WWE Raw: Eric Young still has a chance to succeed on his own

This may sound hard to believe, but even with Sanity being no more and his cohorts Killian Dain and Alexander Wolfe moving onto separate prospers, Eric Young still has a shot at solo glory.

We are now a couple weeks removed from the WWE SuperStar Shake-Up. We have seen several different WWE Superstars successfully transition to their new show post-Shake-Up. Some transitioned better than others, but we have at least seen these SuperStars on the big stage making their presence known. Some WWE Superstars can’t even say that right now. One of those Superstars is Eric Young.

There were a number of tag teams and stables split up during the Shake-Up, but no split was done quite as chaotic as SAnitY. It’s almost ironic considering that SAnitY’s characters were always agents of chaos. Unfortunately, this time, chaos wasn’t in SAnitY’s favor. Chaos split the former NXT Tag Team Champions across three different brands: Dain to NXT, Wolfe to NXT UK and EY to Raw.

Considering how SAnitY’s SmackDown run this past year was disappointing, some critics are looking at this breakup as a blessing in disguise. Well, for everyone except EY that is.

Killian Dain can live up to his potential as a one of a kind big man by pursuing a singles career in NXT. Meanwhile, without spoiling future NXT UK tapings, Alexander Wolfe has a bright future ahead of him already.

No one expects much from Eric Young on Raw. Which is somewhat understandable given WWE don’t tend to push guys nearing the age of 40. However, let’s not forget that men on the red brand – like AJ Styles and Robert Roode – are experiencing some strong pushes at the moment despite being well past the age of 40. That is one reason why singles glory remains in EY’s future, but it actually goes much deeper than that.

Probably the strongest attribute on Eric’s side here is his character presence. Between his time in IMPACT to his time in WWE, he always had a strong character presence. He always knew exactly how to get the crowd to gravitate in his favor and no matter what wacky character fell into his lap, he was able to make it work. Not enough people talk about this, but EY’s almost had as many drastic character changes as Chris Jericho has had.

We’ve seen Young as the conniving Canadian, the cowardly chicken too afraid of his own pyro, a super hero, the snobby heel, the dirt dumb redneck and a crazed lunatic. That hardly cuts the butter on Young’s history with characters, but the point is he always made them work. Hell, even when he first entered an NXT ring for the very first time, he came in as just plain ole Eric Young and the crowd still gave him a raucous reaction. Why? Because he works on the mic. Because he knows how to get a crowd to eat out of the palm of his hand whether he wants them to hate him or love him.

That’s a special skill that’s missing from much of the roster. EY can be used as – at the very least – upper midcard talent who’s there to teach the young guys he works with a thing or two about character work by means of telling compelling storylines with them. Or, WWE could finally realize how badly they’ve slept on EY’s talents these last couple years and try him out in the main event.

While SmackDown seems newly primed with fresh young talent, Raw appears to be where seasoned vets like Styles, Roode and Seth Rollins are allowed to thrive. In a setting like this, Eric Young will fit right at home.

Now, all he has to do is debut on Raw and he might just be money.