WWE: 7 Potential Future Roles for David Otunga

I've been torn on David Otunga for a while now.

I enjoy Otunga the character and think that he definitely deserves a spot on TV. But Otunga the wrestler leaves a lot to be desired and doesn't belong anywhere near the main event.

While I don't mind seeing Otunga appear on Raw (and sometimes SmackDown) every week, it's imperative that the WWE uses him in a role that plays up his strengths and hides his weaknesses.

Otunga found that perfect role as the legal counsel for John Laurinaitis, but now that Laurinaitis is off of TV for the time being, the WWE is going to have to find another way to use Otunga and use him correctly.

Here are seven potential future roles for David Otunga. 

7. Tag Team Wrestler

As much as I hate to say it, I always get the feeling that the WWE isn't willing to give up on David Otunga as a wrestler just yet.

They've put him in the ring (and especially in high-profile matches) very often recently, which leads me to believe that he's going to continue to wrestle for the foreseeable future.

If that's going to happen, though, Otunga has to be in a tag team.

To put it simply, he just isn't good enough to be a singles competitor. Not now, and maybe not ever.

If the WWE remains hellbent on keeping Otunga in the ring, putting him in a tag team is the only way to hide his weaknesses as a wrestler.

Otunga has obviously done this before during his time teaming up with Michael McGillicutty, and I'm not particularly interested in seeing him involved in a tag team again.

But I'd rather see him team with a midcard heel who thrives in the ring than as a midcard singles competitor.

Give Otunga a partner who can work, and then let Otunga himself do the talking.

6. Comedic Jobber

In a way, David Otunga has kinda sorta already settled into a role as a comedic jobber.

He's got the jobber role down pat, but other than the "Miracle on 34th Street Fight" against Randy Orton last December, his jobs to guys like John Cena and Sheamus have mostly been simple squashes rather than comedic ones.

But I do think that Otunga could pull off a role similar to what Heath Slater has recently settled into.

Otunga's got good enough mic skills to do some simple comedy like Slater's currently doing, and I even think that, with enough work, he could develop into a baby face comedy character along the lines of a Santino Marella or Ricardo Rodriguez.

I'm not saying that Otunga has the comedic or acting chops that Santino and Ricardo have, but he's good enough at what he does to be a long-term comedic jobber.

Jobbers are needed in the WWE to make others look good, and with some slight improvements in the ring, I think Otunga could fill this role well.

Fans want to see him get destroyed, and being a Slater-like comedy heel would allow him to get demolished each and every week.

5. Announcer or Commentator

While some think that David Otunga is overrated as a talker (and I agree to an extent), he's better than most on the mic.

He's not the second coming of Roddy Piper or anything like that, but his above-average mic skills are one of the biggest reasons why he's even got a spot on TV.

Thus, I'd be interested in seeing how Otunga would fare as an announcer or commentator.

It's no secret that I haven't been a big fan of the WWE's announcer pairings for years now, due to Michael Cole's ridiculous and over-the-top heel mannerisms and Jerry Lawler's incredible staleness as a baby face.

Ideally, I'd like for the current NXT broadcast team, William Regal and Jim Ross, to fill that role on Raw and/or SmackDown, but I also think that the WWE needs to develop some more announcers for the long haul.

Otunga is one of the few guys on the WWE roster who I think would benefit the company more as a commentator/announcer than he would in the ring.

If he can't improve his wrestling abilities, then perhaps he could find his niche as a heel commentator down the road, which is something the WWE is in desperate need of.

4. Backstage Interviewer

Backstage interviewers can play an important role on WWE TV.

We've seen a number of instances where backstage interviewers like Jonathan Coachman, Michael Cole, Josh Mathews and Matt Striker have wound up getting themselves involved in storylines.

They get picked on, manipulated and embarrassed on a pretty consistent basis.

I think David Otunga would be perfect for a role like this.

However you want to get him there doesn't matter. The idea is just to have Otunga treated like absolute crap by anybody he interviews backstage.

If he's a heel, let the baby faces constantly annoy and belittle him. If he's a baby face, let the heels do the same.

In this role, Otunga could help the good guys get cheered and the bad guys get heat without ever even stepping into the ring.

That's a win-win situation for all parties involved.

3. Lackey

To an extent, David Otunga has been John Laurinaitis' lackey for quite some time now.

Over the last year or so, he's done a lot of dirty work and been put in plenty of bad situations, mostly because of Laurinaitis.

In other words, he was Laurinaitis' lackey.

Otunga actually works really well in a role as the brown-nosing, corporate suck-up, and whenever I see him working side by side with Laurinaitis, I can't help but think of Jonathan Coachman.

Coachman served as Vince McMahon's lackey for years, and he did an excellent job in that role, especially when it came to the comedy segments.

I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if the long-term plans for Otunga were for him to develop into a Coachman 2.0 of sorts.

He's already been in a similar position to Coachman for a while now, and regardless of who's in power, he can still play that character.

Whether it's Vince McMahon, Triple H or someone else running the WWE, when I think of Otunga, I see the boss's biggest lackey.

2. Manager

David Otunga has two things going for him that would allow him to thrive as a manager: He generates a lot of heat, and he's a solid mic worker.

A manager like Vickie Guerrero has developed into one of the WWE's top heels based primarily on those two characteristics, which leads me to believe that Otunga could do the same.

The WWE has failed to utilize managers properly for years now, but with Vickie and A.W. trying to change that, I think we need more managers in the company.

And Otunga is someone who immediately comes to mind as a potentially great manager.

His biggest weakness is his in-ring ability, but the fact that he's trained to take bumps and do spots makes him a prime candidate for a managerial role. 

Otunga could be in and around the ring without actually wrestling a match, using his mic skills and heat-generating demeanor to get an up-and-coming heel or two to be incredibly hated by the crowd.

Just go down the roster and pick a heel who's talented in the ring but struggles mightily on the mic.

Give that guy Otunga as a manager, and two problems are solved at once.

1. Raw and/or SmackDown GM

John Laurinaitis spent the last few months as the leader of the "People Power" era and the general manager of both Raw and SmackDown.

But David Otunga played nearly as big a role in People Power as Laurinaitis did.

He was a guy who made matches when Laurinaitis was gone, who wrestled in Raw main events and who who often cut promos on Laurinaitis' behalf.

So, why not essentially continue the People Power era by having Otunga run Raw and/or SmackDown?

He's got the experience having worked side by side with Laurinaitis, and given that the WWE generally likes to have heel authority figures, he could easily settle into that role.

There aren't a ton of choices for the next Raw and SmackDowm GM that are both realistic and make sense, but Otunga is one of them.

He's got all the same qualities that Laurinaitis had. Only, I'd argue that he's better at all of them.

If the WWE wants to keep Otunga in a big role on TV and keep him out of the ring as much as a possible, then naming him the next GM is definitely the way to go.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions on Formspring.