When the WWE tells you someone is a good guy, then he is a good guy (a face for those who like wrestling jargon). When they tell you he is a bad guy (a heel), then he is a bad guy.
There is one small problem with that, sometimes the good guys do bad things and the bad guys do nothing wrong at all. Back in the day, fans just rolled with it, these days the marks (more wrestling jargon) and fans in general are more quick to say, wait you might be telling us he is a bad guy, but he isn’t doing anything wrong. The lines become blurred and good becomes bad and bad becomes good.
With someone like Colin Cowherd and other sports media personalities, they often decide who is good or bad. Their reasoning for it sometimes is spot on and other times it makes no sense at all. Cowherd for whatever reason just thinks John Wall is a bad guy, right from the beginning, he put that label on him. From the day he did the dougie the first time he was introduced to the home crowd years ago.
“Much like I called out Greg Oden, I’m gonna call out John Wall….Before the game started, he spent 34 seconds doing the Dougie. That tells me all I need to know about J-Wow. Then he opened his mouth later and confirmed it: not a sharp guy. All about him. In that line last night, that 29-point line, when he was out of control, he had 8 turnovers. By the way, Rajon Rondo had 17 assists last night, 0 turnovers. Rajon’s got rings, Wall will never have one.
“Folks, when you rob a bank, it’s not just the act of it, it’s that you sat down for weeks and planned it. That tells me you’re an idiot. The act is just the final icing on the cake. The cake is you sat down for weeks and planned it. I always give people credit just for getting a job. If you interview with 300 people and get the job, you beat 300 people out for a job, you’ve got to have some skill-set.
“Oh, I’m gonna get a lot of callers — Colin, he’s just having fun. What he did last night, Rondo never would, Isiah never would, J. Kidd never would, Stockton never would, Nash never would, Magic never would. Point guard is like the quarterback. it’s an IQ-judgment position. The great ones are not about themselves. They’re about the others. Leadership is IQ, it’s not skills.
“J Wow’s 37-second Yo dawg look at me I’m the man [dance], and his wild, out-of-control style, everybody else is buying his stock, and it told me all I need to know. He’s gonna end up on the Iverson, Francis, Starbury [side]: great stats, nine All-Star teams, never play with good smart players and an elite head coach. He’s gonna drive people nuts.
“My daughter’s 10. Ten years old. She knows the difference between right and wrong. My daughter knows what Randy Moss did is wrong. She’s 10. The haves get it early, the have-nots never do. Look at me, I’m great, I’m unbelievable.
“You go look, we have a Hall of Fame point guard right now, his name is Rondo. Go look at his numbers….The best distributor in the league, and all we’ll pay attention to is John Wall. Rondo is your superstar point guard, but we will spend hours on John Wall. I’d take Rondo in a heartbeat….When I see Wall dropping 29, you know what Wall’s thinking tonight? Man, that dance was good, I might get 39 tonight. Great. Nine (sic) turnovers and 29 points. Welcome to the back of the class, get behind the Celtics, the Lakers and the Heat.
At that point Cowherd had made the decision, Wall was a bad guy and would always be one regardless of what he did in his career on or off the court. No matter if John Wall wins 10 championships, Cowherd will always stick to his guns, just like a WWE character. John Cena interferes in a match, hits someone in a chair just because he doesn’t like them, doesn’t mean he is bad, because he is John Cena, he can never be the bad guy.
Sadly, John Wall’s friend Miyah died from cancer and he broke down during a postgame interview speaking about her. I think everyone, myself included heart was hurting by Miyah’s passing.
Let me make one thing clear, you can’t make a blanket assessment of a person off one action. What Cowherd said 4 years ago and what is happening today are two different things. I think even John Wall would admit he is a different (hopefully better) person now. We all strive to get better as we get older.
What you want from media is the ability to separate their personal opinions and be able to acknowledge the individual actions. Cowherd feels a certain way about John Wall that is fine, he is entitled to his opinions even if they are stereotypical, but no one can deny what Wall did for that little princess was incredible, but Cowherd just couldn’t just fully embrace that notion.
“If you play real defense in this league, you’ve got character. John Wall works hard on the defensive end. He grinds people. […] Do I think John Wall has grown up? Absolutely! Do I think he was immature when he broke into the league? Absolutely. First couple of years he was a turnover machine and couldn’t shoot because he took lousy shots. Do I think he has evolved? Yes. Do I think he has matured? Absolutely! Do I think he has character? Yeah. You don’t play defense like that without deeply caring about teammates. Defense is about your teammates. That is why Melo doesn’t play any. Offense is about you. Defense is about caring about your teammates. John Wall plays real defense. Definitely has real character.
Was I too harsh on him? I host a radio show. I do basically 30 columns a day. But if you are looking for apologies you are off the wrong pier. I said what I mean, I mean what I say. John Wall has grown. Hopefully over five, six years, so have I.”
If Cowherd would had said he thought Wall was immature years ago, we wouldn’t be talking about this. He called him intellectually dumb and basically a thug for doing a dance. That isn’t the same thing.
If you read between the lines especially the last paragraph you see the truth. Cowherd hosts a radio show, where he needs to basically give 30 takes a day. They have to be strong and somewhat controversial, so he isn’t going to apologize for them because deep in his heart he knows that is what drives ratings.
In wrestling terms it is called a “PUSH”, he pushed the John Wall agenda (did the same with Sean Taylor) and was hoping it just worked out, so he could say I told you so. I don’t think Cowherd is a racist, I think he understand what drives conversation and ratings. A radio version of Skip Bayless, who at least makes sense some of the times.
The problem isn’t Cowherd, it is you the audience. The WWE audience dictates and sometimes FORCES management into changes (see Daniel Bryan title run), but the sports fan audience while they say they hate the hot takes, really love them or these shows wouldn’t be rated so high. This is a 1200 words piece talking about a serious issue in journalism, but it won’t get more views than Kerry Washington divorcing Nnamdi. I understand that, but when people say they want sometimes doesn’t match up with their actions.
Don’t blame the supplier when you are the one buying the drugs and getting high. No one is forcing you to put the needle in your arm.
