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| WWE Champion, Miz, celebrating after win |
But don't worry, I won't talk about sports agencies or less clients equals more kinda stuff. But in a way, I will make sure you get something out of this.
This will be about one of my favorite topics, Pro-Wrestling.
Pro-Wrestling, in a word, is "dying." At least from the way it used to be. Why? Well, it could be that some companies focus on too much of an entertainment part or some focus too much on the past and thinking that will work in the future, even though it, well, failed in the past.
Lets talk some TNA.
Immortal is basically NWO 2.0 without the headbands and overdone standard '90s type music. Actually, I take the last part back, doesn't their entrance music sound like something from the ''90s?
I swear, it could have been in one of those old Power Ranger movies. Let's not judge those by the way, the Power Rangers were the best back in the day. Along with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those outside of America, bear with me on my '90s geek-out moment here.
TNA had a big heel turn with a very over/popular babyface wrestler, ala Hulk Hogan in the '90s. Then they have a huge faction form with some of the companies' biggest talents. Former and current champions alike join, as well as top contenders for those titles.
People begged to see some of TNA's young talents move to the top of the scene. So yeah, TNA gave us that. Just in a weird way we didn't want to see. We got the young talents in the spotlight, but all of them were jumbled up. It's like TNA gave them the face time without moving them up in any way.
All you did was give them face time, nothing more, TNA.
Factions are obviously a way to help get people over. Look at Nexus, it has done wonders for the people in the group. It was a great way to help build young stars and for the most part, it has worked out well for the group.
TNA put together a recycled idea, one that bombed big time.
It seems Eric Bichoff and Hulk Hogan are starting over from scratch with TNA as if it were WCW. They are trying to create the same promotion again and then go by the same WCW playbook.
Wait for the new star who goes undefeated for a while. This is coming soon.
I bet because Gold would be taken, TNA will use "Silver."
Hogan and EB basically are screwing the world out of seeing a brand new, wonderful thing from happening.
How do we stop it?
We end Immortal. I know, shocking to end something that claimed to be Immortal right?
TNA will only succeed in this new world if it's new and exciting. TNA was that promotion before EB and Hogan signed on with TNA. And that was WITH Vince Russo as head writer. Go figure.
It goes to show you that Russo wasn't the problem to begin with I guess, but the people around him that were. Remember, a writer is only as good as the material he is given to write for.
If you have limited things to write about, obviously some of those things are going to be bad. Especially when the booking is bad. Not saying Russo has been the best in the business with things, but he has done many things in TNA to help make it great. You can only imagine how ticked he was when Easy E and Hogan came in.
He knew his work was shot.
Russo may have screwed up down the line, but with all the new innovations happening in TNA, would the fans care about minor screw ups? No.
Big ones? Yes!
This is why WWE lasted and WCW didn't. They made the mistake of trying to build all their stars in the same way, or not in a way that would benefit them later. WCW also used former WWF names that were already established because of Vince McMahon. Thought I'd throw that fact in.
They are doing the same thing again.
Big names are already in TNA, and they are from WWE who made them big. Remember, only a few names actually were homegrown from WCW before it ended. In WWE, pretty much every star was grown from the ground up by WWE. Only a few actually made their name somewhere else.
But let's not LOVE all up on WWE here. They are not perfect either.
WWE may know how to build talent, but they don't know what to do with the talent when it's built.
Also, the WWE thinks it's ok to just push a woman only because she's hot. Kelly Kelly and most recently, Kaitlyn are examples of this. The difference between Kaitlyn and Kelly Kelly is that KK had TV-14 to work with. Kaitlyn, despite her hotness, could not do the same things KK did on ECW.
Now Kelly is established and is better in the ring, but she is no Lita or Trish Stratus obviously.
Trish worked on her wrestling very well, so, Kaitlyn could get better and become great. But will that be anytime soon? I don't know. Trish had opportunities to do things the WWE can no longer do on TV. It helped her legend.
If she were being built now, would she be the same legendary wrestler we now know and love? I don't know.
Lets be fair to WWE, though, they are trying to get their female performers better training. But, we still aren't seeing the kind of talent we saw earlier on from the ladies.
The men are not being built as well, either.
It kind of goes with the Jerry Maguire formula, remember less clients? It's the same here.
Let's try not pushing so many guys at one time, and focus on one or two. At least when it comes to a certain belt. Now, it's not tough.
You wanna build new stars, Vince? Fine, do it. But not all at once.
The push of The Miz was wonderful. He worked the tag team scene for a while, then moved on to mid-card and go for secondary titles, he finally got over enough to mid-card/main event.
Then he won MITB, and continued to pursue the main event scene. He main evented more and more. Then he won the WWE Championship.
It came as an uproar, but yet the WWE pushed him magnificently. It was the way ALL men should be pushed in the WWE. It took a few years, but it worked out in the end.
CM Punk is another example of how to push a guy. The issue is what do you do with him when you get him there.
Sheamus is an example of a guy you pushed too hard, too fast. Now you have to think of weird ways to use him and it's hard to keep him at the level you want him while using him in such weird ways.
Like winning King of the Ring. He didn't need to win it. He won two WWE Titles in less than a year. Yet the WWE didn't know how to keep him in the limelight, so they used him at KOTR because it was the only way they knew how to keep him main eventing.
Now, certain people will be lifelong mid-carders or jobbers. Take the Brooklyn Brawler for example as your classic jobber. You don't need to see him win, but you'll see it from time to time, so that's why you watch. Not every man can main event. There are many things that go into that, but that's another article for another day.
Right now, WWE just on RAW is currently trying to push over 10 new stars. About 3 or 4 of them in the main event. The others in mid-cards.
Also, one thing that bugs me about the WWE is that they aren't caring about the tag scene. You saw how The Hardys and Edge and Christian could work as a tag team and still have singles success.
Sure, do a jealousy storyline when need be, but end the tag teams all the time for good? Idiotic WWE!
It seems they all end nowadays without lasting long. It's sad when a tag team could really help build a star. It's what WWE used to do to keep young stars in the limelight while they judged to see how far they could go.
You hear of legendary teams, and many of those legendary teams like The Hardys and Edge and Christian had members that won singles belts yet were still aligned in the tag scene. It helped build them greatly.
Why do you think people loved the Attitude Era so much? It wasn't so much about the edgy storylines as much as it was that the fans weren't over exposed to new people.
They had a chance to get used to them. They were being built in front of you and you could follow their stories.
Why do you think the WWE fans backed Jeff Hardy? His story!
Do this and you will have a future. Just doing a fast build is dumb. It never works out in the end. We have seen quite a few examples.
WWE has a chance to work on a ton of avenues here. You work on a dying tag scene, building new stars, and keeping the industry alive. It's worth trying.
TNA also has a chance to be great too. All they need to do is to stop being the the new generation's WCW or anti-WWE, which if you look at them now, they are trying to be so badly yet cannot be.
It's not even that the WWE is better, it's that it's pathetic that they could do different things and be better, but they are doing the exact same things the WWE did, yet bomb with it.
That's the underlying issue. Be the old TNA, it worked for you, why change? Because two morons who ruined a company in the '90s told you to? Come on.
Your handbook, Mr. Promoter. You're welcome.
By Joe Burgett
