It’s Day Three of #AhmedJohnsonWeek, our celebration of all things Pearl River, and the first installment of our (patent-pending) Juice Make Sugar Wrestler of the Week series. We started off with A Wrestler You Should Probably Know Better, and then gave you the finer points of the Tony Norris oeuvre with yesterday’s Essential Viewing. Today, we’re asking the important questions with A Series of If…Whats on “Big T” Tony Norris, before we make our Amazon.com-on-steroids dreams come true with “Juice Make Sugar Recommends…” tomorrow. We’ll finish everything off this Friday with a Difference of Opinion (where JMS HQ erupts in a Legal-Rights-to-the-Letter-T-fueled civil war.)
If Ahmed Johnson had NXT, what would he have been like in the ring?
While it’s hard to say exactly what he would have been like — because Mason Ryan — chances are he would have at least been able to the basic aspects of wrestling that he seemed to have trouble grasping physically. It’s not as though Ahmed Johnson was exceptionally bad. He just wasn’t particularly good. And in an era of main event guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and even the Undertaker, it stood out even more.
From a “promoted to the main roster” perspective, and not to make the easy comparison, he likely would have been in the Big E. Langston position: put in a main storyline as a silent heavy who occasionally shows flashes of massive potential. Obviously, Big E. Langston is smoother — if not as intense — on the mic, but he’s also much smaller (5’10” to 6’2”) so it’s entirely reasonable to believe they’d be at nearly the same position for their first year or so, even in a significantly more shallow era.
Ahmed had way too much potential to not eventually get a mega-push, but they likely would have taken their time getting him to the top of the card for everyone’s benefit.
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