Joshua Norton: September 5, 2001

The Dirtsheet is back, like it or not, and so am I. I thought I'd begin this run with a new coloumn title and a new attitude. Each article is going to be about whatever the heck I feel like, whether you like it or not. And I want to state up front that my "opinions" are carefully engineered to be abrasive and annoying to at least some of the readership. Why? Because I can. So here we go, ripping the guts out of someone.

Andrew Spears.
What the FECK is wrong with Andrew Spears?

The ONE glimmer of success he has (winning the NYSWF NA-Core title) and he not only loses it the following week but he also then goes directly to hell in a handbasket and gets kicked out of his stable.

Not that Southwest Voodoo is all that impressive in the first place, you understand, but still. Losing one thing might be seen as bad luck. But losing both? That's just careless. So where did Spears go wrong? From the moral high-ground of my armchair, I shall show you by disecting Spears' performance. Let's look at his career to date, such as it is.

His win/loss record is poor. He's lost twice as many matches as he has won. That's never a good place to start. To make matters worse, it's not as if Spears has been grossly outmatched by his opponents. His one notable win, against Spiral, should have set him up for a run with the title for at least a couple of weeks. He should have been an Underdog champion, showing that the little guy can defeat the odds and beat the bad guy. So how did he fail?

In ring, Andrew Spears has all the appearance of a good worker. He sells well. He moves well. He can fly a little, work the mat a little, brawl a little and swings a stop-sign as well as the next guy. But all that adds up to is "Jack of all trades, Master of none". Light begins to dawn, I think. Because Andrew has a lot of flash moves and very little of substance to carry him between spots. He can ripple off his signiture moves and go to a finisher but he can't really settle into a match and work it the way some of the more experienced talent can. As anyone who saw "The Toybox" will attest, put Spears in with another Spotfest worker like Spiral and the two can really move a match. But pair Spears off with someone like Sigel Phoenix and, well, we know what happens.

On the mic, Spears has a more serious problem. His identity is usually in question. For example, let's look at the classic feud between him and Jack Adonis. Adonis, a Heel colour commentator of the highest order, starts to push Spears as a face by insisting that he's a douchebag. Spears' eventual response to this is to pull a knife on Adonis. WHAT??? Andrew, one of the unwritten laws of wrestling is that when the Heel commentator starts generating heat for you, firmly putting you over as one of his loathed babyfaces, you DON'T PULL A HEEL TURN!
Spears' promos have shown a similar lack of direction and focus. Spears appears to have had a little too much creative control over himself because his promos veered around in style and substance. He's occasionally arrogant (usually without reason) but sometimes swerves into attempted maturity. Andrew doesn't have the ringtime to carry that off and he ends up looking like a wannabe. He over-estimates his own importance and his drawing power. It took a huge effort for Spiral to put him over and even then Spears managed to screw it up almost immediately. A wasted opportunity.

So where does this leave us? Is Andrew Spears just another jerk?

Nope. Andrew Spears is something more than that. If you watch his work you will see the begingings of something special - versatility. Yes, Spears lacks experience and a little maturity. Yes, he's occasionally a pointless tit who wastes his opportunities through needless grandstanding. Yes, sometimes he sucks like quicksand. But we can forgive him all these things in the name of watching a future star develop.
Andrew has shown he can work just about any kind of match. There is no sign, for example, that he needs to be carried through matches by his opponents. No one is trying to make him look good in the ring because they don't need to. And he's also shown that he is adaptable on the mic. He can tailor his promo work to suit either the angle or the opponent. Yeah, he's making the classic mistake that I like to refer to as the "Early Boden" by being just a little too much like his opponents. Take that in context, guys. Look what Sean Boden achieved! In my opinion (and it's my column, so it's the only one that counts) Andrew Spears needs to be paired with a more experienced worker. Put him in a tag team with a wiser head, someone to curb his excesses and tempter his enthusiasm. Get said tag-team into a respect generating feud with someone like the Star Senshi. Yeah, the Senshi will walk all over Spears and partner but it would give the team a chance to establish a credible presence in the fed and work some tough matches. Most of all, give Spears a Heel turn. Let him work the mic as the person he slips into so easily - a snotty, arrogant little tyke with no sense of his own insignificance. It's a Heel gimmick that is bound to succeed in generating heat from the crowd and Spears has shown that he can do it and do it well. You'll see that Spears becomes a more credible worker. Give his team a shot at the tag belts, and then if he loses use that to springboard Spears back into the Singles scene.
But do it slowly! And fer feck's sake, don't let the guy take his own direction any time soon!

Because Like It Or Not, Andrew Spears is the wave of the future.