The mere fact that a wrestling match consists of at least two performers (a wrestler and their opponent/s) implies that a career cannot be constructed relying solely on the talent of an individual. The WWE has had its share of prolific elevators over the decades (Piper, Foley and HHH standout more than most) but a constant stream of willing losers rolling over and dying at the feet of a pushed wrestler is no assurance that the audience will respond to them more strongly than a polite round of applause after the three-count. You only need to look at superstars like Sid or Tatanka, who were handed lengthy winning streaks at the start of their WWE tenures, to see that their lack of ability would undoubtedly preclude any sustained rise to the main event scene. So if it’s not the sheer volume of jobbers that lifts someone out of the mid-card then the suggestion is that the elevation is specifically tailored to suit the requirements of that particular performer. Taking it a step further, what if the lineage from one franchise champion to the next was more than a succession of isolated ideas and was in fact a chain of interconnected cause and effect, with the creation of the new era formed from the ashes of the last. I don’t make this easy, do I?
You can tell that a wrestler’s standing has been well crafted when it is referred to not by attaching it to their name but by a moniker all its own. To this day, Hulkamania is still the single-most effective promotional strategy in wrestling history but it is almost impossible to highlight one opponent from the others on which it was built. More than just because of its longevity (roughly from 1984 to 1992/3), the reason so many heels were absorbed into Hogan’s legacy was down to his legion of fans who were unwilling to accept him playing second fiddle to any other wrestler and Vince’s reciprocal desire to give the Hulkamaniacs what they wanted as long as they kept paying for it. It is noticeable that a majority of the talent used in this way (Piper, Savage, Undertaker) and those who were bypassed to protect him (Roberts, Perfect, Flair, Hart) were superior workers to Hogan but it is a testament to his appeal that he achieved similar success with those who had less talent than him and/or less draw than his better opponents (Bundy, Andre, Slaughter, Sid). The only performer that appeared to fans to be on an equal standing with Hogan was the Ultimate Warrior in 1990 but the post-‘put over’ period after Wrestlemania VI only served as a wake up call to WWF crowds that Warrior wasn’t a suitable replacement for the Hulkster and they wanted him back, which they duly got a year later. Seeing as it hasn’t happened since, it is unlikely that a wrestler could have come along during the Hogan era that could have challenged his vaunted number one standing but in succumbing to giving the audience what they wanted for so long McMahon created a single-headed spear that blunted the WWF’s ability to create new main event talent, even after Hulkamania had lost its gloss.
To solve this issue would require two wrestlers of approximately equal ability and perception, except with disparate styles and attitudes, that could feed off the other and allow their respective army of fans to line up behind them in readiness for battle. In fairness, both Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels would have reached the top end of WWF supercards anyway but it is undeniable that they were at their best when facing eachother across the ring. Bret was already WWF champion and had feuded with Razor Ramon and Ric Flair with some success and HBK was already out of the mid-card as the Intercontinental titleholder and the most exciting performer in the company. Even when they were booked apart, presumably to avoid one or both refusing to work under such conditions, the feuds Bret had with Owen or Lawler and the ones Michaels had with Diesel or Razor never quite seemed to generate the same tangible energy as when they were paired together. In the end, the thing that brought them together so entertainingly was also responsible for the dissolution of their fragile working relationship and the Montreal screwjob that finished Bret’s WWF career was more the bottom of a slippery slope of tit-for-tat pettiness. As much as Vince was in control during the previous era, he must have felt exasperated at the cancelled PPV matches and reworked house show structures just to accommodate Hart and Michaels’ one-upmanship and it is a sign that, rather than a parting shot at Bret, Survivor series 1997 was a broader reminder to the entire roster just who pays the wages and makes the decisions. Appropriate foundation for a worthwhile heel character by the sound of it.
The ‘Mr McMahon’ gimmick was actually founded in opposition to Bret, when Vince was shoved to the mat after a Hart/Sid cage match and Vince’s reaction to the bad publicity surrounding the screwjob, but it was apparent that the creation was being built for the benefit of another. Steve Austin had already been pushed to the top heel in the company and subsequently switched face without changing a single aspect of his character but with Hart gone to WCW and Michaels out with a long-term injury he was in desperate need of a worthy adversary. And what better opponent for a rough, blue-collar worker than his cowardly, egomaniacal boss? As the owner of the company Vince didn’t need to build an on-screen legacy so the only victories that he attained were intended to increase the vengeful intensity felt by Stone Cold’s fans and bump up the buy-rates on his own PPV’s. Eventually the lustful gloating needed to be transferred into wrestling matches so Mick Foley and, latterly, Undertaker and Kane were drafted in to be the muscle to Vince’s mania but, as is often the case in the WWE, the saturation required to convert McMahon annoyance into heel heat meant that Vince wore out his welcome relatively quickly. Which left Austin in an odd position. Without his main reason for being who we was, management amplified the “don’t trust anyone” attitude and he feuded with everyone and anyone, which rendered him slightly directionless and the character lost impetus. What was needed was someone who, rather than being aloof and requiring that the audience attached themselves to him, declared himself a representative of the fans and pointedly wanted their appreciation ... a ‘people’s champion’, if you will.
It’s a strange universe. You can offer to an audience a fresh, optimistic rookie who just wants to do the right thing and he is greeted by signs that say “DIE ROCKY DIE”. As a result you turn him into an arrogant, conceited bully who refers to himself in the third person and he gets worshipped by almost everyone. Granted, it’s not exactly brain surgery that the sort of anti-hero indifference that worked for Austin could be successfully revamped for The Rock, the only change being that Austin wanted to be an island unto himself whereas The Rock wanted to be President of the island, but the real discrepancy lies in the primary opponent. In fact, they tried pairing Rock against the heel Mr McMahon in 1998 but it failed to create the same buzz so they quickly realigned him with Vince and The Corporation at Survivor series. Fortunately, The Rock couldn’t have timed his elevation any better and he benefited from Foley in 1999 and HHH in 2000 guaranteeing that he reached the crescendo of his face run by the age of 28. But then The Rock’s career was never built on developing an almanac of wrestling experience. The most naturally gifted wrestler in WWE history didn’t need to improve in the ring ... and he never did. What he did do was discover the style of character that suited him the most and blew it up into ridiculous proportions. Even up to his full time retirement in 2003/04 his character exhibited the same smarmy self-adoration, only turning heel for the final few months of his career against Goldberg. If Vince learnt one thing from The Rock’s situation it’s that you can’t push a face wrestler down people’s throats thesedays and expect fans not to turn on him for being undeserving. And he wasn’t about to make that mistake again.
It became obvious as 2004 progressed that WWE was trying to build John Cena in the mould of The Rock, presumably hoping to recreate the former champion’s popularity from 2000/01. If Cena’s face run had followed Austin’s era then maybe they would have tried to push John with a ‘rattlesnake’ character but any edginess and nastiness was cast aside with his heel gimmick and the new fan-friendly Cena was all about catch-phrases and audience participation. In truth, Cena’s support was already beginning to divide in the early months of 2005 and only the feud with JBL that led him to the title kept a majority share of the crowd in his corner (but then JBL would merely be a ‘tweener’ in a feud with Bin Laden). The wider cracks started to appear when Cena relocated to Raw and feuded with Jericho and then Angle, both of whom were held in high regard by WWE fans even when portraying heels. Just when it seemed as though Vince had gone too far down this path and Cena would carry this imbalance between pop and popularity for the foreseeable future, salvation was found in the form of Edge. For most of 2006 Cena and Edge quelled the distraction with surprisingly good matches and traditional storylines, which meant that audiences could reinvest in the work and just enjoy being wrestling fans again. It remains to be seen if Cena’s character can endure another long-term face feud, without taking a break for some much-deserved malevolence, but the chances are that Raw’s main event scene is going to need a shift in the post-Wrestlemania period and, though dominance would be ill-advised, a tentative prod in that direction for one of the current mid-card standouts could be a sound investment for the future.
One of the drawbacks with claiming that a link has been established between successive title eras is that common sense now dictates I should be able to predict the next franchise WWE champion from a few basic variables. Luckily, I think you’ll appreciate that it’s really not that simple. But I’ll give it a go anyway, I’m dumb like that. Because of his involvement in Cena’s redemption I don’t believe that Edge will be able to carve a unique era for himself should he ascend to the title again. The same goes for Orton. DX is too much of a nostalgic lap of honour to be a potential epoch and anything over on Smackdown is too old or too unproven to be relevant. It certainly is admissible that Cena’s ‘sports-entertainment’ ring style could produce the desire for a more technically minded wrestler but I will stop short of choosing a mat wrestler because the current champion has adopted some submission holds, if only to stave off criticism. A high-flyer would be more likely but not from the Cruiserweight division. Charisma is required of all face champions but John’s heavily gimmicked vocals could create a need for a franchise player that says little, maybe even to the point of being pretty bad at promos so there’s virtually no chance of them being given extended microphone time. In terms of appearance, a liberal sprinkling of metrosexuality would be a suitable salve for Cena’s supposedly ‘rugged’ marine exterior and it should be someone that suits classic wrestling attire instead of sportswear or cut-offs. I’ve got one. Ladies and gentlemen, your new franchise World heavyweight champion (coming to an arena near you sometime in the next five years) ... Johnny Nitro. Okay, so it’s just a guess. And in all likelihood we haven’t even met our next seminal WWE champion yet. But if we’re to take Sir Isaac Newton’s famous quote literally ... “If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” ... then the poor bastard’s going to need all the help he can get.
Lee
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