Regarding “The Alpha Male” Marquis Corvan

In case you folks aren’t aware, Marquis Corvan debuted in WWECW last night, wrestling against some jobber who used to be on TNA’s Impact all the time. Marquis Corvan, a/k/a Monty Brown.

To say my reaction to his appearance here was mixed would be an accurate observation.

The good:
- ECW’s announce team of Taz & Styles played up his coming to the ECW brand as a big deal .
- Brown took on Cassidey Riley, who was a Fox Sports Impact mainstay, so he had a familiar opponent to face for his appearance (and damn, did Riley bump his ass off for Brown’s offense!) .
- Brown seems to have upped his offensive arsenal a bit, more reminiscent of his late Fox Sports Impact arsenal, which is a more grounded, striking and suplex heavy arsenal.
- The unedited “TNA! TNA!” chant by the ECW crowd was extra special.
- The POOOOOOUUUUNNNCE! Peri …. wait a second, though, we’re not done with that yet.
- The establishing post-match promo was pretty good; it lacked some of Brown’s coked-up charisma, but there’ll hopefully be time enough for that down the road, ‘cause he at least can run verbal circles around the current ECW champ, plus “I’m the hardest, regardless” ain’t the worst catchphrase you could have. And, he dropped some little mannerisms that might push him to Rock & Stone Cold status, particularly his little mocking of the “What?” chants that were being directed his way.

The bad:
- Gone is the cool entrance; no tiger skin jacket, lion-like sniff into the camera, the hyperkinetic look around the arena, the brow wiping on the buckle and ropes; just some guy, in some tights, coming out to some really whack entrance music (see: ugly, the).
- The Pounce is now a transitional move, and although it looked sicksicksick, and was a real crowd pleaser, Monty got the duke with some weird Russian legsweep/ rolling knees to the face/ Fujiwara armbar submission; another little thing I noticed was that Brown’s run off the ropes for the Pounce was awkward, as he started heading for the buckle and had to adjust to make the ropes … years of working that awkward angle of a 6 sided ring will do that to you.
- The Serengeti has been replaced with “the animal kingdom;” what a gyp!

The ugly:
- Marquis Corvan?? I see the reasoning here, due to licensing and trademarks and such (that’s why Lo Ki is now Senshi, Austin Aries is now Austin Starr, etc.). But Marquis Corvan? The announcers had no idea if he was supposed to be Mar-kee, Marky, Marcus, or Mar-kwees. Just go with Marcus, stop being so pretentious. Somehow I doubt Monty had any say in this. And I looked up “Corvan,” just to see if it’s supposed to be some froo-froo shade of brown (it apparently doesn’t have any special meaning).
- The shitty entrance music has got to go. I was expecting Flash Funk or the Godfather to come out. Bring back the hard opening riffs, or the pounding bass beats … the WWF music department really isn’t doing this one justice.

The future:
- Brown vs. RVD; vs. Lashley for the title; hell, since they’re jobbing out Sabu, they could turn in one of their awesome falls-count-anywhere matches, like the brutal one they had in the Nashville-era TNA. Oh, and I could almost have a smarkgasm at the prospect of Monty Brown vs. CM Punk. To a greater extent, if we project the possibility that Monty has to interact with the other members of the WWF roster, we could see him vs. Cena, vs. Batista (another smarkgasm), vs. Benoit, vs. Finlay, vs. Edge, vs. Orton, vs. Michaels, vs. Shelton Benjamin … hell, teaming with any of the above.
- He’s gotta have a new finisher, or return to the Pounce as the finisher of choice, ‘cause he’s not getting that convoluted armbar contraption over with me. Plus, the little things need to come back … the Alpha bomb, the overhead slam (with the “Are you not … entertained?” punctuation) … those were what made Monty Brown the phenom he was.
- He has a great opportunity to learn some stuff under Taz’ supervision, which would really be an easy transition and a great offense for him, as Brown’s arsenal in earlier TNA matches had a strong Taz-like quality (suplex-heavy, hard crossfaces). Hell, no one’s using the Tazmission … give it to him.

The bottom line:
I now have a legitimately good reason to watch ECW on Tuesday nights now. Funny part was, I heard about Monty Brown’s debut literally minutes before the show, and I only watched up to his match, then turned it off and went to bed. Until they move the Alpha Male into the main event, I probably still won’t watch a whole show. No question, Brown has major potential to become a huge player under the WWF banner. TNA dropped the ball big time not putting the title on him when they had the chance … but their best chance was back in 2005, around Final Resolution. Then they kept pushing him back further and further, for Christian, Sting, Joe, now Angle. I hope I get to see this guy do big things, because he could be the next big star with the right approach, or he could flounder big time; it all depends on how much WWF sees in him. As long as he doesn’t catch the Ahmed Johnson virus, he could be on top of the game.