87.
Armando Elejandro Estrada vs. Braden Walker
ECW - 8th July 2008
You only get one chance at a first impression.
Shinsuke Nakamura. Chris Jericho. Kane. These are among the standard bearers of great debuts. The sort of debut where you remember vividly every detail, and watch a star emerge overnight.
Then there’s the other side of the coin.
Sin Cara. The Shockmaster. Tito Ortiz. The debuts that became infamous for their failure. One that derailed future plans and left the talent scrambling to salvage what was left of their career, broken by an ill fated, poorly booked, or badly executed introduction.
Braden Walker is in the latter category.
Braden Walker had maybe a combined 15 minutes of television time on WWE TV across the two weeks he appeared on television. And yet those 15 minutes have been enough to cement his name in infamy. In a segment that has been parodied and mocked for the last 15 years, Braden Walker is introduced backstage as ECW’s newest superstar, debuting with a knock knock joke with all the writing, delivery and comedic timing of a eulogy. He was doomed from the start.
Now if Braden Walker was just some dude, then nobody would have batted an eye about him, and he’d be lost to history only to those brave enough to dig into the archives of WWE ECW. But Braden Walker was the former Chris Harris from TNA. One half of TNA’s greatest tag team, America’s Most Wanted. He was part of one of TNA’s finest and most memorable matches against Triple X in 2004. Even as recently as a year before this match, he and his former tag team partner, James Storm, were having TNA’s match of the year at Sacrifice 2007. At Slammiversary he was briefly pushed into the TNA World Championship picture as part of the King of the Mountain match. It looked like he was set to break out as TNA’s next big homegrown star. So when he was let go and picked up by WWE there was some optimism from a lot of fans, myself included.
But Shock, I hear you say, surely the promo isn’t enough to ruin his career. And that brings us to the match.
His opponent tonight is Armando Alejandro Estrada, who was fighting for a contract in ECW after his tenure as ECW General Manager ended. Estrada - who was a fun manager character at the start of his WWE run - had inexplicably been changed to a wrestler role that didn’t work for him whatsoever and would ultimately end with his own release in 2008.
In a vacuum, does this match warrant a place on the list? Probably not. This is a plain-ass 4 minute match where nothing interesting whatsoever happens. But therein lies the problem. Braden Walker, out of shape, in his plain black singlet, with his new generic name, standard stock entrance music, with his default entrance where he simply points once, and fresh off one of the most infamously bad opening promos, did absolutely nothing interesting in this match. He is a default create-a-wrestler and this is the tutorial match. Any enthusiasm anyone might have had for Chris Harris in WWE was killed in a single night.
First of all, at 4 minutes long, this is entirely too long for a debut match against Estrada. Why is he taking meaningful offence from Estrada? Why is he selling for him? Walker could have maybe, maybe survived that horrible opening promo if he was given the opportunity to shine. But he didn’t - he spent most of this 4 minute match selling for Estrada. This debut should be a showcase for him. I referenced Sin Cara earlier - even in his debut match against Primo, at least WWE tried to showcase some of the stuff he could do by pairing him with someone like Primo who could (in theory) complement him. Walker is sitting there in chinlocks and bearhugs from Armando Estrada. He wins off the most basic of babyface moves (a flying cross body) so nothing original there - and even in doing that he nearly landed on Estrada’s head.
Am I saying this to say Braden Walker is blameless? Absolutely not, he is definitely just as much at fault for the mediocre showing as WWE was. Clearly he was not in the best shape, and didn’t look particularly motivated during his debut match.
However if I didn’t know better, I’d say the entire presentation of Braden Walker was a sabotage, like someone vehemently opposed the signing of Chris Harris and went all out to kill his WWE career dead. In short, this is the most bland presentation of a wrestler you’re ever likely to see, from the music, the promo, the wrestling style, the attire, the look. And if it were anyone else, it wouldn’t even be in consideration for this list. But because it’s Chris Harris and we know he could be at least something, this deserves its place here and its place in wrestling infamy.
Up Next - modern day women’s wrestling is brought back 15 years at the Grandest Stage of Them All.
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