Can Tebow Time Work on WWE's Clock?

Bring him to WWE, evangelical eye black and all
Photo Credit: Cox/Getty Images

The closest thing WWE has come to touching an evangelical Christian character has been Brother Love, which is to say they haven't even begun to breach the subject. I can understand why; while the McMahon family is very much a cosmopolitan New York City secular bunch, I have to assume they know their fanbase is way more diverse. As much as their bread and butter is in towns like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, wrestling is pretty huge in the Bible Belt as well. While stereotypes exist, I doubt they're accurate; I don't think an "average" or "typical" wrestling fan exists. To me, wrestling fandom is beautiful in that regard.

But because the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of wrestling fans are diverse, and because tackling the default mainstream religion in story, or even discussing it casually, is like throwing a Molotov cocktail into a dumpster full of oily rags, the most interesting character left to tackle, the hyper-religious one, is also the one that most promoters will not go near unless they have an insular, well-contained, homogeneous audience, which is to say the opposite of WWE. To say WWE hasn't tread heavily on other religions isn't exactly true, since Muhammad Hassan trampled all over Muslim stereotypes. But mocking Islam is safe, even today. Taking aim at Christianity? Not so much.

If a time ever arose for WWE to take the idea of toying with a character with religious bombast behind him, I believe now is the best of any. For those who don't care about the National Football League, Tim Tebow currently is a free agent. Tebow, famous more for wearing his religion on his sleeve (or more accurately, his eye black) than his talent on the field, is a walking cult of personality. An entire referendum on his character took place over the last eight years of him playing football both at the University of Florida and in the NFL, making him more pop culture phenomenon than football superstar. Furthermore, he's a firestorm of controversy with an athletic background. I would be utterly shocked if WWE hasn't at least made one phone call to him or his agent to put feelers out on a wrestling career.

I would be equally as shocked if Tebow himself actually gave that hypothetical contact more than common courtesy. Like Rich Thomas said on this week's podcast, he has a brand to protect, and as sterile and inhuman as that clause sounds, people exist who unironically believe that as mantra (hello, Darren Rovell!). I have no idea how to read the public perception of WWE, whether it's still seen as the bottom of the barrel of entertainment. Tebow still could cultivate a lucrative career doing motivational talks to Christian groups.

But strictly hypothetically speaking, what if Tebow did entertain an offer from WWE, went through training to become a wrestler, and became a character within the narrative? WWE would probably go down one of two paths introducing him. First is the classic, chickenshit WWE route where they would introduce him as a "controversial" figure without ever mentioning why he had tumult around him. They would spend way more time saying buzzwords to attempt creating that aura while dancing around what it was that made him the subject for pointed public debate.

The other route would be to go full tilt and embrace his persona as the son of a missionary minister. Obviously, that route would not only require WWE to embrace controversy genuinely, but it would require Tebow to have more than a modicum of self-awareness. But if executed correctly, Tebow's character in WWE would be more polarizing than John Cena in the most hostile of arenas. He wouldn't even have to emphasize religion all that much. The character Rich laid out, one that did good deeds, but was exceedingly overbearing about the process, needs only a little bit of reference to his good, Christian upbringing. Maybe this religion-based character wouldn't be the dumpster fire that I originally thought he would.

Unless I'm severely mistaken in my assumptions though, I doubt we'll ever see Tebow in a WWE ring, let alone as a regular wrestler character. However, what a character based off his real life persona might bring to the table in a wrestling promotion would be groundbreaking. If played correctly, the character could hearken back to an edge that WWE lost a long time ago. Then again, if played without the right amount of restraint and balance, it could start full-fledged religious enmity, and that result would be disastrous.

Still, I would like to see WWE or really any wrestling company try to find different ways of exploiting real life characters and controversies to use as story fodder. Whether or not you like Tim Tebow or not, I feel like having his saga orchestrated in a WWE ring would be way better than having it passed off as legitimate news on sports networks, right?