WWE Tough Enough: Why Luke Should Have Won over Andy

As most of you already know, Andy was introduced to the WWE roster as an official employee right before Monday Night Raw last night, courtesy of a slap to the face by Vince McMahon and a Stone Cold Stunner by none other than Stone Cold Steve Austin.

As most of you are already thinking based upon the previous Tough Enough winners, who really cares? Andy will probably make it no more than two years in the WWE, as fellow TE winner Maven Huffman did, and Luke will probably be given an FCW contract to show off his talents and skills and eventually make it up to the WWE roster within time.

Well for whatever reason, I do care.

WWE's reincarnation of Tough Enough was even better than the original Tough Enough featuring the likes of Maven, Christopher Nowinski, Nidia and small-framed Josh Matthews. Due to the inclusion of Steve Austin—who may be the best reality show host of all time—and the additions of no-nonsense Booker T and caring Trish Stratus, the show had an intrigue unlike the previous Tough Enoughs—especially the second through fourth seasons.

Throughout the entire season of Tough Enough, we witnessed Martin (eliminated due to injury) and Luke dominate the competition, winning most of the skills challenges.

At the end of the road, Jeremiah, who was as consistent as anybody in the competition, was the last one eliminated leaving the final two, Andy and Luke, to battle it out for a WWE contract.

Now that I've covered the buildup to last night's decision, why do I believe Luke should have won over Andy?

Well, as I stated before, Luke was the most consistent contestant not named Martin. Hate him all you want because of his cockiness and those irritating facial expressions that he makes while he's licking his lips—he easily had the most charisma of any of the contestants and he was the most sound wrestler in the ring (other than Martin), even being the only contestant to get a chance to wrestle with Stone Cold Steve Austin one-on-one in the ring.

If you listened to the crowd reaction on Monday Night Raw last night, you can hear the instant heel-heat that Luke receives while just walking to the ring. He can make a simple smirk, a simple cocky facial expression and the crowd instantly hates him.

That is the definition of having the crowd in the palm of your hands. The crowd did not hate him because he was a bad wrestler or because they didn't think he had a future in the WWE; they hated him because he has charisma. He has the "look" as Booker T commented last night. You just look at the guy and you wanna punch him in the face.

People may critique me for this comment, but Luke could be exactly like Randy Orton—except better. Luke could easily use a similar character to the one Randy Orton used for so many years: egotistical and cocky.

The thing with Luke, like it was with Randy Orton except even more so in this case, is that Luke's charisma is natural. This guy truly believes he's the best thing to ever walk the planet earth.

Isn't that what the WWE is about? Entertaining people? Having the best characters around?

Which brings me to big Andy. This guy has a nice story. He has a likeable personality based upon how he carries himself. Did I mention he's a big guy? The positives end there.

Andy is a guy who never stood out from the pack—similar to another guy who was eliminated, AJ—but cried when he was in the bottom three in Episode 8, and was able to make it to the top three due to:

1. Christina being injured and lacking mic skills/charisma.

2. AJ being as dull as a rock and being as average as average can get.

3. Crying on national television, thus making people realize how much you care about being a wrestler to support your family and feeling sympathy for you.

I can't recall Andy winning any skills challenges; he may have won one. He never was even close to being the best in the ring; he was always kind of a herky-jerky big guy in the ring. His biggest flaw, as said countless times by Steve Austin, is that he lacked persona.

When Andy was walking to the ring on Raw down the entrance ramp, did anybody actually think that is the look of a future WWE superstar? That his constant head turns to each side of the audience were actually natural? That it was convincing?

Let's be honest here: Luke deserved to win the competition over Andy.

Andy won because he has a nice background/sympathy story being a 24-year-old man that needs to take care of his wife and child. He also won because he was an underdog throughout the entire competition and seemingly came out of nowhere to win a competition that everybody expected Luke or Martin to win.

He also won because he's 6'5" and whether you believe it or not, Vince still has an affinity for huge guys.

As I said before, Luke will probably end up joining the WWE and being the winner of this competition really won't mean anything other than having your name as the winner of the 2011 version of Tough Enough.

Let's just hope Andy works on that personality.