Justin Gabriel: An Appreciation

Justin Gabriel, man worthy of appreciation
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Of everyone in the Nexus, Justin Gabriel didn't fit. He was clean cut, boyishly good looking and an aerial ace. He wasn't the kind of guy who should have been trying to take over the establishment as a rogue agent. He was the kind of guy the establishment should have loved from jump. He's a goddamn star, right?

While Skip Sheffield, Heath Slater and the rest of the Nexus were stacked up to be evil villains, there was something about Gabriel that never clicked. The 450 splash isn't a move that should be killing Ricky Steamboat. It's one that gets the crowds gasping in amazement. After his teaming with Heath Slater fizzled out, Gabriel was sort of stashed in mothballs or trotted out on NXT. For full-consumption WWE fans, that was never exactly a problem since he often shined on that show as well as Superstars. However, as a guy with a kid and lessening time in front of the Intar-webs, Gabriel might as well have been working in some Colorado indie with no real social media impact.

He's been breaking out a bit lately though. It started with that dynamo match he had with Tyson Kidd, the one that sort of jump-started a tag team except that Gabriel got hurt shortly thereafter. When he came back, they sort of floundered about as "Team High Visibility Work Wear," but then he got a chance to get tossed around a bit by Antonio Cesaro on RAW. It was so fun, they did it again the next week, and he actually got to win too.

So, Hell in a Cell rolled around, and granted, Cesaro/Gabriel III wasn't exactly the best match in the series or on the card. I thought they were two guys who probably weren't totally used to the longer PPV time (a total assumption, please don't kill me "you're not a wrestler" folks). Still, they did some pretty neat things in that match, especially Gabriel, who was the guy who had to leap from the top rope to the point where his chin would connect with Cesaro's arm on that great European uppercut spot towards the end of the match.

And the crowd sat on their hands for the whole goddamn thing.

I mentioned that it was the only match where the dead crowd (which kinda sucked all night in and out) really bothered me. Mainly, it was because the crowd was so dead quiet that it was eerie. I don't like to totally gauge the success of what a guy does in the ring by the crowd reaction, but that doesn't mean I don't feel bad when guys go out there and get total death. Cesaro deserves better than that, but he's going to continue to get better than that. He's got a surefire gimmick, and the dude is a total, legitimate hoss.

It's Gabriel that I fear for. I thought that he was already going to make a niche for himself because he was getting a few pretty decent-lengthed matches for TV, then as soon as he has a match in front of a bad crowd, Monday night, he's Alberto del Rio's new sacrificial lamb. Obviously, this isn't exactly a death sentence for Gabriel. It's one match after a PPV. It's just as ridiculous for me to complain that he's getting "demoted" as it was when the reactionary Greek Chorus on Twitter bitched that Ryback was getting "demoted" because he was "back" to feasting on JTG.

Still though, I've grown fond of Gabriel, a slick wrestler who goes in there and has good matches with everyone. I want to see him do things, and since WWE is actually in a roundabout way building a midcard, I think I might be able to see that.