YMMV / Damien Sandow

• Awesome Music: His FCW theme (Antonín Dvořák's "New World Symphony") and main roster theme (George Frederic Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus") both qualify.
• Badass Decay: When he was told he was going to lose his MITB cash-in to a one-armed John Cena. He never fully recovered his character after that. He continued to job constantly, and was made to look incredibly weak in his feud with Cody Rhodes (something that he would ordinarily disprove in the summer of '12 when he debuted). He was given a bit more leeway after becoming Damien Mizdow, and actually won matches again, but was still demoted to a comic relief (or Straw Loser) character. He disappeared from TV when it became clear WWE didn't have anything planned for him beyond that.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Is more over than the man he's stunt-doubling for
  • Just how over are we talking? At Royal Rumble 2015, the crowd would simply not stop booing after the infamously beloved Daniel Bryan went over the top rope with little fanfare. One of the only post-elimination entrants they cheered for was Sandow, who is supposed to be a comedy jobber. It therefore didn't help matters at all that Sandow lasted less than thirty seconds and didn't eliminate anyone.
• Fan Nickname: His tag team with Curtis "AxelMania" Axel is sonetime nicknamed "The Meta Powers".
• Fridge Brilliance: His billing from Palo Alto, California seems random at first glance, until you do some digging and find out that Palo Alto, California has the highest percentage population with Masters' or Doctorate degrees in the United States of America.
• Growing the Beard: In every sense. From "The Idol" walking to the ring with Beth Phoenix and Shelly Martinez^note WWECW's Ariel/TNA's Salinas in OVW to a member of the Teachers' Pets to his eventual evolution to "The Intellectual Savior of the Unwashed Masses."
• Ho Yay: Arguably some with Cody Rhodes. Every time they'd win a match where they'd team together they'd always be wearing huge smiles at each other and hugging.
• Love to Hate: Has gotten an entire arena to boo him within ten seconds of cutting a promo before a dark match.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Rewording other wrestlers' catchphrases (or other wrestling stock phrases) in Sandow's signature Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness has become popular, making him a sort of the Joseph Ducreux of professional wrestling. Examples include, "The hour is at hand! The hour is at hand! The hour is at hand! The hour is at hand for Leon White's appearance!", and "Primary! Secondary! Tertiary! Victory!" Became an Ascended Meme on the 3/11/13 edition of Raw, when he recounted the New Age Outlaws' catchphrase thus.
  • His unique Money in the Bank briefcase being made out of chocolate.
• Strawman Has a Point: Especially in the eyes of the IWC.
  • His song about Randy Orton during the May 6 episode of Raw pointed out pretty much everything Orton's criticized for by the IWC.
  • The entire situation with Cody Rhodes. Cody is treated as justified because Sandow "betrayed" his friend to win the World Heavyweight Championship MitB briefcase... except the two openly agreed that it was may the best man win between them when it came to the match. It's even worse when you consider a similar storyline has been used before with Rey Mysterio & Batista back in 2009, but Batista is seen as the bad guy for being petty and snapping at his friend for not letting him win.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The general consensus among fans is that WWE really dropped the ball on him, considering how Sandow was given a lot of corny and mindless gimmicks but in spite of it all, made the absolute best out of all of them and got over with the crowd each and every time. In spite of getting over as much as he did, however, WWE never truly made much of an effort to push him as a future main eventer or world champion material.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Sandow's feud with The Miz was white-hot with the fans around WrestleMania 31, so a match between them on the Grandest Stage of them All would sell like mad. They decide to instead put them in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which gives Sandow the chance to split up with The Miz and win the big profile match. Sure enough, Sandow eliminates Miz to cheers... but they have Big Show win the match. OK, odd choice, but with their split-up finally happening, this feud could now be a grudge feud. People would love to see The Miz get beaten by Sandow. But that didn't happen either as The Miz won the blowoff match after Summer Rae (who began accompaning Sandow) betrayed Sandow, allowing Miz to pick up the win. The manner of the breakup between Miz and Sandow was extremely criticized by critics for poor storyline writing which made Sandow look like a fool post-WrestleMania and also diminishing the feud to an afterthought. Sandow left the WWE little more than a year later, while at the same time Miz won the Intercontinental Championship and would go on to hold the belt for most of the year.