Where is the sparkle/spice/special something?

['Foretold' Joker]

Is it me or is there a distinct lack of effort on the wwe's part with new wrestlers over the last few years?

Back in the past a wrestler comes in and he has something to make him stand out of the crowd from Koko B Ware's parrot, is given time and room to shine like Kurt Angle or blasts on to the scene like Brock Lesnar's domination.

Yet today there is either no fan fare, very little or it gets forgotten 4 months later ...

The list of generic wrestlers appearing currently is longer than the golden gate bridge ... Snitsky, Rhodes, DH Smith, the two edgeheads, London, Kendrick, knox, thorn, shannon moore, Kenny Dykstra etc ... Never mind the ones who have come and gone.

Whilst those wrestlers who did get some sort of promotional debut seem to get lost without a purpose ... Carlito, CM Punk, Highlanders, Elijah Burke have no purpose character wise ... Kennedy just seems to have a lot of bad luck, Shelton Benjamin has talent but gets skipped over ... whilst Lashley is apparently forgotten about whilst injured, so leaves.

Even with the ones who have become something for fans to be interested in a lot of it has been down to luck ... Santino (Heel turn saved him, he's still a jobber though), John Cena (Halloween fancy dress gave him his break) Randy Orton (lack of available heels at the time) Batista (The botching of the Randy Orton face turn).

Except for the likes of big mean monsters (See Umaga, Khali and the reimagining of Henry and BDV) The only guy who the WWE seem to have consistently got behind and then followed through with from start to his current position is really MVP and he's doing a great.

So the question remains why are all the new wrestlers so similar and thus not that exciting, and why do many of the ones that do have something seem to get forgotten about?

[strykerdarksilence]

I think the developmental system is a lot to blame. If guys have worked their way up through the indies, or back in the day, the territories, and got noticed, their character has developed and obviously has that sparkle to stand out.

If developmental just picks up bland tall guys from the gym and sticks a text book gimmick on them, they have no time to work on it before they are called up if they show potential, and the fact they don`t have much if any input on the gimmick, means they can`t feel the gimmick.

This is where Vince Russo actually is useful, because he works hard on giving guys characters which they feel and get get involved with.

[Mac]

Correct, everything is formulaic now. Wrestlers are taught to wrestle the WWE style. They seem to be put together to push merchandise and do as many things that are "marketable" as possible. From names, to names of moves to attire, catch phrases and even the movements the wrestlers make on their way to the ring. Wrestling is what they use in their spare time on Raw. I dont really have a problem with that because I'd be more into a Cena/Orton/Triple H match if I hadn't seen them wrestle one another 500 times.

Every wrestler has a unique in ring attire... and can you find much else that seperates any of them? When they're out of their attire they all have the same boring mic spots, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. Unless they give you something unique about the character than theres really no reason to get behind a particular wrestler.

Whats effective is the classic "boy band' development. Find the Anti-Establishment one, the Too Cool for the Room One, the Goth one, and so on and so on. What we seem to get now are

1. cocky heel
2. confident/ tough face

[eJm]

I agree with that. There needs to be some sort of better development system then the present system.

Spending your time in Florida for a few months isn't enough. You need to see how people like you in a few other states, who you work against, who you don't work well against.

Despite the slack TNA gets, they're allowing their talent to go to other promotions for small cameos to see how they adapt to different opponents and conditions.

See what other promotions give people and see how that works with them. If it gets over, WWE would run with it because it's working.

[Lenny: Smooth like Keith Stone]

I agree that all WWE guys seem to be baiscally the same character. In particular, I noticed that all of their promos seem to be too much alike. You can tell that they basically have the same people writing promos for the entire roster, and it shows because almost every promo that you hear is very general and could realistically be said by just about anyone.

I'm not saying we need to go back to the days of having 7000 catch phrases to differentiate people, but it wouldn't hurt to let some of the guys let their own unique personalities shine through.

[Bo Rida]

I've posted this before but it applies here.

Wrestling should be a unique form of entertainment where the live crowds determine who should be the start of the show.

To do this the crowd needs a connection to the wrestlers which you can only get if they offer something unique, when everybody is using generic writer monkey promos and a formulated match style it's harder for the fans to feel investment in them so the emotional bond is never formed.
This is particularly true when unpopular wrestlers are forced down peoples throats at the expense of the fan favorites who always receive a big reaction.

This is an even bigger problem when everything just clicks into place so it appears it’s a certain wresters time to win the title and it just doesn’t happen, the biggest examples I can think of is Christian before he got drafted to Smackdown and Samoa Joe in TNA.

You also used to see wrestlers work for years to get to the top of the profession, now too many are groomed for the top.
When Foley of Eddie won their first titles the reactions were huge, nearly everybody in the arenas were cheering as they felt genuinely happy that a person who has been entertaining them for years had finally made it to the top.

However when somebody like Lashley wins the "big one" it doesn't cause those same feelings, this is an even bigger problem due to having 3 main titles.
This has been made even worse due to the WWE preferring long face champion reigns rather than focusing on "the chase".

I believe the recent swell of support for Jeff Hardy is mainly due to him being somebody who has built a relationship with the fans over many years, we've seen him go from a jobber, to the TLC matches, to becoming a mid-card singles champion, followed by him nearly throwing it all away by becoming a sloppy shadow of his former self to finally turning it around to being the main eventer he is today.

If you look at the majority of your favorite wrestlers they are likely to have followed a similar path.

['Foretold' Joker]

It probably doesn't help that the midcard/tag team ranks have no real long running storylines for them to show there character in anyway.

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

I think another part of the problem with how developmental is set up is you spend X amount of time wrestling in developmental as one character, and then all of a sudden you're on Raw as a totally different character, usually without anytime to try it out much in front of a crowd.

I mean really, what gimmicks have carried over from OVW to WWE? MNM, Boogieman, and Punk? Sure, some gimmicks are meant to stay in developmental (Leviathian) but they should be given their gimmick atleast 6 months before it's to debut on TV. That gives you plenty of time to use it in front of a crowd, see what works, see what doesn't so that by the time you make it to the main roster you're comfortable with the gimmick.

[Loki]

All the aforementioned points are valid and are indeed part of the current "meh-ness" of WWE's product.

But we're forgetting the main reason IMO:

SMARKAMANIA IS RUNNING WILD

We've been watching for decades, we "know" how it works, we care about the backstage dynamics of matches and feuds (ie. who will go over and why, what would we do instead...).
To us, WrestleMania XXIV may be another stop on Cena's road to SuperStardom, or the first actual chapter in Orton's legacy. (Or, less likely, another sequel of HHH's mammoth saga).

MitB will probably establish Jeff Hardy as a bona fide Main Eventer.

To a mark (a kid, a fat woman, a redneck... it doesn't matter) it's about "Will Cena overcome the odds?" or "who will winn MitB? Maybe Jericho, maybe Carlito...).

So if they haven't the cocky and jaded attitude of those who have "been there, done that, yawn", things look probably way better.

And I kinda envy them

[David Otunga: Eternian at Law]

I hate to say this but I think the new guys are just kept bland by backstage politics.

[Mac]

donpiano said:

I hate to say this but I think the new guys are just kept bland by backstage politics.

Im sure theres a bit of merit to that.

Another huge issue with me is that Wins and Losses mean absolutly nothing anymore unless its at the Main Event of a PPV. Nobody seems to get heat based on winning a match. They get heat based on exposure time on TV and how they look in outsmarting or beating up their current opposition.

Kennedy beats Michaels one week, next week who cares... even better who remembers?

People go from one program to another almost without any acknowledgement of their previous fued. Triple H can be friendly with John Cena 4 months after feuding heavily with him and losing at Wrestlemania.

We've seen every stoyline before, more often than not we;ve seen the same storyline ran a dozen times if we've been watching long enough. The characters change, the matches change but the formula is usually pretty standard stuff. Add to that vanilla characters who don't seem to differentiate themselves from the other characters and why are we supposed to be drawn in?

Is there really a difference between guys like Kennedy and guys like Randy Orton?

The more we lose guys like Shawn Michaels, Kane, Undertaker and even Triple H the more the WWE brings in cookie cutter characters wrestling paint by the numbers matches in generic storylines

[primetime110]

mikeybadnews said:

donpiano said:

I hate to say this but I think the new guys are just kept bland by backstage politics.

Im sure theres a bit of merit to that.

Another huge issue with me is that Wins and Losses mean absolutly nothing anymore unless its at the Main Event of a PPV. Nobody seems to get heat based on winning a match. They get heat based on exposure time on TV and how they look in outsmarting or beating up their current opposition.

Kennedy beats Michaels one week, next week who cares... even better who remembers?

People go from one program to another almost without any acknowledgement of their previous fued. Triple H can be friendly with John Cena 4 months after feuding heavily with him and losing at Wrestlemania.

We've seen every stoyline before, more often than not we;ve seen the same storyline ran a dozen times if we've been watching long enough. The characters change, the matches change but the formula is usually pretty standard stuff. Add to that vanilla characters who don't seem to differentiate themselves from the other characters and why are we supposed to be drawn in?

Is there really a difference between guys like Kennedy and guys like Randy Orton?

The more we lose guys like Shawn Michaels, Kane, Undertaker and even Triple H the more the WWE brings in cookie cutter characters wrestling paint by the numbers matches in generic storylines

Good point. I really did forget about Kennedy defeating Michaels until I read this post.

[mrmulluk]

So many awesome points.

I blame it on the death of the tag division.

Brett Hart, Shawn Michaels, Tito Santana, some big names all started out in legitimate tag teams.

I stopped watching WWE a while ago because I just stopped caring. I'd see one or two wrestlers every show who interested me and then the other hour and a half would be bland. This is even worse now, just reading the results bores me.

I was really hoping the recent steroid scandal would cause another 'stop pushing hosses' backlash that gave us Shawn, Brett, Austin as champions.

-sighs- Burchill's alright though...

[wwerules60]

I think Kennedy is going to the top, people on here love to bash him but he has a great promo and he just has it.

[Corporate H]

joker said:

The only guy who the WWE seem to have consistently got behind and then followed through with from start to his current position is really MVP and he's doing a great.

What about CM Punk? He's had a storybook WWE run so far.

[Linestra]

Where'sh the... zazz? It needsh zazz.

['Foretold' Joker]

bencrocker said:

joker said:

The only guy who the WWE seem to have consistently got behind and then followed through with from start to his current position is really MVP and he's doing a great.

What about CM Punk? He's had a storybook WWE run so far.

CM Punk is a prime example of a guy that has got lost and has no purpose.

He had a good intro to the wwe fans with some nice vids and then a few wins and a partial storyline with Knox and Burke then onto his championship run. But since then and arguably during it what has been his characters motivation?

The only reason we know he's Straightedge anymore is because Styles and Tazz occasionally remind us. Despite his large indy following which made the general wwe fans care about him he is lost in the shuffle.

Plus he's on ECW, An hour long show no one really cares about. I mean we don't even know if he will be invovled at Wrestlemania.

Like Carlito, Shelton or Cody Rhodes he has support from the fans and talent, but they never get any real time to show it and then succeed or fail. Carlito barely gets mike time, Shelton gets a boost on ECW then short changed in the rumble plus loses matches whilst Cody Rhodes is stuck with Hardcore holly who doesn't get much air time either.

Plus all four of them are arguably very similar.