ECW Analysis Re-visited: Rallying for Ricky Ortiz..

Ahhh, the typical male jock. He's muscular and athletic, has boyish good looks if he's lucky, has a talent for playing a few sports, and coasts on these things for the majority of his life. He's a bit of an underachiever because he's comfortable with his place in life. There's just one problem. When he's surrounded by jocks like him with better abilities or more dimensions of depth to their style as well as their persona, there's trouble afoot. Basically, when the typical jock meets jocks who strive to overachieve, the typical jock is met with a dilemma. What can he do to keep his novelty? What can he do to keep his star power? He has to overachieve. He has to re-invent himself. The jock in this analysis is Ricky Ortiz. The problem he is facing is the exact problem I just mentioned.

He wasn't always Ricky Ortiz, though. His real name is Richard Young. As for what he's done, well, give some thanks to Wikipedia, friends. He went to the University of Tulsa as a transfer student after being in Glendale Community College for 2 years. At Tulsa, he was a 2-year letter winner, playing 22 career games as a linebacker. He was credited with 177 tackles.

Beyond college, Richard went to the training camp for the Kansas City Chiefs for the 1998 season. After being on the practice squad during the season, he went to the Canadian Football League and joined the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He then went on to the Arena Football League for the 2000 and 2001 seasons to play with the Milwaukee Mustangs as a linebacker and a fullback. It was then that the WWE had some influence on his life as he joined the XFL as part of the Orlando Rage in 2002. When that project failed, he made a move to join the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL and was waived. He returned to the AFL in 2002 to join the Indiana Firebirds, until 2004, when he joined the Colorado Crush in the AFL. Between those two years, he lead the AFL in sacks for linebackers in 2003. That's quite a journey for Ricky, yes? Too bad success didn't follow.

In 2006, he joined up with the WWE farm system within Ohio Valley Wrestling, under the name Atlas DuBone. During his run, he was billed as the most charismatic of the superstars there, which meant that he would be called up to the main stage soon. That was the plan as he would be set up with "Diva Search" winner, Ashley Massaro, as his valet. Then, tragedy struck, as he suffered a torn ligament in his knee, preventing a potential title shot in OVW. When he healed up, he returned to action in the new training facility at Florida Championship Wrestling. More bad luck as success came in the beginning, but, it did not remain.

He then made his debut in ECW as Atlas Ortiz, scoring a victory over Armando Estrada. He would then tell people to refer to him as Ricky Ortiz, as Tony Atlas made his debut in ECW, so as to avoid confusion. He would then go on to be undefeated until about this winter, where he lost his first match against current ECW champion Jack Swagger (Side note: he became champ just recently and has an ECW analysis waiting for him on Feb. 8th, whether he's champ or not). Currently, he hasn't wrestled a match and has been seen continuing his flirtatious ways with Theodore Long's assistant, Tiffany. All the while, he showed the wrestling public his underachieving persona, as mentioned earlier, and his ambition to be the best, touting rally towels to swing and some other ideas, like a nickname, to help get him well-marketed. However, something was wrong on his WWE journey so far. It seems like, once again, success was escaping him.

The underachiever of that which is Ricky Ortiz, in the entirety of his ECW run has been, well, uneventful. Sure, he was undefeated, has the look of a star on the rise, and even looks ambitious enough on television to really make a name for himself, but, there's a problem. You see, even though he has all these, the reaction he gets from fans has been rather lackluster. He went from a new guy looking to break out of ECW to a new guy not even worth remembering on ECW. While in the mix with a bonafide heel in Jack Swagger and a high-flying dynamo like Evan Bourne, Ortiz finds the middle ground of the two, as a face, and doesn't seem to have the fan support he used to. Don't get me wrong, it was there when he started. People were waving the Ricky-O rally towels, but that soon faded. It didn't help matters when people were subject to his matches that suffered from heavy editing due to his unpolished style. As for his promo work, well, it went from decent to dismal almost every time he spoke on a microphone. This is a big problem if you're the WWE, because he fits the bill for the type of wrestler you want as a future star, in your eyes. But, what good is a future star when the present is not very good to him?

It seems as if the WWE is going to follow suit and have him get a valet in the form of Tiffany to maybe improve his face status, but I doubt it will do much to garner interest in him. I think what is missing from Ricky's persona is a defining demeanor. Upon seeing him, you would think he was a heel with some of his ambition, but you'd also call him a face for getting in the face of top heels. Yet, there seems to be a big misstep in his delivery that even the WWE creative team should have considered when bringing him into the forefront. No, the misstep wasn't putting him on a more prevalent show like Raw or Smackdown to get him over, as we all know he's not ready for that. No, the misstep wasn't leaving him in the WWE farm systems for the standard amount of time being 3 years, although we all know he probably should have been there for that long to polish his craft, like others were. The misstep lies in Ortiz's character. You see, they saw his charisma when he was Altas DuBone and, whether face or heel, it got them going. The thing is, upon doing some research on Atlas, it appears he had a very cool, cocky, swagger about him that may or may not have been a defining point on his status. He had shades, style, muscle, and attitude. In a way, he had a heel mentality about him. However, he won the crowd over with it which put him in face situations pretty quickly. Now, initially, my prognosis was to make this fella a bad boy heel, but, maybe that's not the case. Maybe instead of worrying about his status, we should just worry about this character. Ricky Ortiz may be a good start to some, but it was Atlas DuBone that won the pundits over. In short, we shouldn't be seeing Ricky, we should be seeing Atlas. That's the misstep.

Now, say, he was a heel when he started or he became heel in all eventuality. Would this, inherently work for him? In a way, yes. His ambitions, underachievement, and slight arrogance can make him pretty unlikeable. Instead of leaving it as a gray area, make it a focal point, and lampoon it. Make him think he's better than everyone. Make him think he is going to go places as a big star, but make him take shortcuts doing it. Sure, it would come off as a bigger, more buff version of Carlito, but it's a start. Still want to add that valet in Tiffany? Do it. Only, instead of making her a bad girl, make her a supportive valet who would like Ortiz despite his bad traits. She'd be the nice girl to the bad boy, like Elizabeth to the Macho Man. There would be some worry on Tiffany's face but she'd never interfere. There might even be conflict between Ricky and Tiffany as to how a match should have ended. It's not perfect, but it's a start. As for reaction? You bet he'd get one. If there is something a fan likes to do, it's jeer a bad guy. He would get a reaction, albeit negative, but it would be a reaction. In order to keep this reaction from dying out to, say, Rob Conway's level of reaction or X-Pac's level of heat, have him do it to higher profile wrestlers on ECW and elsewhere. Not too high, but right in the middle of the card (ex. C.M. Punk or R-Truth).

So, what if you don't want to take the heel route? Well, there's the face route, but instead of making him a smiley-faced underachieving slacker who gives me an air of "A.C. Slater" in his attitude (it's a "Saved By the Bell" character reference for those who don't know), make him cocky and confident. You can make him a bit of a killer like Batista or test the waters and emulate him after The Rock. No, I'm not saying entirely like The Rock. I'm saying to use what he would do in that situation. Berate your opponent with a joke or two. Yes, I found the lisp joke he made toward Jack Swagger a might comical, but, that was his only bit of hilarity worth mentioning since he joined the WWE full-time. Keep the jokes coming. Talk about how you're a muscular man who can power his way through anyone, but make it funny enough to relate to the crowd. I got an idea. Keep the big shades, the cockiness, and be the anti-Morrison. Talk about how no matter how chiseled he is, he'll always be a shrimp to him. Create chemistry.

Ricky Ortiz has the potential to do great things in the WWE, without a doubt. However, it seems that achievement just seems to leave him high and dry. He started of with some success in college, but couldn't transition well into the football leagues. When football was out, he went to wrestle for Vincent K. McMahon and found success in the training facilities of the WWE, only to hurt himself and take himself out of action. Now, the main call came for one of the main shows, and even though he was undefeated for a while, the people stopped caring. If Ricky wants to succeed, he needs to not let his in-ring persona of laid-back underachiever get in his way. He needs to shoot for the moon and bring out the necessary ideas to get himself back in order. Be more like Atlas DuBone, or be a bad guy doing what you're doing now. What would hurt is if his in-ring persona is exactly how he is in reality. Then, the only obstacle keeping Ricky Ortiz from succeeding in the ring other than the underachieving creative teams, is Ricky Ortiz. I really hope that's not the case, because that's not something I'd want to rally for. I'd be coerced to rally for a pink slip with his name on it, to be truthful.