It recently came to my attention that The Rock was only in the WWE for just over SEVEN years (November 1996 to March 2004). Doesn’t sound like a lot does it? Not considering that one of the two flagship WWE shows is named after one of his catchphrases. Definitely not when you compare that to the lengths of time Bret Hart (13 years) or The Undertaker (17 years and counting) were/are there. In fact, apply the same career span that The Rock experienced to Bret Hart’s tenure and he would have left the company just after his first singles title win at Summerslam 1991 against Mr Perfect. Applied to The Undertaker it would have barely given him enough time to win the ‘Best Tattoo’ category at the 1997 Slammy awards. With no talk of a wrestler’s union on the horizon and mounting pressure on today’s stars to stay on the road (by fair means or foul) and retain their spots, are modern wrestlers in danger of burning out within a fraction of the time it took their elders? More importantly, leaving the wrestling industry incapable of passing the torch from one generation to the next.
Of course, the word ‘wrestler’ requires that the prominent period of a WWE superstar’s career should be that which is identified as ‘active’. Steve Austin’s career appears to have lasted from January 1996 until April 2004 (a spell of just over eight years) but in truth Austin was only full-time up to April 2002 and his match with Scott Hall at Wrestlemania 18. Add to that the time off for his recuperation from the neck injuries suffered at Summerslam 1997 and you’re looking at more like five years rather than eight. Not a great deal of time for someone considered to be the most recognisable recent WWE champion, especially compared to Bruno Sammartino who held the WWWF title for eight years up until 1971. But then I guess Bruno never had Monday night ratings and PPV buy-rates to worry about. Lament the ‘old-school’ style of promoting wrestling all you want but, with the levels of saturation and impact required to make it seem interesting to an audience with remote controls in their hands, I defy any modern wrestler to survive the sort of longevity experienced by previous generations. In fact, I would say the only reason Shawn Michaels is currently active is because he took four years off between 1998 and 2002 to convincingly rest his back and various other injuries attained during his initial decade with the company. Does anyone remember a Raw segment in 2003, in the build up to their Wrestlemania match, where Michaels and Chris Jericho discussed how Y2J was mirroring HBK’s career? They showed clips of how Jericho performed some of the same moves and even dressed like Shawn in his early days. It’s just a guess but I have a feeling that Jericho has taken a page from HBK’s book and his current hiatus from the business is more to do with preparing for the latter stages of his career than the disillusioned burn out it was claimed to be. But I could be wrong. Even if potentially career-ending injuries can be avoided, it seems advisable that appearances during the tail end of a wrestler’s time are kept to a minimum. Right now the person most benefiting from this type of thinking is the World heavyweight champion, The Undertaker. It is certainly no coincidence that he is in the best fighting shape of his WWE term at the onset of his title run and the comparatively limited number of television and house show appearances he has made over the last few years are the prime contributing factor.
One of the dangers of not taking this requirement into consideration is the possibility that, sometime in the next five or ten years, the WWE will end up with a roster devoid of veterans. Performers like Hogan and Flair were veterans as far back as 1995 and many of the wrestlers from the Hart/HBK era are either dead or comfortably retired. Talent such as Rock and Austin that rose during the late 90’s have found other ventures to pursue and even guys like Edge (9 years) and Cena (5 years) will find it increasingly difficult as they approach the wrong side of thirty-five to keep up with the physical demands of being at the WWE’s main event level. So why is it important that veterans continue beyond their prime? They’re not as athletic or as sharp as contemporary wrestlers, they don’t carry that marketable public appeal and the chances of their profile increasing over the years is unlikely at best. True, but then if every wrestler took whatever legacy they had built for themselves over the duration of their career home with them as a trophy then wrestling would be a series of disconnected chapters, reset every time a new generation took charge. And with the prevalence of multi-million dollar contracts and merchandise sales guaranteeing a successful superstar more money than they know what to do with, it is vital that humbling reminders are provided of a time when pro-wrestling merely supplied a steady income and that the lofty positions now achieved shouldn’t be taken for granted. A lesson Brock Lesnar would have done well to learn. As should Randy Orton in the coming years. Ask any wrestler who was the biggest influence on their careers and more often than not the answer you will get isn’t the person who got them into wrestling or who trained them, but the person who took them under their wing and showed them the intricacies of having a match, travelling and getting on in the business. Information that can only come from an experienced veteran who puts the business first and their own interests second.
One point that stands out during a career, besides the start and the end, is the push. The point at which the need to promote the company falls second to the belief that, if an individual is promoted as being greater than the roster, then the product will benefit from the tidal wave of adulation proffered by the fans as they gorge on their chosen favourite. More often than not the fans will determine by their vocal support who gets the push, unless you’re Goldberg or Big Show who were elevated to main event level almost immediately based on the fact that they were big names elsewhere, but that’s not always the case. Supporters of the Undertaker could arguably suggest that he has never really received the company-carrying push he has earned over the last sixteen or so years and his title reigns, though starting a year after his debut and recurring frequently, have never contained the same kind of backing and promotion accorded to Hogan or Austin, for example. It could be counter-claimed that the depth and gravity if his gimmick is such that to consistently involve the title in things as unbelievable as ‘buried alive’ matches and various demonic powers would demean the integrity of an ‘athletic’ championship but others might find that only marginally less insulting than a spinning belt or a 50-year old champion with plastic knees and a bald head. The most prevalent length of time from debut to first big push appears to be between 2-3 years (Rock, Austin, Cena) but it is noticeable that each of these performers received a major character overhaul during that short space of time. It seems as though, if uniformity is applied to a wrestler’s formative years, the push takes a lot longer to occur. Something to which Bret Hart and Edge could both attest, waiting 8 years each for their respective runs to the gold (though that could equally advise future stars to ditch the associated dead-weight and get out of the tag team division as soon as possible).
And so what should the debuting stars of today expect from their first faltering steps into superstardom (followed by termination, subsequent obscurity and eventual overdose)? Firstly I would recommend that disappointment should be allayed if your career doesn’t get ‘Lesnar-ed’ (yes, I have verbiated his name). As the ultimate example of a microcosmic WWE career, Brock Lesnar debuted in March 2002, got pushed to the title within three months and was gone within two years. What most WWE stars spread over a decade or more, Brock fast-forwarded through his rise and fall in the space of just 24 months and has been living off it ever since (well he’d have to, there’s little meat on Sable’s bones). If anything, I would suggest that an early major push is a bad portent for your WWE future because it proposes that management doesn’t believe you are a sound long-term investment and are trying to drain what little juice they can from you before you prematurely dry up or the fans tire of squeezing you. And don’t be afraid of change. A heel turn or a costume switch might seem like painting the same turd with a different colour but wrestling fans have unbelievably short memories and are just looking to be entertained. As David Lee Roth once said “The bad news is we have lost our way ... but the good news is we’re way ahead of schedule”.
Lee
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