Adam Rose Poised for Career Upswing After 'WWE: Behind the Curtain' Special

ESPN's E:60 special WWE: Behind the Curtain opens with the man WWE fans know as Adam Rose slipping into his young son's bedroom. He sits next to the sleeping boy and reaches for a vial filled with a viscous, yellow substance which Rose then feeds him through a tube.

"I do what I do for him," Rose says.

To be more accurate, Ray Leppan says this line. He's far from a wrestling ring at this point, his character peeled away. Here, he's not the flamboyant, Russell Brand-like party animal that he is onscreen. Here, he isn't a low-rung midcarder.

At home, with his family, with ESPN's cameras pointed at him, he's something else entirely.

None of the subjects of E:60's NXT documentary changed the way the WWE audience views them more than Rose did. Rose had people, Wrestling Inc included, talking:

Many WWE and NXT enthusiasts knew of Corey Graves' concussion issues and how they stunted his in-ring career. Xavier Woods' pursuit of Ph.D. was common knowledge. While the film revealed details about those men's journeys, they didn't provide as drastic a departure from what fans thought they knew.

Before this film premiered, the Rose character looked to be falling into the same traps as Fandango's did.

It was a goofy gimmick that forced the wrestler who portrayed it into a comedy role. It made fans dismiss his chances of success. He seemed like more of a sideshow than a marquee attraction.

From this point forward, it will be impossible to look at Rose the same.

He's not just this dancing, sassy character who crowd-surfs around the ring; he's a wrestler with one hell of a story. WWE: Behind the Curtain showed that Rose toils on a wrestling mat to support a son born with an abdominal deformity. It let fans know of the uphill nature of Rose's pre-WWE life, that he was once a runaway and a homeless teenager.

His real-life narrative blows the scripted one out of the water.

In an era where kayfabe is all but nonexistent, persona and personality are hard to separate. WWE can continue to try to sell Rose as this character fans see on TV, but a good number of them will be unable to shake the image of him as a caring father desperate to make it in the business to create a stable future for his family.

As Mike Mooneyham wrote for The Post and Courier, "The glimpse of the man behind the character—a caring father and family man—will definitely change how the audience views Ray Leppan." 

Good luck trying to get fans to boo him again. Regardless of how one feels about his wrestling ability, it's hard not to root for him now.

The documentary showed him to be likable beyond anything WWE showed on TV thus far. It created a connection to the crowd that the Rose character has struggled to make so far. 

WWE: Behind the Curtain stripped off a superhero's costume and revealed a sympathetic, relatable man underneath.

The people running the WWE Creative Humor Twitter were most certainly joking when they talked of what the film did for Rose's career, but there's truth to the tweet:

He's far more interesting now. Rather than just some guy at the bottom of the roster, he's someone of whom many will be curious going forward, someone with whom many fans will empathize and appreciate in a whole new way.

Mick Foley, for one, will be pulling for him:

And Foley won't be alone. Expect an groundswell of support. Expect him to have more fans and more signs with his name on it. 

He won't morph into John Cena all of a sudden, but more attention is headed his way now that the E:60 special aired.

This creates a most unusual situation ahead for WWE. It has to consider whether to keep Rose as he is, bring back his Leo Kruger gimmick or forge ahead with something new, something that infuses more of his real-life story. However the company approaches it, it has an opportunity to jump on here.

There's a buzz around Rose that didn't exist before. There's an interest in him and his career that WWE can harness.

It all equals added opportunity.

His name is sure to come up more when discussing new angles. He has to be a higher priority to make it on Raw each week. WWE knows that hype like this can't just be ignored. 

Credit: WWE.com

Zack Ryder created his own buzz via social media back in 2011. A series of viral YouTube videos showing off his personality got fans talking. The result was a brief foray into the spotlight and a United States Championship win. 

When Darren Young told the world he was gay, WWE didn't shy away from using the subsequent press he received to its advantage. He and Titus O'Neil turned babyface, climbed up the tag team ladders and challenged The Shield for the titles at Night of Champions 2013.

Rose's upward movement is coming next.

As the biggest talking point of WWE: Behind the Curtain and in many ways the heart of the film, his relationship with the audience is different. His name is being brought up more. All that will equate to a bigger slice of the airtime pie, at least for a brief period. 

But although he knows change is coming in terms of the fans, he doesn't know what that change will look like. 

Rose told Brian Fritz of Sporting News, "I'm not sure how the audience is going to react. I don't know how that is going to affect the audience. I'm going to have to see, honestly, what the audience does now. I'm as interested as everyone else."