WWE: Is Apollo Crews Finally Ready to Step Up to the Plate?

Is Apollo Crews finally ready to take the next step in his feud against Dolph Ziggler?

In a lackluster handicap match, Apollo Crews scored a predictable pin with the help of the injured Kalisto against Dolph Ziggler at WWE’s Elimination Chamber. The story of the match wasn’t the win or the brutal beatdown that the Showoff dished on his two foes, it was the WWE Universe cheering on the vicious attacks against Apollo Crews after the match ended.

The WWE fans were erupting the arena with chants of “One more time!” while Ziggler repeatedly dismembers Crews’ ankles is not the reaction the WWE brass should be pleased with. The Showoff should be hounded from the fans as a vicious heel, not an anti-babyface. That specific scenario right there speaks volumes about the elephant in the room, Apollo Crews has nothing to offer the fans to cheer or boo for.

The flaw that Apollo Crews has had since he debuted to the main roster last year was the lack of character development. The man is as bland as a white canvas. So how on earth do you expect anybody to cheer for a man that doesn’t stand out from the rest of the pack?

That’s the major dilemma that the WWE must be facing after witnessing the events that happened after the match ended. Dolph Ziggler must be ecstatic from getting that kind of reaction from the fans after the match and Kalisto will still be beloved because of his underdog high-flying persona. Crews will be the one to suffer because nobody had sympathy for a man they never cared for in the first place.

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It’s a blessing in disguise that Crews might be out on the shelf for a good chunk of time. This will be key for him to make a massive metamorphosis to his stale character. He’ll need to channel some raw emotion and wiping his smile off his face like he did on Elimination Chamber will not suffice.

Revenge has to be the only thing that fuels him to get back to 100%, it has to be the only thing to dramatically alter his mental makeup, and it has to have a face: that face is Dolph Ziggler.

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Apollo Crews needs to post videos or vignettes during his rehab that shows his slow character shift. In the meantime, Ziggler can egg him on as the sadistic villain he’s meant to be in this particular feud. That would help Crews on two fronts. First, it would create sympathy and excitement for the eventual return. He could then be forced to reveal a personality trait that he hasn’t shown to the WWE Universe yet, anger.

That raw emotion would help revitalize his stale persona and kick start his career into a second gear. Crews needs this type of drastic shift to steer him in the right direction. He’s been dangerously close to a ghost on Smackdown Live since the WWE draft last year, but now he needs to show more character growth on his path of revenge.

Crews’ going on the latest Talking Smack episode and describing the beatdown he received from Dolph Ziggler without any anger behind it was a huge mistake, to begin with.

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Will he keep showing us his one-dimensional personality or will he finally show the world and Dolph Ziggler if he’s capable of more?