow became direction-less. No new feud to enter into, no real motivation, just a briefcase and the claim that he was the Uncrowned World Heavyweight Champion. I alluded to how tired I'd become of Sandow's lack of push on Tuesday, following a second-in-as-many-nights loss to Dolph Ziggler on Raw.

So Sandow's new found fire and his willingness to get in Del Rio's face got my hopes up that WWE were finally ready to get Sandow back in the running as a real contender to move up the ladder. What I wasn't expecting was that they'd do it in such a way that positioned him in almost a babyface role; he interrupted Del Rio's tiresome antics, got jumped by Del Rio, chased him from the ring and put in a valiant, hero-like effort in their later match. You'd be forgiven for thinking that WWE were about to make this man a fan favourite.

But would that really work?

The short answer is that it could, and it'd be fantastic in theory. It's often been a complaint of mine and other wrestling nerds that intelligence in WWE is something which, when put on display is often made out to be a negative thing. This is a company who narratively backs a guy who kicks you in the face for showing him up than a guy who doesn't jump into a fight he knows he's going to lose just because a bunch of ten year old's want him to.

There have been many good examples of that, such as any time The Shield win a match through planning and team work and get accused of playing a numbers game which never existed; or when Ryback first turned heel and refused to tag with an injured John Cena because he had a WWE Championship match with Cena and the odds were overwhelmingly askew. And though Sandow has always been clearly defined as an elitist blowhard, sometimes he gets an unfair bad rap. For instance, watching Sheamus kick him in the face repeatedly because he was unable to solve one of Sandow's puzzles and then have it claimed that Sheamus “outsmarted” him, or seeing Sandow vilified as a cheater for using Money in the Bank match rules to his advantage can be a little hard to take.

For WWE to position a man of great intelligence - who uses his brain in conjunction with his in-ring abilities – as a fan favourite would be a great message to send children. To teach children that it's good to be smart and to read and to think for yourself is great. To show that not all bright people are insufferable would be nice also.

However, to turn Sandow babyface, his character needs a few tweaks. Not small ones, either. In fact, pretty much the entirety of the Damien Sandow character would need to change, and that's where we run into a problem. Strip away his blowhard-yness and the condescension Sandow has become so good at, and you're in danger of taking away everything that people like me loved about him in the first place. He's so good and so comfortable at being the elitist blowhard who thinks he's above everyone else because he once read Hamlet that to ask him to scale all that down and to become an intelligent good guy might damage him.

That's not to say it couldn't be done, and I suppose the only way to see if it would work is to test it. After all, if it doesn't, there are very easy ways to get out of the babyface turn. Something as simple as Sandow wanting to see how stupid and gullible the audience is so he dummed himself down to gain their approval would be adequate. Damien Sandow as a babyface, if that is the direction WWE are looking to move, is an interesting one. It'll have to be an experiment. But the thought of having a super smart character who isn't castigated for not being an impulsive meathead is definitely something WWE should look into, whether it's played by Sandow or not.

- Written By Matt Saye of The Wrestling Journal