Orton-Reich - The new face of wrestling (sadly)

[Andrew is Good]

It's late, I had an energy drink earlier, I should get up early tomorrow though. The room is just too damn cold. Plus last year I was in a really bad place in my life, like, this time last year, but I won't get into that. So, it's rant time.

There are many many reasons why Johnny Ace is not very popular. So many to list. He replaced Jim Ross as the head of talent relations, in what probably was a huge mistake. JR was known as someone with a lot of integrity, and would tell it like it was. Raven gave a great example of this in one of his many shoots when he talked about his dealings with JR when he arrived in the WWE in 2000. JR said he was embarassed to offer Raven a deal of $75,000 a year as his downside, but said that after a year if buisness was good, he would get a raise. One year later, Raven got a raise in his pay. Ross seems to be the type who isn't very forceful or isn't one to get really mad, but he is blunt. He is honest and tells it like it is.

Johnny Ace on the other hand is a little different. Team 3D are probably the people who have the most against him, as he was the main reason they're not with the company anymore. Brother Ray even said that if they were just dealing with Vince and JR and not Johnny Ace, they would still currently be in WWE. Another one of the claims put against Ace is the kind of talent that is wanted in the WWE. The generic looking type of wrestling.

The basic look is a big guy, decent looking with short hair. A few examples of this look recently and since around 2003 are:

Chris Masters
Randy Orton
John Cena
Rob Conway
Rene Dupree
Sylvan
Batista
Bobby Lashley
Test
Heidenreich
Nathan Jones
Brock Lesnar
Matt Morgan


Now, there's a chance I may've missed a few, and there are a few wrestlers out of this list that are pretty talented, but generally, there is your list. Also notice that the three champions currently are on this list as well. One is more talented then people give him credit for. One isn't very talented but pretty popular. And one isn't ready for the main event spotlight yet.

I feel when they create guys like this, what they want to accomplish is to try to build something from a blank slate. Someone with a different look is more difficult to package and repackage whenever it's needed. That's one reason why ECW really kept a lot of its integrity for most of the year because all the top babyfaces did not fit the WWE mold of their seemingly "perfect" wrestler. The top 6 babyfaces were RVD, The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, CM Punk, Sabu and Balls Mahoney (not particularly in that order). All 6 of these men have very different styles and none of them look like your typical wrestlers. None of them look alive either.

They had the stoner, the drunk, the mark, the straight edge, the kamakazi and the lovable dirty satanic freak. So I think one of the alternative things about the ECW brand was that the people who you wanted to cheer for were alternative wrestlers, and all the heels were everything that ECW wasn't. The school teacher. The vampire. The established main event star in WWE and WCW. And they had a couple of hosses. But when they put the perfect mold of a WWE superstar in as the Champion, everyone was talking like somebody's grandmother was raped.

It's hard for guys to be original and be able to carve their own niche. Raven talked about this (I know I used examples from him a lot, but he's a genious) that if Superstar Billy Graham were around today, they would have told him to shave his head, dump the tiedye, dump the rapping and just be a generic big guy wrestler. They would take everything from Superstar Billy Graham that made him Superstar Billy Graham.

When I first heard that Daniel Rodimer was in DSW getting training, I was really excited. When they had Tough Enough 4 on Smackdown, he was my favourite. There was just something about him. He oozed charisma. He has the cocky smile, he had the look, he had some good hair too. But when I downloaded a video of DSW and saw him, I was shocked. He cut his hair and was just wearing black tights with some red on it. I couldn't believe it. They took everything from Daniel Rodimer that made him stand out, and turned him into another generic wrestler.

I've been watching ROH a lot, and while the wrestling is fantastic, and it's great to watch stuff like that, some of the guys just need to stand out. That's one of my very few critiques of ROH. Davey Richards, Matt Sydal and Roderick Strong look like they were cloned in a lab that makes great technical wrestlers or something. And while they are much better wrestlers then the big guys I wrestled, it's based on the same thing. Instead of having wrestlers who look the same, but bigger in WWE, you have little guys who look the same. They're much better wrestlers. Much easier to get into and watch the match, but there's no connection and I couldn't care less if they wrestled or not.

I don't want Ortonreich here to be the new face of professional wrestling. I don't want him to be the poster boy for wrestling. I heard a horrible rumour, and I hope it is a rumour, that they wanted to hire good looking people off the street and train them to wrestle. That's horrible. I hope it's a rumour though. That takes away from wrestling. I want people like CM Punk, a great wrestler, with tattoos, piercings and dirty hair. I want people like Balls Mahoney, who doesn't look like your typical wrestler, but like a bum off the street. And I'm not saying guys who fit the mold can't have some personality and stand out. John Cena and Brock Lesnar, I enjoy watching them. Because they're different. When they talked, when they wrestled, they make you (well, make me) interested in watching them. Steve Austin, black boots and black trunks, but Austin was still great by himself with that. I wish they would also let them cut their own promos, to stand out, even when given a bad hand with a generic look.

But yeah, that's my rant for this evening.

[Vice Squad: Strong Style]

the main problem is: johnny ace is hiring bodybuilders who can';t wrestler or talk.
there are hundred of guys who aren't quite as big, who can wrestle their asses off, and captivate a crwod with the stick... and they get overlooked because they weigh less than 275 lbs.
it's sickening.
i wouldn't mind the bulky workers, if they could work. or work the stick.
but we're dealing with a generation of ultimate warriors here.

[MGH]

It's really sad to look ahead 3-4 years down the line at what WWE could be like. I mean there could come a day where the situation literally is that a bunch of actors are brought in and taught basically how to not kill themselves in the ring. Then sent out there to work and act like trained wrestlers.

I was listening to an old Sunday Night Submission archive (great show btw) the other night, and one of the hosts made a point I couldn't agree more with. Unless it is their personal choice to stay on the indies or where ever they are now, there is no reason that people like Roderick Strong, Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, Davey Richards, The Briscoes, Jimmy Rave, Colt Cabana etc. shouldn't be under WWE contract. They may never main event, but who cares? They could be the midcard making it 100x more watchable and maybe some of them do main event someday, who knows? But for talent like that to be floating around while you have some of the big oafs in WWE getting huge TV time is a travesty.

[HMARK Center]

I think you might be a trifle unfair towards Roderick Strong; he doesn't have a whole ton of charisma, but he's booked in storylines where you do care about him. ROH, actually, is very good about having a pretty varied, mostly unique looking roster, when you get down to it.

Regardless, you're making points that I'm sure just about everyone agrees with. We discussed it when the issue first came up about Ace wanting only to focus on looks, and not on talent or experience.

It's ironic. After ECW's death, the independent scene had a renaissance, with the emergence of ROH, the strengthening of BCW, IWA and CZW, and the establishment of more prominent indy's at different points in the country, such as FIP in Florida, or PWG in SoCal. All of the sudden, being an indy wrestler didn't necessarily mean wrestling at a flea circus or carnival for peanuts; while the pay still isn't great for most, the scene at least strengthened enough to provide a much more visible stepping stone for young wrestlers hoping to fine-tune their game and gain exposure.

Yet despite that, we now come to an age where the WWE, the only big game in town, despite TNA's continuing growth and development, looks at all that, and says "Meh, it doesn't mean squat."

This from the company that took the following talent from ECW: Taz, the Dudley's, Rob Van Dam, and a multitude of others who never, ever fit the current "WWE mold", and yet still made them money.

[Vice Squad: Strong Style]

without the dudleyz feuding with team extreme, and E&C... a lot of money would have been missed out on.
Mick Foley.
Van Dam.
Hell, even Austin doesn't fit the new mold.

Do they not understand that pro wrestling is about escapism, and that we have to have a worker to relate to... hence the actual neccessity for different styles and types of wrestlers?

McMahon makes movies alright... .Gay stag flicks, if you ask me.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Granted, most of the guys on your list did turn out to be stiffs, but Lesnar was making great strides as a worker and a character before he quit and Cena is a great draw/merchandise mover. Could we at least give the guy half a chance before burying him and the entire company?

[odanobunaga]

" the guy half a chance before burying him and the entire company? "


I prefer to remain pessimistic, because either I have a good surprise, or I am right