How WWE Squashed The Squash Match

Call it lazy or unimaginative booking, but one thing is for sure: WWE is misusing the squash match. Of course, the purpose of a squash is to position a wrestler as being dominant to the point where the match doesn't last more than one minute.

A series of squash matches can give a superstar legitimacy before moving on to a real feud. Currently WWE has three different wrestlers utilizing squash matches in three different stages.

These three wrestlers are Brodus Clay, Ryback and Damien Sandow.

Effectively, with three squash matches a week (at least), it's proving to be a case of overkill. Moreover, it's counterproductive to the purpose of a squash. The impact of a squash match is lessened when other wrestlers are doing the same thing.

Brodus Clay has evolved long past the need for a squash match. Five months of destroying Heath Slater is getting a little tired. He desperately needs a real feud, and although we saw another side of Brodus on Raw against Big Show, I'm not holding my breath.

It's entirely possible WWE has no intention of pushing Brodus into a real feud. He's basically a sideshow act at this point. Brodus dances, kills a jobber, dances some more and the kids go home happy.

Ryback is a different story. He's a huge, physically intimidating monster. Ryback is the only one of these three wrestlers who should be having squash matches. However, his problem is his opponents. Ryback squashing wrestlers will only get him over if he is destroying superstars with legitimacy, people that the crowd actually care about. Not local jobbers. 

 
Damien Sandow actually has the most potential of all three wrestlers, one of my favourite wrestlers right now. He doesn't need to be squashing superstars. Instead of having squash matches, he is destroying wrestlers after he refuses to fight them (for our benefit).

He has the look, he has a tremendous gimmick and most importantly he feels comfortable as this character, cutting amazing promos every week on SmackDown.

Sandow will benefit most from having matches of a decent length. He can continue being the "Saviour of the Unwashed Masses," in fact he should continue to refuse to wrestle jobbers. However, have him return to have a real match. Similar to what he did with Yoshi Tatsu a few weeks ago.

Ideally he would be having a real feud and be showcased on SmackDown. Sandow performs at a high level on the mic and his gimmick is deep enough to carry a high quality feud.

Regardless, WWE needs to scale back on the squashes. I know I'm getting tired of them. SmackDown a few weeks ago had 10 matches. Instead of setting a breakneck pace, SmackDown and Raw would both benefit from more cohesive, consistent storylines and matches.