By Jeuron Dove
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Hello fans. I hope you all enjoyed my last article in response to the comments made by WWE Hall of Famer Paul Orndorff. Now onto other news. It seems as if the WWE is in one of those periods where they are truly attempting to make new stars. All three brands of the company have featured many fresh faces to their main event scene as of late and I think that the company realizes what it should’ve gotten a long time ago. The top headliners in the company are aging and it’s inevitable that they won’t be around forever.
Even though Undertaker is one of the top performers in the business today, he's in his forties and stays perpetually banged up. Same goes for Michaels. HHH has fared better as far as major injuries are concerned, but he’s been on top for a decade and is in need of a serious character overhaul in order to remain fresh. Batista hasn’t been on top for as long as they have, but he’s in his forties and is probably the most injury prone of any of the major guys in the company. Mysterio is in his thirties and has an extensive history of knee injuries due to his high-risk style. Luckily, he hasn’t been sidelined with a major injury in nearly a year. Thankfully, the older headliners of the WWE today are not the same as the old guard of WCW. The guys on top of the WWE that are nearing or in their forties actually go out and work as hard as possible to entertain the fans by having good matches. The forty and up crew from WCW were notorious for giving lazy performances, no-showing events and displaying an overall lack of concern about what the fans wanted.
One problem that WWE will never encounter with its top guys is them not showing a passion for the product. If anything, they may go out and give too much of themselves for the fans. Undertaker and Michaels had that classic match at Wrestlemania this year, but have not been back since (with the exception of Taker’s match against Show several weeks back on Smackdown) due to recovering from nagging injuries. Edge and Jeff Hardy are currently the top guys on SD and while both are relatively young, they have likely suffered twice the normal amount of injuries that any other performer has sustained due to their years of being in crazy stipulation matches. They are going to square off in another ladder match for the belt at Extreme Rules in a couple of weeks. While I’m sure it will be a fantastic match, I’m almost positive that it will bring a slew of new or recurring injuries to both men.
This is why it’s imperative that WWE goes all out when creating their newest batch of stars for the future. Years of touch and go writing from creative, stale booking and a knack for keeping everyone positioned at the same level has created the current era where there are such few new megastars in the company. Today, the true stars of the company are HHH, Edge, Undertaker, Cena, Michaels, Jeff Hardy, Batista, Orton and Jericho. I call each of them a “true” star based on the fact they have held a number of world titles, always garner a response from the crowd and have been pushed pretty well for a sustained period of time. They are also consistently in the main events or most anticipated matches on PPV shows. There are a number of guys who are right beneath that level and some have been so for a number of years. The purpose of this article is to show how these guys can make the jump from midcard to main-event level status.
The first step in pushing anyone to the top is for the bookers to accentuate the positives and not the negatives. This means that the strong points of a particular performer should always be emphasized above all else. If a performer is particularly skilled in one area then they shouldn’t be trying to get them to do everything else. Now at the same time I believe that every performer should be well rounded, but everyone can’t have the total package of in-ring abilities and intangibles like a Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels or Kurt Angle. Two people who best exhibit this point are Evan Bourne and Santino Marella. Bourne’s work is awesome and the company has largely allowed him to get over based on what he does in the ring. His style hasn’t really been toned down any and his matches are given plenty of time in order to allow him to tell a good story that the fans can get into. Santino is the exact opposite. He is by far the best talker in the game who is on a prelim level when it comes to his work in the ring. The company has done right by letting him get over on his verbal ability every week, but there needs to come a point where he can at least wrestle at a competitive level. If Santino’s ringwork ever catches up with his promos then he will be headlining a Wrestlemania in no time.
Giving a performer the proper time to get over is the next key step. There have been plenty of cases where a certain act has gotten over huge with the audience and the company senses it, but due to impatience they give up on them and they are never let near the top again. Two men whose pushes were given adequate time to get over and ended up becoming two of the hottest stars in history would be Austin and the Rock. The WWE version of history likes to tell the story that Austin was the top man in the business following his infamous Austin 3:16 speech at the 1996 King of the Ring. In that case he would’ve been champion before 1997. They also make it seem as if his career was made as the top face immediately following his classic match with Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13. In actuality, he was still booed by a large portion of the fan base and did not truly come into his own as a fan favorite until he continued feuding with the Hart Foundation throughout the summer of that year.
The Rock’s story is nearly identical. His star really started to shine in late ‘98 during the Nation-DX feud. Rock and HHH were the respective leaders of each group and DX was wildly popular with the fans. However, Rock’s work as a heel was so good that he ended up winning over the fans in Madison Square Garden at Summerslam that year. It was during an episode of Raw in particular in Sept. of ‘98 when it became apparent to me that he was indeed the second most popular guy behind Austin. It was the same night that Austin attacked McMahon in a zamboni during one of the most memorable moments in the history of the show. The main event was Rock, Ken Shamrock and Mankind (Foley) against the Undertaker and Kane. It shocked me when Rock got the biggest ovation of anyone in that match considering he was a heel. Just imagine if the company would’ve went cold turkey on him following the period the fans turned on him for being the white meat ever-smiling babyface. He would’ve never been allowed to show his true potential as a heel and thus wouldn’t have become one of the biggest draws in history. If the company had given up on Austin following the mild cheers he recieved in early ‘97 then he never would’ve gotten the chance to explode like he did during the latter part of that year and in turn wouldn’t have ushered in the Attitude Era.
Once a star is firmly established, they should be kept at that spot. Their wins should mean something as well as their losses. These two rules are really two of the simplest to go by and it’s really baffling when they are broken. CM Punk is a good example for both. After Punk won the world title from Edge last year by cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase, that should’ve made him a star for life. After all, it kind of did the same for the career of Edge. Instead, his entire reign was positioned as being at upper midcard, but not true main-event level status. His entire run was based off of him surviving each challenge instead of being a dominant champion. His loss of the title was even worse as he technically never lost it, but instead was attacked before a match on PPV and was unable to compete. And to make matters worse, instead of coming back for revenge and being inserted into the title picture again, he was put into a tag team with Kofi Kingston and won the IC title.
To Punk’s credit, he has remained very over with the fans and I believe that the company realized what a mistake they made in booking his title run the way they did. That’s why I believe they allowed Punk to win the MITB match again so hopefully he can have another longer and more serious run on top.
The final thing that must be done to properly create a new star is to align them with established ones. In a recent media interview, Batista made a comment about how he learned more about the business and became a better performer by hanging out with HHH and Flair on the road while in Evolution. The same could be said for Orton. Both were groomed in Evolution to become the future of the company and it appeared to pay off. Both have been on top for years and won multiple championships. Orton is even assuming the HHH/Flair role as he is now the leader of his own stable which includes Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase. It’s pretty safe to say that both have improved greatly as overall performers since joining up with Orton and many have already predicted that Dibiase could be a Mania headliner one day.
Of course, not everyone has the opportunity to be apart of a stable with the top guys, but a common way that most younger guys learn is through their programs with higher ranked talent. Not only does it help them improve in the aspects of working, but it also ups their stock to the general public. Plus the longer they hang out with headliners, the sooner the fans will accept them as one.
All of the rules I have specified are things that the wrestlers really have no control over. Despite how bad someone may want to succeed in the wrestling business, it’s ultimately up to the booking committee to determine who gets the top spots. History has shown us that pure ability alone is not enough to get you there. If that were the case then guys like Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho and others would’ve been major stars in WCW. Plenty of others over the years should’ve at least been given a fair shot at stardom in the WWE. Like any other business, it’s often the decisions of a few powerful people behind the scenes that end up influencing the course of history. And that is the real truth behind pro wrestling.
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