Steve Austin turns heel

[BomberPat]

That's one thing to be said for heel Austin - and heel Undertaker a little later, and I guess heel Rock with the Hurricane - they used to be great at plotting little mini-feuds for main event heels with midcard faces, and you just don't see that any more.

[Bus Surfer]

Throw in the the 1 time Triple H/Taka angle too which was a great little tv match and made Hunter look a right prick. 

Nothing like beating up a small dude to get your heat. 

[Wrasslin]

I think a lot of the possibility for mini feuds against people down the card has been lost due to their being no clear divisions of star levels anymore. As highlighted by the guys bouncing between the World and midcard titles constantly. Guys like Ambrose, Owens, Styles are simultaneously seen as maineventers and midcarders. Everyone below that is just a jobber. 

They really need to nail down these distinctions again.

[Pinc]

I'd love them to do a long term monster/underdog thing between Enzo and Lesnar. They faced off in the Rumble and it'd be great to see Lesnar go out of his way to bully Enzo each time he shows up on Raw, eventually leading to a TV main event for the belt. Imagine the hope spots!

[LaGoosh]

2 hours ago, Wrasslin said:

I think a lot of the possibility for mini feuds against people down the card has been lost due to their being no clear divisions of star levels anymore. As highlighted by the guys bouncing between the World and midcard titles constantly. Guys like Ambrose, Owens, Styles are simultaneously seen as maineventers and midcarders. Everyone below that is just a jobber.

They really need to nail down these distinctions again.

Definitely.

Back in the 98-2000s, guys like Bradshaw, Hardcore Holly and Big Bossman were presented as tough nasty bastards who could kick anyone's ass but if they ever went against The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker or Stone Cold they would get completely hammered easily. This would show that the while those guys were tough, they aren't main event mega stars who are the toughest of them all. It created a clear distinction of who was a main eventer. And when a guy like Kurt Angle came along who would go toe to toe with them it made him a main event player too.

Outside of Lucha Underground which protects guys like Matanza, Mil Muertes, Pentagon Dark and Prince Puma from the rest of the pack, I can't think of any wretsling company that has done this in years. It's essential in my eyes.

[Wrasslin]

If I was booking WWE my first meeting would literally be:

Listing four groups:  Main eventers, Mid carders, Low carders, Jobber to the stars.

Simple booking rules:

1) Wrestlers generally feud within their own group except the aforementioned mini feuds

2) A Higher group will always beat a lower group and usually handily. 

3) If a Lower group wrestler is being elevated and beating a higher group guy that is presented as a HUGE deal. 

4) Jobbers don't get feuds but do have characters. 

 

[BomberPat]

WWE's problem is threefold; they've created an upper tier above the main eventers, so the part-timers, your Undertakers, Triple Hs and Brock Lesnars are on a level above the guys main eventing every week on TV. In your Attitude Era analogy, the main eventers on TV are your Bradshaws and Big Bossmen, while Brock Lesnar is your Steve Austin. It's almost closer to a territory system, wherein you have your local top guy, but the World Champion comes to town every few months and is clearly a bigger deal.

Secondly, the "WWE is the draw, not one wrestler" attitude is at the root of all of this. When the company's the draw, and they actually don't want to see a star get too big in case they leave WWE in the lurch, they're not going to produce a new major star - the next people to step up into that Above The Main Event level aren't going to be exciting new stars, it will be John Cena and Randy Orton.

Thirdly, stuff like the John Cena US Title Open Challenge and Randy Orton's PPV match with Luke Harper in February hurt the company. John Cena was having Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels finisher-fests with midcard schmucks every week on RAW, so why is it any more special when he has the same match with a "main event" talent at the PPV? And, on the flipside, what's the use in giving someone like Cesaro a star-making performance holding his own against John Cena if you don't then, you know, make him a star? They're either incapable of striking while the iron is hot, or incapable of juggling too many pushes - Roman Reigns is getting pushed, so everyone else has to stay where they are?

 

I broadly agree with that idea of having distinct, defined groups. Though I will say that one thing Lucha Underground do well is in nurturing an environment where movement between those groups feels plausible. The Mack went from low carder to a title contender, and it felt a little out of the blue, but not unfeasible. There should always be a clear way out of your "group" - a guy who's a jobber one week shouldn't start winning decisive victories the next, there should be a key progression or a kayfabe reason as to why someone's fortunes change. If nothing else, it creates opportunities for storytelling.

As for jobbers having characters but not feuds, I agree with this, especially for a TV product. I think the less TV time someone gets, the more outlandish their character should be. If you're in the main event, chances are you'll get a 15 minute promo at the start of RAW, a main event match, a video package, and a backstage interview; you have all the time in the world for nuance and shades of grey, and to explain your character to the audience. But for a jobber who only gets two or three minutes of TV every couple of weeks...well, why not let that guy be bright and colourful, or an evil taxidermist, or a wrestling lumberjack, or whatever? Give that guy a gimmick that's immediately apparent, and will make sense to the audience even within that tiny little window of time. And if it starts to get over? Gradually increase the amount of TV time, and create more of an opportunity to explain and expand on the character.

[Wrasslin]

The Fashion Cops (seriously why are they still saying Breezango) are a great example of your last paragraph. Were essentially doing nothing but getting beat but were doing so with a clear outlandish gimmick that the audience could easily understand. Now they've been given time to expand it and it's hugely entertaining. 

[Liam O'Rourke]

The music and name Breezango screams of an unpolished act, which they aren't. Give them new music with a goofy siren at the beginning and go full bore with the name Fashion Police. They're going to be around for a while and there's no reason to go by half measures.

As for the Austin heel turn, at the time I remember thinking that he felt like he needed freshening up when he came back in 2000. Being smarter about the whole thing now, I think it's clear that the issue isn't him needing to be fresh, it's that he needed new opponents that had some actual momentum.

Rikishi was just a poor idea (Stephanie's first big contribution, apparently). HHH had been done before in 1999 and wasn't fresh. It was a fairly boring option, in truth.

And sure enough, he turns heel and feuds for a 50th time with the Undertaker. And it tanked. The fact a match with Benoit and Jericho drew a better buyrate with a shit build tells the story.

Austin working with the Radicalz, Angle, destroying the RTC and a run with Jericho , if they'd all been heated up for the occasion, would have been just fine. Would things have stayed at a peak level? Probably not, but it would have slowed the decline, and who knows - if the WWF is at a higher level for a longer time, you can pop things again with the right angle. The sharp, drastic fall in interest and revenue is directly linked to the heel turn, and when you actually look at what they lined up, I don't have a fucking clue how they ever thought the outcome would be different.

The thing that baffles me is that, as of the final Raw before Mania, the Austin heel turn makes no sense at all. Any reason you CAN justifiably make (and I'd argue it isn't justifiable at all if Rock is leaving and HHH is staying heel) to make the move is null and void the second WCW is purchased.

If you want WCW as a separate brand (as they initially did), Austin as returning hero champion babyface fighting off the new WWF guys could have still been exciting for Raw. If you want WCW as an angle, which they eventually settled for, WCW is the perfect new top heel to go against Austin.

[BomberPat]

Jeez, yeah, that makes me realise they never did anything between Austin and the RTC, did they? It was never going to be a main event feud, but surely Austin was the logical End Boss for that group?

Hell, he could have done a good bit of business with Regal - Regal wasn't at his best in-ring around then, but he was getting good heat, and something like his promo against Hogan a couple of years later on Austin would have been great.

[Liam O'Rourke]

Raven was brought in around that time, another guy they could have done something with if he were able to get him over. They had tons of choices, and they chose the least interesting ones because the top guys were greedy.

[LaGoosh]

I remember Raven being really shit in WWE though. He looked terrible, his in ring work was sloppy and weak and he only had three good matches in his entire run (vs. Big Show & Kane, vs. Rhyno and, oddly, vs Big Show & Test). Granted, giving a great promo guy no promos didn't make any sense but I can hardly see him doing anything with Austin.

And anyways, didn't Austin have heat with Raven because he walked in front of Debra naked or something?

[BomberPat]

I was a big Raven mark at the time - there's probably cringeworthy photos of me long-haired in a Raven shirt and leather jacket out there on some dark corner of the internet - and I remember talking him up as the most underused guy in the company, but looking back, there's no chance they would have ever stuck him against Austin. Didn't he debut dicking around with Lawler in his feud with Tazz? I barely remember any matches he had during his time there.

I do remember him being part of a decent comedy skit, though, when two guys - I think Billy Gunn and Test, someone on that level - were walking backstage before a match with the Radicalz, and one of them says, "I know why you're here, they beat you up on Smackdown last week", the other says, "I know why you're here, Eddie Guerrero screwed you out of your title match on RAW", or whatever, words to that effect, then they stop walking and the first guy says, "but what I don't understand is why is Raven here?" - camera pans to the right, and Raven is just sat off to the side exactly where they've stopped, and he cuts a cryptic promo and they both just shrug and carry on. I think they did something similar with him teaming with Grandmaster Sexay & Steve Blackman one week - just cutting a typical brooding promo and them openly admitting that nobody knew what he was on about.

 

Is there any truth to the story that he was sat in on a creative meeting before he debuted, and Vince McMahon took one look at him, turned to the rest of the group and said, "who the fuck hired Raven?". Poor sod never stood a chance, did he?

 

It's hard to really find a point when Raven could have been relevant during his WWE run. Most of the time he was there, the roster was ridiculously top-loaded - when you've got the class of main event and upper midcard talent they had in 2001/02, it's hard to justify giving Raven much to do, especially when he looked awful during most of his run.

I still find it mental, though, that early on in the roster split they had him lose a "Loser Leaves RAW" match to Tommy Dreamer with no build and just had him dick around on Heat in a kilt for months, during about the only time there might have been an opening for him to have done something, even if just in the Hardcore division, or to drag out some ECW nostalgia.

[Wrasslin]

Still the most decorated champion in WWE

[Liam O'Rourke]

Who knows - in the tenor of the times, it felt like Raven could have been something since he had the WCW/ECW rep and was a star in both. Even if he wasn't in the other guys' league as a worker, as a character he could have done something and had some fun wild brawls, which he showed he could still do well. Being brought in the way he was doomed him. Stamped him as a prelim guy immediately and rarely ever gave him a chance to talk.