The Authors of Pain: What Makes Them Stand Out?
A few nights ago, the Authors of Pain thoroughly dominated #DIY of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa to win the NXT Tag Team Championships. The massive bruisers, mentored by WWE Hall of Famer Paul Ellering, thrashed Gargano and Ciampa and discarded their best stuff to become champions.
Ever since making their debut at Takeover: The End on June 8, 2016 attacking American Alpha, Akam and Rezar have been undefeated, dominating every team they have faced. On November 19, 2016, at Takeover: Toronto, the Authors defeated TM-61, while “the Perculator of Destruction” was trapped in a Crash Cage. After last night, these two monsters are virtually unstoppable, including being undefeated.
Ellering’s influence has taught the AOP how to be absolute freaks of nature. They surprise people with their agility, but keep people in awe with their undaunting strength. These men are vastly different than any other tag team in NXT today. Unlike the 5 star matches that have taken place in NXT over 2016, the Authors of Pain don’t care about star ratings; they care about pain.
Seeing Akam and Rezar become absolute destruction devices give me a “deja vu” vibe to the old school. They feel like a homage to 1980s tag teams. Yet, there is a distinct difference to them. In this day and age, wrestling fans don’t get behind the big, muscled powerhouses destroying enhancement talent like they used to. There is more to developing nowadays than what meets the eye. NXT has, so far, done a great job creating and protecting these two behemoths as characters and performers.
But what does the Authors of Pain have and do differently than anyone else? Here in the Professional 3, I will elaborate more as we go along.
PHOTO CREDIT: Screenshot from WWE's YouTube
THEIR LOOK: The immediate thing people see as it comes to the AOP is their look. With Akam at 6’3, 290 and Rezar at 6’4, 335, two human versions of Mack trucks are intimidating, just by stature alone. Add in the gear they wear to the ring and you have two psychopaths preparing to destroy.
The masks they wear make them feel like a new school Demolition. Think about the leather masks they wore out during their entrance, but with a Bane from Batman influence behind it. The tactical tops and pants, whether done so purposely or not, are presented as Shield-like. Even their theme song has just a bad-ass, no-nonsense vibe to it. To me, the art of big bruising tag teams are falling by the wayside. The Authors of Pain are keeping that alive, solely by look, size, and theme alone.
THE MEANING OF THEIR NAMES: I was always clueless about the meaning of the Authors ring names, but thankfully, die-hard wrestling fans linked their name to a principle attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th century poet and philosopher: OCCAM’S RAZOR.
According to Wikipedia (and they never lie), Occam’s Razor is interpreted as “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.” Furthermore, “For each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there may be an extremely large, perhaps even incomprehensible, number of possible and more complex alternatives, because one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified; therefore, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.”
Since I am FAR from being a scientist, combined with my intellect with scientific terms not being the strongest, I am going to decipher, in my own way, what this means towards the Authors of Pain.
Akam and Rezar are big bruising entities, so utilizing their size and strength always outperforms technical or speedy athletes. They are a simple team. Others over 6-plus months have tried to formulate different strategies, but the AOP stay strong. There are alternative teams gaining fans approval, but the Occam’s Razor philosophy stays strong with the Authors of Pain and gained them trophies and championships they’ve acquired in their young careers. They are enigmas, but highly visible and 100% destructive. The names ring true.
I just love intricate back story.
THE GUIDANCE OF PAUL ELLERING: The patient, yet intense delivery of Paul Ellering has really enlightened these two men. Akam and Rezar might be the luckiest team on the planet, gaining guidance from the man once known as “Precious” Paul. The mind behind the Road Warriors, Ellering helped develop Hawk and Animal into the world beaters they were in wrestling. There was no smoother intellectual in wrestling other than him. Ellering always had his head in a newspaper or on a computer, especially in 1998 as “Mr. Dot Com”, but latching onto the book with wisdom has helped the Authors of Pain to instant success.
As Ellering said in promos past, Chapter 1 was their arrival. Chapter 2 was the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Memorial Cup. Chapter 3 was the NXT Tag Team Championships. Chapter 4 has not been written...yet. Whatever diabolical scheme Ellering and the Authors of Pain conjure up next is unknown; however, rest assured, it will followed out to a T by the AOP’s manager. He truly is a smart, yet violent individual guiding a group of monsters.
There is NOTHING like the Authors of Pain in the WWE and there is nothing but upward momentum for the duo, at least to me. The sky’s the limit. Hopefully no force of nature stops these two men from their ultimate destiny as one of the greatest tag teams of all time. Needless to say, I don’t think anything will. Their path has, is currently, and will always be written. Look who’s driving the train!
Jon Harder
