Of the last ten Raw/Smackdown brand carrying champions, only three achieved significant pro-wrestling success before joining the WWE (Guerrero, Booker, Mysterio). Two achieved success in other fields (Lesnar, Angle) and the remaining five either got minor starts elsewhere or developed exclusively under the WWE umbrella (Cena, Batista, HHH, Edge, JBL). Admittedly, the five who were household names within the wrestling media before coming to the WWE each entered Vince McMahon’s universe at the mid-card level, with the exception of Brock Lesnar who was rocketed to the title within a few months of his debut, but it does prove to some extent that talent is pooled from many sources and the search for the next WWE franchise champion isn’t restricted to those being pushed from the under-card to the IC and US titles. Which is fortunate because with the exception of Cena, Edge and now Randy Orton, the WWE mid-card from the last five years has delivered very little in the way of main event options with most of the wrestlers who could have moved upward being moved backwards (Benjamin, Venis, Holly), moved away (Christian, Test, Hassan) or staying exactly where they are (Kane, Matt Hardy, Carlito). On a side note, kudos to Jeff Hardy for being the only superstar to have done all three and still looked like he wasn’t bothered. So is it Vince’s fault that the next standout pro-wrestling and mainstream star isn’t jumping up and down with his hand in the air like he needs a piss desperately trying to attract management’s attention? Or is there a wider problem at work? Glad you asked.
The most obvious place to look is those wrestlers from the WWE mid-card who are only missing a push or a bit of luck or both. There is a history of company carrying figures who started their WWE tenures in fairly inauspicious ways; Austin (Ringmaster), Rock (Rocky Maivia) and Michaels (Rockers) to name but a few, so there really is no need to conclude that if someone doesn’t have that breakout star quality in their early days then they never will. The problem is that Vince has neglected the storyline aspect of his product over the last few years, especially in relation to anyone not near the end of the card, and his characterisations have become paper-thin as a result. For example, take HHH. During the first year of his WWF career he inhabited the undercard wrestling matches with Duke Droese and Henry Godwin whilst losing routinely to the bigger stars of that period like Undertaker and Ahmed Johnson. But even in this era his character had depth, he had debuted with vignettes and his feuds were built on his fundamental gimmick (snobbery) which allowed his opponents to represent the blue-collar attitudes that associate them with the audience. Once he broke into the mid-card he feuded with Rock, Mankind and then Owen Hart and the depth increased, incorporating Chyna, DX and numerous feud moments that conjure up an image greater than the technicalities of a wrestling match. Matt Hardy has been with the WWE roughly the same length of time (only three years later than HHH) and is currently a fixture of the Smackdown mid-card. Since returning from his Edge/Lita related release in 2005 he has received a decent push and got some high profile victories but, once Edge moved on and Matt was shipped to Smackdown, very few of his career moments stand out from his feuds with MNM, Animal and Booker T. At least Matt got some significant work out of Cade/Murdoch recently and his feud with MVP over the US title is going somewhere, even though it is suffering from MVP’s health issues at this time. It is easy to suggest that HHH was given these considerations because he’s a more viable asset than Matt but the real problem is that Vince has forgotten or doesn’t want to remember that angles and non-wrestling segments introduce us to the ‘people’ behind the silly names and make the fans care what happens to their chosen favourites once they step between the ropes.
I wrote recently about the possibility of a “veteran-less” WWE generation at some point in the future. With Flair and Undertaker eyeing retirement within the next year and the alarming injury/retirement/death rate of major wrestling stars, the WWE could find itself with little or no established talent to show the rookies how to improve in the ring and conduct themselves backstage. One of the ways around this is to find as many second generation athletes as possible in the hope that, coming from a wrestling tradition, they will already have the necessary smarts before they burst through the locker room door and upset someone without even knowing it. There have been several performers from wrestling families that have reached the top of the WWE tree (Rock, Mysterio, Guerrero) but anyone watching the developmental territories of late can’t help but notice that this number has increased dramatically. Mike Dibiase Jr, Teddy Hart, Nattie Neidhart, Harry Smith and Afa Anoa’i Jr are all currently contracted to either FCW or OVW and the expectation on them to be running at a higher level than their contemporaries will be felt at every stage of their careers. Cody Rhodes has already broken through to the main roster and is quietly setting the groundwork for what will hopefully be a decent run on Raw. But rookies require time to develop and Vince has also made efforts to bring back a number of previously contracted superstars in the hope that an old name with a fresh start is as good as something new. Umaga, Kendrick, Haas, Jeff Hardy, Noble and Wang Yang have all boomeranged away and back over the last few years and (with the exception of Haas and possibly Noble) received better support from management the second time around. Add to that several wrestlers who took longer to return to the WWE but only stayed for a short while (Animal, Tatanka, Jannetty) and those currently wrestling dark matches to get that far (D’lo Brown) and you’re left with the sense that, rather than taking skilled workers and giving them a reason to be onscreen, there is a revolving door policy at the WWE that functions on the theory that a failure is a success as long as you don’t lose enthusiasm.
The WWE’s rival promotions have, in the past, been a valuable source of pre-storied talent without dragging around the baggage of an up and down Stamford career. Even though TNA and ROH are far behind the glory days of WCW and ECW respectively, they are the WWE’s nearest like-for-like competitors in the American market and they are uniquely failing to provide anywhere near a sufficient number of wrestlers suitable for a shot at the big time. The reason for TNA’s poor talent preparation is predominantly because it attracts the disgruntled and retiring ex-WWE superstars with a promise of a lighter schedule and less travelling for equal pay and a more lenient testing policy. Keen to show Vince what he is missing they hog air time, hold all the championships and feud mostly with eachother to protect themselves from having to job to the ‘lesser’ talent, thus pushing down the wrestlers that could have benefited from their presence until they drop off the end of the roster. Although it could equally be down to the fact that TNA has fallen into the same trap as WCW did by believing that those recognisable names still carry the same impact as they used to, instead of creating exciting television that makes sense and doesn’t crap all over some well-established basics of pro-wrestling. ROH is certainly doing its bit to prevent young wrestlers from relying on the spots to put a match over, by highlighting the psychology of the contest and reinforcing its ramifications, but promos are still performed as an embarrassing afterthought and the lack of grandeur from the poor lighting and ‘school gym’ surroundings doesn’t prepare a performer for the projection needed to fill a 20,000 seat arena. If anything, the negative aspects of both TNA and ROH resemble the early days of ECW, when it was Eastern Championship Wrestling, reliant on former names that could no longer shine (Blanchard, Snuka, Muraco) and the blandness of the untested youngsters (Dreamer, Sandman, Cairo). But the upward aspirations of each company (seeing as both are in the PPV market now) means that the long term career prospects for their employees falls far behind the immediate needs of the product and the ‘little league’ championship has become a glass ceiling, instead of a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
Although WWE fans still run at a fairly jingoistic level, the company has plundered the international ranks on several occasions in recent years. Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero from Mexico and Yokozuna (who wrestled as ‘Great Kokina’ in Japan prior to his WWF career) are the most notable names but there are many from all corners of the globe that made it to the WWE without getting the push over the top. But looking at the worldwide pro-wrestling scene there is little chance that Vince would be impressed with what he sees. Both Mexico and Japan have stagnated at main event level and the new talent in each region seems stuck at the mid-card. Sound familiar? KENTA is the most popular young wrestler in Pro Wrestling NOAH (yes, his name is spelt all in capitals) but the top line is still dominated by Akiyama, Kobashi and Mitsuharu Misawa, who is the NOAH world champion at the moment. Both divisions of NJPW also rely heavily on the old guard, including Masahiro Chono, Riki Chosu and the current IWGP champion Yuji Nagata, a middle-aged journeyman with a personality problem ... he doesn’t have one. Even Hustle, Japan’s answer to the ‘sports entertainment’ ethos of the WWE, has struggled despite the continued popularity of its leader Nobuhiko Takada, known to UK fans for his UWFI appearances opposite Gary Albright on the Sky Sports show ‘Bushido’ several years ago. Michinoku Pro Wrestling is a federation dominated by lightweight wrestlers and the only roster member of sufficient size to make it in the WWE is Jinsei Shinzaki, who would be an unlikely possibility for Vince seeing as he basically runs the whole organisation in the absence of the Great Sasuke. Plus, he didn’t make much of an impact in the WWF when he wrestled as Hakushi back in 1995. In Mexico, anyone who has watched CMLL over the last twenty years will recognise most of the wrestlers still being promoted by the organisation and will remember former WWE names such as Mark Jindrak, Ultimo Dragon and Essa Rios on the current roster. The main issue is that the champion, Dos Caras Jr, is a bland second generation wrestler (a recurring problem in Mexican wrestling) who splits his time between Lucha Libre and MMA (Deep/Pride) and fails to be overly successful at either. A similar issue crops up in AAA with a long standing reliance on performers like Negro, Guerrera and La Parka, coupled with a failed working relationship with TNA, leaves a company bereft of direction and a vacant heavyweight championship. The UK looks the most likely country to feed the WWE with its new international talent, having already signed the best independent UK wrestlers to developmental deals (Drew Galloway, Sheamus O’Shaunessy) to go along with his purchase of Paul Burchill back 2004. Hopefully they’ll follow in the footsteps of Tommy Billington, Davey Boy Smith and William Regal to give UK fans more hometown heroes to cheer for at live events across the British Isles. But the next big thing? Unlikely.
So the next franchise WWE champion won’t come from its rival organisations, abroad, its developmental territories or from its own mid-card? If this was my conclusion then we’ll all be sitting here in 2020 celebrating John Cena’s fourteenth glorious year as WWE champion, with even the most ardent Cena fan praying that he gets hit by a f***ing bus on the way to the arena just so we can see a different PPV finish. The truth is, no one knows. The intangible requirements necessary to initiate a company carrying title run are such unpredictable circumstances that anyone who tells you this wrestler “is a certain hall of famer” or that wrestler “will never be champion” is just sacrificing logic to get their point across. If nothing else, seemingly bad ideas like Al Snow’s Head’ or Eugene’s initial run against Evolution have demonstrated that audiences have little or no control over what they associate with, even if when asked they expound the value of craft and technicality over gimmicks and silliness. But I am fairly sure that if Vince sits on his hands and lets the WWE float through its four premier hours of television per week then he might miss that diamond in the rough as he fails to shine in another short, meaningless Raw/Smackdown outing. God knows there’s enough of them.
Lee
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