But even that compliment leads to perhaps the most glaring criticism of O’Neil. He started his second athletic career as a professional wrestler relatively late. He was already in his 30s when he signed his first developmental contract, and he’s already 36 years old. The most insane statement on the forums is that O’Neil could still be performing at a high level 10 years from now. As a frame of reference, Titus was born less than a week after John Cena, and the same forum posters can’t go two weeks without wringing its hands about how little time he has remaining as the face of the WWE. Father Time is still the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champ, and it makes little sense for the WWE to commit to building him to main event status.
The bottom line (sorry, to steal your line, Stone Cold E.T.) is that Young and O’Neil would quickly become lost in the shuffle as solo performers. O’Neil has a great physique and a strong sense of humor, but I don’t know that he is inherently better than Mason Ryan, or Ezekiel Jackson, both of whom are younger, and both of whom have completely fallen off the WWE radar. Without a tag team partner doing the heavy lifting, Darren Young wouldn’t be able to generate heat with a pocketful of matches and kerosene pants.
So my hope is that the two are simply taking a short break from appearing together in order to re-tool them for a run as a face tag team. WWE’s roster suffers from a lack of tag teams to begin with, and the teams that are left (minus the Usos and Tons of Funk) are all heels. The Prime Time Players are talented enough to help balance the roster, and who knows? Maybe one day their alternate personas of Pancake Patterson and Bonecrusher Baker can hold the tag team belts high.
