The Evolution Of Heath Slater

When it comes to anomalies on the current WWE roster, the first character that may come to mind to many fans would be Brock Lesnar. No one looks like him. No one else has an “advocate” like he does. He is never in the ring whenever the WWE does segments in which a General Manager addresses the roster, or when there is a charity. Few other people on the roster have a comparable work schedule, and few other people can do outside projects as they please.

But if an anomaly is simply someone or something that is “peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify” — thanks Dictionary.com — then Heath Slater falls into that category as well. He is not distinctly a heel or a babyface. He is not a giant, but he is also not small enough to be a cruiserweight. He has been part of multiple factions and tag teams, yet he easily wrestles singles matches as “the one man band, baby.” But perhaps the biggest supporting evidence of all is that he was not — kayfabe alert — drafted to a show via the brand split.

As a result of his “free agent” status in WWE Heath Slater has appeared on both of the major weekly WWE TV shows, Raw and Smackdown Live. While he wasn’t on Raw last week, there was a noticeable “we want Slater” chant during the meandering Titus O’Neil promo, as also heard during Summerslam. Even if his appearances have been generally limited to squash matches and backstage comedy segments, the guy is clearly more popular than most of the current WWE roster.

What impresses me most about Heath Slater is his longevity within the company. He came up to the main roster as part of the hot Nexus angle. This led to a few tag team championship reigns then being “the one man band.” Next up was Heath Slater’s “legend killer in reverse” phase, where a different wrestler would return as a surprise each week defeat him very quickly; even Cyndi Lauper made him look foolish in a segment as a supposed record sales plaque was smashed over his head. Following this, he was best known as one-third of 3MB with Drew McIntyre and Jinder Mahal, which was mostly kept to pre-show and Superstars matches. Next was the well-intentioned but short-lived Slater Gator tag team with Titus O’Neil, which disbanded without any explanation. This led Heath back to mostly singles enhancement matches. Most recently, before becoming “the hottest free agent in the business,” Heath Slater was the leader of The Social Outcasts.

That is a lot of changes for a six-year period. A lot of flip-flopping as to whether or not Heath Slater is a tough competitor or someone simply there to amuse everyone. But it’s also the sign of someone that knows how to make other people look great, and someone that does what he is asked to do.

While it may be tough to mold Heath Slater into the company’s world champion, there is no reason that he can’t be part of the main event picture in some capacity. His current storyline may be comedy-oriented, but it is the story of a hard-working competitor willing to do whatever it takes to support his family; this motivation has been part of what has made Kevin Owens interesting to so many fans. Heath Slater also has demonstrated a lot of talent as an in-ring performer, seeing as how he can bump in whatever style is needed. If you catch him on WWE.com as the host of “Game Night,” you’ll also see that Heath Slater is skilled with broadcasting and hosting in general; it’s to be determined whether his role in the forthcoming “Marine” movie will also suggest this. So the only thing missing from Heath Slater’s ascent is, well, the actual push from WWE creative.

If Heath Slater never gets that deserved push — his current run within Rhyno in Smackdown Live’s tag team tournament appears to be a push of some sort — he is going to be just fine. As the saying goes, Slater’s gonna slate. But there will undoubtedly be a lot of merchandise sold to fans in their 20s, 30s and 40s if the West Virginia native gets more screen time.