On Tyson Kidd and the Need for Managers

The match will probably be good, but the build has sucked thanks to Kidd's sub-Farmer mic skills
Photo Credit: WWE.com

I don't mean to step on Butch's gig here, but something is bothering me right proper about the top program on NXT right now. The number one contender to Adrian Neville's NXT Championship makes the Champ look like Ric Flair on the microphone. Sending Tyson Kidd to developmental to find his groove and get back into game shape after his injury was a good idea. However, whoever decided to put a live mic in front of his face deserves to be fired.

Basically, Kidd has the wild intensity of a Psycho Sid, which would be great if he was anything more than the 1% as coherent. Kidd sounds like he's either throwing out the most generic of platitudes or he's saying things that have no bearing on reality. He spits the worst possible game, to the point where he may have singlehandedly given the fans a viable replacement for the "WHAT?" chant on last night's episode of NXT. The only FACT I came away with was that Kidd should never be handed a live microphone ever again.

It's not like the NXT bookers and agents had to send Kidd out blind. The Performance Center has a fully-functioning promo school. If the plan was to put Kidd in the title match at Takeover, an idea which I am not opposed to in general, then why weren't his mic skills vetted before he was sent out on a Network show to build to that match with his words? I hate to keep cycling back to ECW and Paul Heyman, but if Kidd were making his rounds in the iconic Philly indie in the late '90s, he never would have been given a mic. Instead, he would have been given a proxy to talk for him, someone like Shane Douglas (as a member of the Triple Threat) or Cyrus as a manager.

Kidd's strengths are obviously in the ring. A great wrestling program features wrestlers whose strengths are played up while weaknesses are hidden. WWE has guys who can string words together that elicit reactions from crowds that are not mocking. Sure, Heyman might be slumming it to go down to NXT (and a compelling argument exists that the only person he helps anymore is himself, which I might subscribe to), but what about Sylvester Lefort? What about Enzo Amore? Vickie Guerrero?

Not every wrestler can do it all, and just because a television show is dedicated to the travails of the developmental system doesn't mean wrestlers should get to use it to work out deficiencies in their games, ESPECIALLY in the main feud for the next big live supershow. The Performance Center should be where the kinks are worked out, and if what Kidd is doing with that mic is considered ready for prime time, then WWE has way lower standards than even I figured for promotional vignettes.