Will there ever be another icon like the Rock, Stone Cold etc.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Hogan versus Warrior sold Wrestlemania VI; WWE sold Wrestlemania 26.

WrestleMania 26 fell way short on the expectations and the previous years number. You need individual stars to make the difference between 800,000 and 1,000,000 buys. Thats why they've brought the Rock back this year. They think he'll make the difference that was missing last year. There still needs top drawing wrestlers (or celebrities). The brand only goes so far.

[Super Cena]

Hogan versus Warrior sold Wrestlemania VI; WWE sold Wrestlemania 26.

WrestleMania 26 fell way short on the expectations and the previous years number. You need individual stars to make the difference between 800,000 and 1,000,000 buys. Thats why they've brought the Rock back this year. They think he'll make the difference that was missing last year. There still needs top drawing wrestlers (or celebrities). The brand only goes so far.

 

I'll have to say that I don't believe that WWE will hit the 1,000,000 mark at this year's 'Mania. Even if they do a 900,000 buy-rate, it's still only a 10%ish increase, (which I don't think they'll do anywhere near anyway). Had Rock not taken on Austin at WM17, there'd be a much bigger difference than 10%.

 

I'll be surprised if WWE do more than 850,000 this year, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see on this.

[matbro1984]

Quality assessment by Fizzer. The problem with this approach is that they are effectively stunting the growth of any potential megastar for fear they'll achieve that status, and move on to bigger things. This means that we'll never see another Rock or Austin, because their business model precludes it.

 

To be honest, if you'd been The Rock you'd have gone to Hollywood too. If you were Lesnar and hated the schedule, had made a decent wedge of cash and a name for yourself, you too would have tried other things, in the certainty that if you'd come back to wrestling they'd have you.

[Super Cena]

Quality assessment by Fizzer. The problem with this approach is that they are effectively stunting the growth of any potential megastar for fear they'll achieve that status, and move on to bigger things. This means that we'll never see another Rock or Austin, because their business model precludes it.

 

To be honest, if you'd been The Rock you'd have gone to Hollywood too. If you were Lesnar and hated the schedule, had made a decent wedge of cash and a name for yourself, you too would have tried other things, in the certainty that if you'd come back to wrestling they'd have you.

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

That's exactly the way I see it, pal.

 

The irony here is that we're arguably seeing a better all-round package from WWE now than we did during the Rock/Austin era.

 

As good as the top stars from that time period were, there was some dire shit clogging up the under card. For all the flack that WWE get now, they're definetley putting on a superb top-to-bottom show each week.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I'll have to say that I don't believe that WWE will hit the 1,000,000 mark at this year's 'Mania. Even if they do a 900,000 buy-rate, it's still only a 10%ish increase, (which I don't think they'll do anywhere near anyway). Had Rock not taken on Austin at WM17, there'd be a much bigger difference than 10%.

I dunno. Austin and the Rock was a big match no doubt, but the previous WrestleMania's were drawing massive buyrates, and WrestleMania 16 didn't even have Austin on it. Listening to the old Wrestling Observer Live shows just before WM17 is really interesting, because there was talk that Triple H was going to be added at the last minute to make it a three way. There was big talk that WCW was showing up that night as well. In March 2001, the WWF could do no wrong in a lot of people's eyes. If Austin and the Rock hadnt taken place at WrestleMania 17, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. WrestleMania 14, 15 and 16 had all beaten the record PPV buyrate, so the audience was there for people to buy Mania if it featured a compelling card. People dont seem arsed as much these days.

[The Total Package]

The irony here is that we're arguably seeing a better all-round package from WWE now than we did during the Rock/Austin era.

 

As good as the top stars from that time period were, there was some dire shit clogging up the under card. For all the flack that WWE get now, they're definetley putting on a superb top-to-bottom show each week.

 

What? sorry I totally disagree with that, dont know what version of WWE you was watching in the past but for example at Summer Slam 2002 the under card was The Undertaker versus Test, Ric Flair and Chris Jericho, and the opening match was Kurt Angle and Rey Mysterio, I repeat that was the opening match, Kurt Angle is opening the show, thats some proper dire shit aint it, and theirs names I havent even mentioned like Edge and Eddie Guerrero etc and many more, Im at a total loss how anyone in their right mind can say what we have now is better.

 

The biggest difference from then and now, is for me personally I dont give a fuck about 90percent of the WWE roster or what stories are going on with them, back then even though I wasnt a massive Crash fan for example, it was funny as hell watching him defend the hardcore title, I wasnt tuning in just to see The Rock or Stone Cold, there was alot of other things worth watching.

 

People are going on about WWE mainevent scene when they should be also worrying about their midcarders, nobody gives a fuck about people like Rtruth and what even happend to Daniel Bryan.

 

As for building new stars if we use Barrett as an example, lets say youre watching Die Hard and Bruce Willis kills Hans in the first 5mintues, and then spends the rest of the movie shooting at the random henchmen, I'd bet most people would say this is stupid and turn it off, why continue watching when the main bad guy is dead, this is what has happened to Barrett, first real chance against Cena and he gets destoryed, why should I bother with him after that.

 

When the nWo formed did they have Hogan loose clean the next night or PPV, nope because theirs no credibility in that at all, so here we have Miz going up against Cena, which the outcome we all know will be the superhuman winning again, I think The Miz is worse off than Barrett atleast he was a threat at the start, Miz hasnt done anything as of yet to even give me aliittle bit of hope that he can go against Cena.

 

The overall product of WWE sucks, thats why older fans comeback to see BretHart/Hogan and recently The Rock, but rightly phook off the next week, because nothing else on the show grabbed their attention.

[Super Cena]

The irony here is that we're arguably seeing a better all-round package from WWE now than we did during the Rock/Austin era.

 

As good as the top stars from that time period were, there was some dire shit clogging up the under card. For all the flack that WWE get now, they're definetley putting on a superb top-to-bottom show each week.

 

The biggest difference from then and now, is for me personally I dont give a fuck about 90percent of the WWE roster or what stories are going on with them, back then even though I wasnt a massive Crash fan for example, it was funny as hell watching him defend the hardcore title, I wasnt tuning in just to see The Rock or Stone Cold, there was alot of other things worth watching.

 

If you read what I wrote a few posts back in this thread, you'll see that what you've just said completely summed up what I was saying; you're not meant to care about the individual performers now in the same way as what you once were.

[wrestlemaniacx]

it can happen but it's not just up to wwe ,imo for a fairly large part the reason we haven't got the next icon yet is because of ourselves, the fans, and our seemingly inability to enjoy stuff for what it is without feeling the need to disect everything any given wrestler does.

 

i truly believe a lot of fans are just not open minded anymore and are stuck in their own dream worlds of what wrestling should be, i chuckle whenever i read negative stuff on the fake-ness of cenas moves for example, since when did we expect wwe icons to wrestle like an roh guy ?....you can name all the big name icons, hogan, 'taker, rock, austin.....and you give me 1 name out of that list that looked realistic ? none.....yet,did we care ? obviously not since we still treat them like gods in 2011.

 

We should also remember that during hogan's peak, and to a degree the rock/austin era, we weren't used to the internet like we are today and didn't spend entire days digging up dirt on them so we had something to b*tch about, no , we just watched the shows and ,wait for it..........believed in what we were seeing ( not believing as in thinking it's real, but just believing in the personas) and were happy about it.

 

Speaking for myself personally, i can still enjoy wrestling the same way i did back then, apparently i have the special gift of being able to "dumb myself down' while watching and just enjoy what's going on without watching the shows like some movie critic activly looking for mistakes.

 

I'm also a cena defender, to me, he IS this eras hogan or rock, i like his attitude, he looks like a superhero,sells merchandise and works his butt of for wwe, he's almost too perfect and i know thats a reason to hate on him but i don't see it that way,to me he has that it factor, that edge most guys don't have....and he's still young ebough to be able to reach much greater heights and reckognision, IF *we* allow him.

 

Also, i truly belive brock lesnar could've, or would've, been the next big icon, he was surely pushed like it and looked the part for sure, and he was a good wrestler in the ring too, and even tho some complain about his promo work, i never saw error in it, it worked for me ...if he hadn't left i fully believe he'd still be the face of wwe to this day, he'd be in cenas position.

[King Pitcos]

The way things work now, most new WWE talent gets put in the main roster in their mid 20s, get some kind of (often bad) push/gimmick, then when it fails they float around the midcard with no direction for a few years, then get laid off. They are deemed to not have "It" within a few years and that's that! Talent takes years to naturally reach it's peak and a lot of guys just aren't given the chance to prove themselves.

Deemed to not have "it" by who? I fear you mean the evil writers/Vince/office, but really it's by us, the viewers. I don't put wrestling on for some bland rookie shitehawk to bore me for years in the hope that one day he'll be worth watching. The WWE is too lenient with that sort of nonsense, and people are given too much of a chance if anything. Giving talent that's not ready too much TV time just ruins that talent in the eyes of the audience, and then WWE have fucked themselves and the wrestler over.

 

It's a lot easier to make someone a star if they haven't been messing around with the jokers for a decade, that's not a new thing. Many of the biggest names in wrestling won titles pretty early in their WWF careers. Hogan (though he'd wrestled there a bit before) won the WWF title about a month after his signing. Austin and Rock were top stars two years after their debuts. Cena and Batista were world champions within three. Mankind was main-eventing pay-per-views in his first year. On the whole, if someone floats around the midcard too long, they're a harder sell as a superstar/icon/whatever.

 

There are a lot of names like Edge, Michaels and Bret Hart that rose to the top after years of being in the WWF (although even in Edge's case, he was moving up to main event level feuds within four years of his debut because of the brand split), but I think they're a minority. There are still people now who see Edge as a tag wrestler because that's what he was in the last boom, and given the state of WWF business at the time, people must have thought the same of Hart and Michaels in their heyday.

[Kenny McBride]

I totally disagree. Hart and Michaels were a different kettle of fish altogether. They had slowly worked their way up the cards from having show-stealing performances in tag teams to breaking out on their own and having show-stealing performances over the IC title to finally getting into world title contention. The world just moved much more slowly then. Also, business was down at that time because of a shitstorm of horrendous publicity. Both guys were at the forefront of the "steroids? Not here, guv" push.

 

Guys like Austin and Foley were different too. Those were guys that had a history of being awesome long before they came to New York. Everyone knew they were safe hands who could be trusted to have good matches with whoever you put them in with. That's not an option for most guys now since not only is there nowhere to learn how to work in front of big crowds any more, but also the WWE system now automatically excludes any experience you do have because it's not "WWE style." The biggest problem they have right now is that they bring young guys up and throw them straight into the limelight. Sometimes it works (Sheamus and Wade Barrett seem to have survived fairly well, for example) but tons of guys have been thrust straight into spots they weren't ready for and have then taken the blame when it didn't work out. With guys who aren't ready-made stars, they need a bit of time for the crowd to get to know them, to settle into their role and get a head of steam before you can push them to the moon. That doesn't mean leaving them to flounder in the mid-card going 50-50 with Carlito. It means protecting them for a while and letting the crowd see them at their best before expecting them to negotiate the lion's den at the top of the card.

[King Pitcos]

Guys like Austin and Foley were different too. Those were guys that had a history of being awesome long before they came to New York. Everyone knew they were safe hands who could be trusted to have good matches with whoever you put them in with. That's not an option for most guys now since not only is there nowhere to learn how to work in front of big crowds any more, but also the WWE system now automatically excludes any experience you do have because it's not "WWE style." The biggest problem they have right now is that they bring young guys up and throw them straight into the limelight. Sometimes it works (Sheamus and Wade Barrett seem to have survived fairly well, for example) but tons of guys have been thrust straight into spots they weren't ready for and have then taken the blame when it didn't work out. With guys who aren't ready-made stars, they need a bit of time for the crowd to get to know them, to settle into their role and get a head of steam before you can push them to the moon. That doesn't mean leaving them to flounder in the mid-card going 50-50 with Carlito. It means protecting them for a while and letting the crowd see them at their best before expecting them to negotiate the lion's den at the top of the card.

How long? And how do you protect them for that period? As you've said in that very post, the world moved a lot slower in the old days. You didn't see the Hart Foundation or The Rockers every week, and nine out of the ten times you did see them they were just giving two Duane Gills a hiding. Nowadays, if someone watches two episodes of Smackdown they've seen about seven hours of Drew McIntyre wrestling and not cared about any of it and they're going to have a negative attitude towards him. Even without WWE's shitty you-win-this-week-I-win-next-week midcard borebooking, it's very difficult to "protect" anyone as a potential threat these days whilst maintaining audience interest in them for long. Rising up through the ranks works for an underdog wrestler who can generate a ton of goodwill through gutsy performances (Daniel Bryan could go that way, for example, and Morrison still might) but in most cases, you're better off striking while the iron's hot.

[Dirty Eddie]

Kenny has expanded more on what I was talking about.

 

To season their wrestlers and get them ready for top spots, they need to stop treating the mid-card like a poor relation. The key to 'protecting' mid-card talent (without going back to jobber matches most weeks) and building them up is to actually book the mid-card to be important, and that means having a well-crafted IC/US Title and Tag Title scene.

 

When the Rock and Austin or Triple H and the Rock were feuding over the IC strap it was treated as a big deal and sometimes featured as the main/last segment on episodes of RAW. I'm sorry if it's boring to keep going back to it, but the problem IS with the "evil WWE writers". The feuds that i just mentioned were well written, both the actual angles and matches and the promo's on either side. Nobody goes to those lengths for the likes of Kofi Kingston or Drew these days, hence the lack of interest.

 

The exact same applies to the tag division and it's Champions. Edge & Christian (as heels) coming out was something me and my mates looked forward to every week on TV. We loved to boo them as the WWE had presented them as entertaining characters. The fact they had great matches also helped, but without the clever writing and skits they'd have been nothing special at all. They were presented as featured performers in the Tag Division, not a couple of blando jobbers, destined to split up and Feud for a fortnight on Superstars. WWE tag teams these days seem to last about a year if they are lucky and rarely get given any personality to try and help them get over.

 

Just this week on RAW ...

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

 

The Tag Champs lost clean in a total one-sided affair in about 5 minutes to Miz and Cena. Back in the last era of tag teams getting decent treatment, the Dudleys or Hardys were a fair match up for any two main event stars, not 5 minute jobbers.

 

[close spoiler]

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Perception is everything. If they took the time to build a credible Tag Division and IC Title division, they'd have the chance to build up and protect talent, then see who's deserving of a Main Event push. As things are, there is the main event crew, then a swamp of people below them with little personality or track record, and every so often they push one (seemingly for a laugh) then drop them back down the card.

[Kenny McBride]

Quite. If they invested a bit more time and effort in the tag division especially, there'd be no reason why the guys they expect to turn into superstars couldn't stay there for a while and build some momentum. The Hart Foundation were a tag team from what, 1986-1990? Nowadays that would be a solid year, maybe two. Bret then took about two years to move up from going solo to IC title to world title, and even that was drastically accelerated for a variety of reasons. Michaels went solo in late 1991 and didn't reach the main event until 1994. Today, that would be another year or so, if judiciously booked. If the IC title was seen as a meaningful achievement and something that guys on the way up desperately wanted on their CV as a stepping stone to the big one, it could give some shape to the undercard and give guys a reason to stay in more or less the same spot for a longer time without losing steam. Ditto the tag titles, but even more so. A tag team with a name, matching tights and a serious focus on the tag titles has even less reason to shoot for the top singles titles right away. If you sell the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, then you also have built-in gimmicks like the world champ dropping a tag match to the tag champs, then the guy who scored the fall getting a shot at the singles gold on the back of it. If he puts in a good showing, you've then got a golden opportunity to sow the seeds of the split, turn and eventual feud with his partner before he slides into the upper echelon of singles competition.

 

As it is, tag titles are for guys who've had their turn with the top belt and aren't ready for another go-round yet, and the IC title is almost completely meaningless. Who does that help?

[Dirty Eddie]

The fact that the IC Title doesn't automatically even get on Wrestlemania any more really says it all about their own value of the belt.

 

A shot at the IC Title at Wrestlemania should be a big deal. Long-term, well-built feuds should culminate...

 

Razor Vs HBK - the controversy is over, first time ever ladder Match, who is the true IC Champion. A big deal.

 

Bret Vs Piper - a rare Face V Face match, friends turned enemies, Piper's first ever belt on the line. A big deal.

 

You get nothing like that anymore, yet the IC Title is supposed to be the very best of the Mid-Card. They can't manage ONE feud a year that they think is good enough to put on a singles match at Wrestlemania?

[King Pitcos]

Kenny has expanded more on what I was talking about.

 

To season their wrestlers and get them ready for top spots, they need to stop treating the mid-card like a poor relation. The key to 'protecting' mid-card talent (without going back to jobber matches most weeks) and building them up is to actually book the mid-card to be important, and that means having a well-crafted IC/US Title and Tag Title scene.

 

When the Rock and Austin or Triple H and the Rock were feuding over the IC strap it was treated as a big deal and sometimes featured as the main/last segment on episodes of RAW. I'm sorry if it's boring to keep going back to it, but the problem IS with the "evil WWE writers". The feuds that i just mentioned were well written, both the actual angles and matches and the promo's on either side. Nobody goes to those lengths for the likes of Kofi Kingston or Drew these days, hence the lack of interest.

To an extent I agree, but wrestlers need to do something for themselves to get noticed. I doubt Vince McMahon had a grand plan for The Miz to be WWE champion at WrestleMania 27, but Miz has improved and improved the entire time and made himself stand out. A lot of the roster now don't seem to show any initiative at all. They just turn up to work, go through the bland routine as written and hope that they get the random call-up rather than the random P45. Blaming the writers as the sole reason for why nobody gives a fuck about a certain wrestler is like blaming steroids as the sole reason why that robot fella killed his wife and son. Not everybody on steroids has a kill frenzy. Not every midcarder in writer-monkey WWE stays boring.