Do we still want to walk with Elias?

Monday night on Raw, we were treated to the standard Elias segment. He’s introduced in the ring, does a song that runs down the crowd, gets interrupted by a superstar, and ends things with a brawl. Granted, this week had the added wrinkle of having a film crew record him after being dissatisfied with the way his recent documentary depicted him. Sadly, this small change didn’t change the overall formula. His character has become a bit stale for my liking and I believe he’s hit a wall.

I started feeling this way on the Christmas Day edition of Raw, when he came out to interrupt John Cena. He debuted his new catchphrase “WWE stand for Walk with Elias”, had a great comeback to the “CM Punk” chants, and had an all around great promo with Cena. Eventually this lead to a match between the two and that’s when things took a turn for the worse. The longer the match went the more the crowd turned on it. Before long the “boring” chants began and the match ended soon after. I knew the match wasn’t very good but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Looking back at it now, it was actually a sign of things to come.

If we dig into his match history we can find multiple instances where he fails to capture the interest of the audience or loses it all together once he joins a match.

At Elimination Chamber, he kicked things off with a solid promo, but that was his only highlight of the night. Even though the match was really good, he didn’t add much, didn’t eliminate anyone and only last five minutes. The Raw before Elimination Chamber wasn’t any better of  showing for him. WWE scheduled a gauntlet match between the chamber participants. Seth Rollins started things off well but once he entered the match the interest level took a nose dive. The momentum slowed down with him in the ring and when he eliminated Seth the match never really regained its momentum. One competitor later he was gone from the match, again, without adding anything.

Therein lies the problem, he hasn’t shown improvement in the ring. There’s nothing unique or distinguishing about his matches. I can only associate three moves with him; an elbow drop, a chin lock, and his finisher. His character work can only take him so far. You need to be great in and out the ring to make it to the top of WWE. He’s changed from his earlier version of his character and now it’s time to see more growth from him. He can’t continue to follow the same routine or he risks falling into the same trap that other such as Bray Wyatt and Dolph Ziggler have succumb to.

At the moment, he is involved in a feud with Bobby Lashley but we all know where this will end. Lashley wins the feud and Elias falls back into the same spot he occupied all year. He hasn’t won any titles, hasn’t won any of his rivalries, and doesn’t have a big match wins he can brag about. At this rate he’s at risk of becoming a novelty act that gets brought back for Raw anniversary show. The crowd hasn’t turned on him yet, but in time they will come to realize that walking with Elias isn’t all its cracked up to be.