Shining a Spotlight 1.28.10: Making New Stars

You’d have to have been under a rock for the last two weeks not to have heard of the debacle going on at NBC with Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. I’m a Letterman fan personally so not that invested in it but I do think it’s pretty much a horrible deal for O’Brien. My major beef is the fact that Leno basically made the promise back in 2004 that he’d turn The Tonight Show over to Leno and went through all the motions of giving it up only to change his mind a year back and decide he didn’t want to leave TV. You can’t blame him for NBC’s disastrous decision to give him a nightly show and the ratings pall that fell but amazes me that NBC honestly blames Conan for not being able to match the ratings considering the horrible lead-in he had. Rather than do the honorable thing and step back, Leno accepts the Tonight Show back and Conan is pushed out.

The whole mess got me to thinking how often in wrestling you see stuff somewhat like this. Not to this degree of public debacle, of course, but still you see the reluctance of the older stars giving the newer ones their shot. It’s partly the stars and also partly the promoters/owners but it’s hard to really give the rub as much as one should.
　

How it should work

When a wrestling star catches on, it’s almost always by accident more than real plans. As RD Reynolds brilliantly observed, so many times the angles and gimmicks that look perfect on paper bomb while the stuff that sounds incredibly stupid goes on to draw huge money. The Undertaker is a great example as back in 1990, the idea of a big zombie guy in funeral clothes still being a huge star twenty years later was ridiculous. John Cena was an okay worker but it took a goofy Vanilla Ice costume to get over big-time. Goldberg managed to do it just on his soft but deadly approach of dominating anyone in his path. You just don’t know who can click and who won’t.

Promoters will try to push newer guys to varying degrees of success. One of the best examples was WCW with Vader pushed as the unstoppable monster, crushing Sting for the title and dominating for over a year as champ, punishing anyone put against him. But then, WCW also had a record from 1991-94 of pushing guys whose gimmicks put ‘80’s WWF to shame (PN News, Kevin Nash as Oz, Arachaman and more). When JBL was pushed as champion in 2004, fans were a bit cool to the idea of this long-time midcarder as the top heel but by the end of his reign, JBL had managed to get over as a great heel worker. The jury is still out on Sheamus although he’s lasted longer as champ than I expected.

So a star will catch on, for whatever reason and rise up, getting over huge, doing great main events and selling merchandise. However, sooner or later, that star will fade. Again, it’s up in the air how long it could last as Undertaker still pulls them in while guys like Shawn Michaels and HHH are hot as they always were. But it does happen to a lot of guys, that their stars can fade and the fans will cool. Hogan in the ‘90’s is a great example of that.

So the idea is that you have the older guy give the newer guy the rub by losing matches, putting him over. A fine example there is Harley Race, nearing the twilight of his run as an in-ring competitor, let Ric Flair beat him at the first Starrcade and thus Flair was able to get over even bigger with the fans. A more recent example would be HHH who, while certainly guilty of not getting guys over him, did do a great job with Batista in 2005, not only losing the belt but letting Dave get wins over him afterward. Even Cena took part as dropping the belt to Sheamus was a big surprise that actually makes the guy look like a threat. In theory, this should lead to a fresh crop of stars to keep the business going.
　

Why It Doesn’t

The reasons why this simple theory doesn’t work are varied and can be blamed on a few factors: The stars, the promoters and yes, the fans.

For the stars, it’s obvious why they don’t want to cede the spotlight. These guys are used to being on the top and getting the fame and adulation, not to mention the money. The idea of losing that, of giving up their spot and what they love, is something they just don’t want to accept. Wrestling is an ego trip to so many guys, a high better than any drug and they don’t want to come down from that. Plus, like most in the older generation, these guys hate the idea of the young lions out to replace them.

Hulk Hogan is probably the most obvious case of this mentality, a man who time and again has shown he just can’t live without being the center of attention. Yes, he’s put some guys over in the past now and then (Ultimate Warrior, Brock Lesner) but we all know the stories of him throwing his weight around and refusing to clean finishes and such (Starrcade ‘97). Hogan has managed to use his amazing popularity to his advantage but still has a horrible track record for giving the younger guys the brush.

Ric Flair is a unique case as so many will talk about him putting young guys over like Sting. But when you really look at his track record, that’s not quite the case. He’d let guys pin him in tag bouts but when it came time for the real title matches, Flair would always end up with the belt, even against guys who could carry it like Barry Windham. Lex Luger may not have been the best worker but was hugely over with the fans in 1988, a guy who could have done well as a face champion and Flair’s refusal to give him the belt harmed Crockett’s business massively. In ‘89, he dropped it to Ricky Steamboat, not a rookie but any means, got it back quick and beat down Terry Funk in a long feud. Yes, he dropped it to Sting in ‘90 but after business went south and he got the belt back, he pretty much buried Sting afterward. Like Hogan, Flair just can’t give wrestling up and too often, seems to be more sucking up the heat of a younger guy than giving him a rub.

But while it’s easy to blame the stars, the promoters have their share of blame. With them, it’s not wanting to give up on what works, they refuse to accept how the heat is dying down and give up on something they think can still draw. That’s why WCW kept with the New World Order for so long, it was pretty much the one major gimmick they’d pulled off to true success and Bischoff just couldn’t get it through his head that fans were getting sick of the same old guys dominating all the time when they had slews of hot talent at their feet to push. WCW did try to push that idea more in 2000 with the “New Blood vs. Millionaires Club” feud but that fell apart thanks to the erratic behind the scenes chaos with Russo and Bischoff trying to work together.

WWE has been guilty of the same mentality, trying over and over to recreate the past from the NWO to DX and bringing back old stars. And TNA has gotten a poor rap from so many for insisting on pushing past their prime guys like Nash, Sting and now the Nasty Boys, going more for nostalgia factor than actual great talent in the ring and that’s harming them in the eyes of many fans. I enjoy AJ Styles a lot but the idea of turning him into Ric Flair 2.0 seems a bit much. On the other hand, having a man still as respected as Flair helping him along should solidify AJ more to those outside of TNA and with Hogan exerting some influence, he can use all he can get to keep on top of things.

It’s money that drives these decisions. When a guy makes a lot of money for the company, it gets him over nicely and they don’t want to admit that the stars’ time has past. HHH is a unique case as he’s family for Vince and still turns in great matches and feuds while HBK has shown a lot of loyalty that’s been rewarded. Of course, some promoters can be wary of pushing newer guys for a variety of reasons. Kennedy was obviously pushed to be a new star but his various suspensions and injuries ruined that. Brock Lesner was given the keys to the kingdom, reigning high only to walk out on WWE at the height of his success. Things like that can make a company wary of really investing in a new guy when it’s so much easier to just go back to the old reliable. It’s always about money in wrestling, especially in times like this, and it’s not as if wrestling is the only field that’s guilty of pandering to the past.

But another factor in all this is the fan base. This topic shows once again how there’s a much wider gap between the IWC and the majority of fans than some will acknowledge. Guys online can bitch and grouse about old-timers like Taker or HHH or such still on top. But there’s a reason they’re still out there, which is that the fans in the arena, the ones who pay to watch, still go for them. Taker still gets some of the biggest pops around and fans eat up the DX stuff gladly. IWC guys will bitch about Cena but he still gets pops and, more importantly, sells a ton of merchandise at shows which means he’ll be on top for a while still. The fans in the arenas are who WWE pays attention to, they’re the ones who decide most things and more often than not, their attentions decide the fate of more than a few stars.

TNA is a bit different with their fan base as most have seen the video of their crowd literally told how to behave so it’s more about TNA’s decisions there. ROH is more of a “smark” audience, more “in the know” on the Internet and ROH in the past has listened to both sides. Of course, the company does seem intent on pushing guys and angles like the rematch of Aries/Black despite the first bout being such a mess. As mentioned before, so many times angles and characters that seem great to work on paper don’t connect with the fans in the arenas while stuff you don’t think they’ll go for takes off. You can’t decide on first reactions as a lot of stuff takes time to develop, that’s the point. No one becomes a star overnight, it’s a long process of trial and error. To instantly judge a guy as “not ready” or “ready right now” is a snap judgment that can harm the worker and the plans and shake things up the wrong way.

The IWC has a tendency to decide how guys are “held back” and “not pushed enough,” ignoring the fact that some guys really just don’t have what it takes to be real main event stars. For years, RVD was said to be the guy perfect to carry WWE but when he was finally given his shot, it took him less than a month for his personal problems to ruin things. Jeff Hardy is another example as is Kennedy. I enjoy Shelton Benjamin as a performer but guy really doesn’t have the right charisma to succeed on the bigger levels. Yes, Sheamus may be young and raw but the fact WWE is giving him a chance shows they are trying to infect new blood. You do have to pull the trigger now and then and take a shot, see how it works. Flair refused to give Luger that chance in ‘88 and Crockett ended up paying for it. Once again, it’s the fans in the arenas WWE listen to and so far Sheamus has done okay so sometimes when you roll the dice, they can come up something other than snake eyes.

Summation

It’s easy for people outside the wrestling business to say how easy it is to elevate new talent but, as often happens, they fail to see how tricky the reality is. Yes, it’s best to have older stars cede the spotlight a bit and give the young guys a shot. But the fact is that a lot of these “old guys” can still make it work. Look at Taker and HBK putting on the Match of the Year of 2009 over so many of the young guns. That doesn’t take into account the fact that a lot of older stars hate giving up their spots while the promoters dislike breaking with what works. And more often than not, it’s the fans, not the IWC or promoters, who decide who the stars truly are which can influence things greatly. So critics can bitch and moan over how the “old guard” won’t move aside but overlook that sometimes, having an older set can help things out. There are limits, of course, but as so much in wrestling, making a new star isn’t as easy as it looks. But when it does work, it works great which makes the process so fun to watch.