The WWE brought back a glorious thing to WWE Monday Night Raw and WWE Smackdown Live this past week. Along with the roster split and WWE Draft, the WWE brought back the jobbers, wrestlers whose main goal is to lose to the WWE superstars and make them look good. The Raw jobber that lost to Braun Strowman actually found himself an Internet celebrity after the match.
The Raw jobber was James Ellsworth and he actually got time to cut a promo before his loss to the big Braun Strowman. Before the match started, Byron Saxton asked him why he was fighting Strowman on WWE Monday Night Raw. Ellsworth simply said, “any man with two hands has a fighting chance.”
It was those words more than his loss that probably catapulted James Ellsworth into the public eye as more than just another Raw jobber. The same episode of Raw had Nia Jax make her debut against Britt Baker, but no one really bothered to care about Baker or who she was in the match.
However, when the Raw jobber talked about how his dad told him that anyone has a fighting chance before getting his butt handed to him by Braun Strowman, he seemed to win over a lot of fans who grew up watching names like The Brooklyn Brawler, Barry Horowitz, The Mulkey Brothers, Los Conquistadors, and Iron Mike Sharpe.
WWE actually interviewed James Ellsworth, the Raw jobber, for their website and he seemed genuinely grateful for the chance to get squashed by Braun Strowman and even more so that he got a chance to cut a small promo before the match started.
“I’m 31 years old, and ever since I can remember, I’ve been watching wrestling. I’ve watched every episode of Raw since it debuted in January of 1993. And to actually get to perform on Raw was a dream come true.”
James Ellsworth even gets the chance to do a Reddit AMA, which will take place on August 2. Not many times has a Raw jobber get an opportunity like that, past or present.
The jobber has always played an important role in professional wrestling history. Men like Barry Horowitz helped prove how dangerous wrestlers like Jake “The Snake” Roberts was, without Roberts having to wrestle name talent every week. When the WWE started having only name wrestlers compete on Raw every week, it caused a lot of young talent to immediately find themselves buried.
Guys like Tyler Breeze, Curtis Axl, Bo Dallas, and more could have gotten more of a chance to get over if they had a Raw jobber to fight while getting their characters over. Could Honky Tonk Man have survived in the WWE today if he had to fight top stars every week, losing at least 50 percent of the time?
To understand the significance of the Raw jobber, go back and listen to the WWE Hall of Fame induction speech by The Ultimate Warrior. Fans today know that the WWE has a Warrior Award that they give out at the WWE Hall of Fame every year, but when Warrior spoke about the award, it was not what the WWE gives out. Warrior wanted people like the Raw jobbers and the hard-working people behind the scenes to get recognized by the WWE Hall of Fame. He also talked about how important the WWE jobbers were for his career.
“The first guy I worked with, Jose Estrada. It was a television taping in Indianapolis. I went there and he made me press on him about 15 or 16 times, something like that… Steve [Lombardi] was on the receiving end of my ‘green’ punishment every night for a long, long time. Always kept a positive attitude about it. Terry Gibbs, the first guy I worked with on TV. All the guys there that helped me out.”
Now, it looks like the Raw jobber is coming back, and if James Ellsworth can become the next Brooklyn Brawler or Terry Gibbs, that means nothing but good things for future WWE stars.
[Image via WWE]