If Dean Ambrose is going to be Mick Foley, he is going to need a big win

If the barbed-wire-bat passing segment on last Monday’s Raw is any indication of WWE’s plans for Dean Ambrose moving forward, his role as a main event level star will be something much more akin to that of Mick Foley than Steve Austin.

In some ways, that’s just fine. Foley still managed to become one of his generation’s biggest stars almost entirely by virtue of earning moral victories in defeat, getting beaten up, and fighting valiantly in big-match situations where he was clearly outmatched. With the company so reticent to put Ambrose over at the level of a top guy who beats other top guys regularly, a formula that allows them to continue to bank on his star power without having to make him the focus of the product or put him over the guys they want to protect probably sounds pretty agreeable.

Like Foley, Ambrose’s character has not been defined by his ability to win, but by his ability to take a beating and keep coming back.

Setting aside a very brief run with the Intercontinental title, Dean has lost the vast majority of his matches on PPVs and network specials since the split of The Shield, and his biggest victories have all been of the moral variety. He had a visual pinfall on Triple H at Roadblock. He pinned Seth Rollins for the title at Elimination Chamber only to have the decision reversed. He quite literally had the belt slip out of his grasp at the last second against Rollins at Money in the Bank. He’s been shown as being justthisclose from winning the big one ton multiple occasions, but that ultimately makes his character one who always comes up short in big situations.

Thus far, the stigma of being a presumed fall guy in big matches has not done much to hurt Ambrose’s standing with the fans. If anything, it has made them more ravenous to see him succeed in a big-match situation. And if WWE intends to make Dean Ambrose its modern-day equivalent to Mick Foley, the sympathy-garnering babyface who comes up on the short end of the stick more often than not, then WWE needs to understand that it owes the Ambrose character the same thing it owed Foley: the career-defining win.

Mick Foley’s first WWF Championship win on the January 4, 1999, episode of Raw is viewed in hindsight as a defining moment for the company, thanks in no small part to Tony Schiavone’s attempted dig at Foley as champion ostensibly giving Raw a few extra hundred thousand viewers. But it was every bit as significant as a defining moment for the character, proving definitively that the underdog could triumph over insurmountable odds – even if he required a bit of help from a bigger star to do so. Foley was a well-loved performer, but that tentpole win entrenched him as a top-tier star.

And for as important as that marquee win was for the Foley character, it was every bit as necessary as a means to reward the faith of the fans who backed him so unwaveringly. It did not even necessarily matter that Foley’s three championship wins lasted less than two months combined, because the nature of Foley’s character never mandated that his major victories had long-term effects. That he was able to achieve at the highest level possible, even if for a matter of weeks or days, was victory enough in itself for Foley and the fans who supported him.

It was understood by the fans to some degree that Foley would never be presented as the singular star of the product above the likes of The Rock or Steve Austin. It is similarly clear that Ambrose will not be given the same backing as his former Shield teammates, who are seemingly destined to be two of the company’s marquee stars for years to come. Like Foley, Ambrose can take losses to Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins and not have his popularity damaged, but at some point along the way, he, like Foley, is going to need a big win to justify all of those close defeats.

In 2016 alone, Ambrose has come up short in three high-profile opportunities to reach the main event of Wrestlemania (Rumble, Fastlane, Roadblock). Three clean, definitive losses to the presumed Wrestlemania main-eventers establishes that Dean is a full step below Triple H and Reigns in the pecking order, which is in itself amusing given the company’s desperate attempts to transfer some of Ambrose’s popularity onto its faltering face of the company.

It is pretty easy to presume that Ambrose will endure his fourth consecutive major loss at a big show when he meets Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania.

Lesnar’s aura of being an unconquerable monster is a significant part of what makes him so unique compared to the rest of the roster, and it is an aura that WWE will go out of its way to protect. Given the importance of keeping Lesnar invulnerable and Ambrose’s seeming imperviousness to losses, a Lesnar victory seems incredibly likely. That Lesnar is also quite clearly the physical superior to Ambrose certainly does not sway that likelihood one bit.

If Ambrose’s lot is indeed to lose to Lesnar at Wrestlemania, the formula seems clear enough: Brock would dominate a significant portion of the match with Dean kicking out of an F5 or two at the last possible millisecond. Ambrose would employ the Foley-gifted barbed wire bat and numerous other gimmicks to make a comeback, and he would get a few breathless near falls before Lesnar ultimately wins the match with another F5. Ambrose would be put over as both taking a hellacious beating and inexplicably taking The Beast to his limit, and he would probably be given some acknowledgement after the match by Lesnar to indicate that he has earned respect in defeat.

Coupling this with being put over by a few good Paul Heyman promos along the way, Ambrose could very well come out of another big loss bigger than he was going in.

But imagine how much more over Ambrose would be for this year and beyond if he actually managed to defeat Lesnar, even in a flash pin situation where Lesnar kicks out at 3.01 seconds. That would not just be enough to sustain Ambrose as a clear main-event talent for the remainder of the year, but possibly for the remainder of his career. It would certainly better serve the story being presented thus far: Lesnar does not feel threatened in the least bit by Ambrose, and having his bravado cost him a match he clearly had in the bag would be the more satisfying narrative payoff than simply pummeling Dean and pinning him.

Lesnar’s aura of being invincible would likely not take any major hit, and even if it did, it could be very easily walked back by a Heyman promo calling Wrestlemania the one time out of 100 where Ambrose could eke out a win against Lesnar. The damage it would do to Lesnar would be miniscule compared to the benefits it could have for Ambrose.

Dean Ambrose being effortlessly popular in spite of losing more often than winning is both a blessing and a curse. It is a quality that WWE has to acknowledge and harness regardless of what it thinks about his physique or his hairline or any other possible detriment it can hold against him. Foley was another star who never fit the mold for what Vince McMahon thought a superstar should be, and yet when it was evident that they had lightning in a bottle with his character, they ran with it and gave him that moment of triumph.

Picking apart what makes Dean Ambrose more popular than Reigns and trying to find a way to transfer that energy is a fool’s errand, particularly when it would be far easier to go with what the audience wants and give The Lunatic Fringe his moment in the sun. Maybe that moment comes at Wrestlemania, or maybe it comes somewhere farther down the line, but WWE would be foolish not to strike while the iron is hot.