They always drop the ball intentionally...

[Jason]

WWE does this alot and it just boggles my mind. Kofi Kingston tore the house down at MSG back in November and was on an absolute roll, he was my favourite to win the Royal Rumble at that point and then it all went down hill. He lost about 3 times to Randy Orton, clean and now, he suffers the infamous "Conway Pop" in some cities. I just don't get it, why do WWE constantly drop the ball intentionally when a star is about to be made?

People say Sheamus was the last built up star but no he wasn't. He won the world title and slapped a few midcarders around, that isn't being built up. Built up is Brock Lesnar, clean wins over Hogan, Taker, RVD, Angle, etc. Sheamus has yet to beat anyone credible clean, he won via DQ against Cena in his rematch and he won via DQ against Orton at the Rumble. He didn't even win the title clean according to King and Cole (Or King and Queen as I like to call them). How many times did they stretch that Cena fell through the table? They insisted this and it's little things like this that make the new guys look bad. Cena doesn't need to be put over anymore, he is already one of the most over guys in the company. Sheamus NEEDED to be put over and they wouldn't do it.

They constantly de-push the new guys who are on the verge of breaking out, for the expense of guys who already ARE over. Everyone suffers the yo-yo push because of this, this is why guys like Kingston will never be main eventers. The Miz suffered this back when he first came to Raw, they made him look like crap in the Cena feud. So anyone who is getting built up, think again. They'll just fall back down the card in a few months after they get "too over" when they enter a feud with a main eventer.

[greeby]

Vince is going to continue to keep the same names on top for as long as the buyrate remains steady, and as long as they still want to do it. He might let someone like Jericho or Punk have the belt while the usual suspects are either injured or have time off. But it's only a matter of time before a member of that exclusive little club takes the belt from them and kicks them back down the card.

Case in point was the Taker/Punk match at HIAC. A good portion of the crowd was chanting Punk's name with anger. As if to say "How dare you take this away from Punk to push an old-timer who can barely stand up"

[barley96]

I think WWE figures that if they depush a rising star, and they show enough determination and a semblance of credibility, then he/she must be worth something.

[BitterAF]

I think they push someone for a bit and see how they handle it. If they do well, they will be pushed in the near future. I fully believe Jack Swagger is winning MITB.

[I Like Your Poetry]

Sheamus will probably beat Triple H clean at Wrestlemania, so maybe we can retroactively believe that he deserved that hotshotted title reign.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Mar 14, 2010 21:08:03 GMT -5 barley96 said:

I think WWE figures that if they depush a rising star, and they show enough determination and a semblance of credibility, then he/she must be worth something.

That is such a moronic and backward way of booking. What you're guaranteeing is that you'll never have a huge break-through mega-star again because necessary momentum is eradicated in favor of testing waters. If a guy is red-hot, you ride out that rocket. You don't throw water on it, throw it in a shed, bury it 6 feet deep and then hope it still flies as high in a year. Lightning in a bottle can usually only be captured once. Guys can be salvaged, sure, but sometimes in life you only have one "perfect moment" where the stars are all aligned and WWE is too paranoid to exploit it anymore.

Guys like Austin and even Hogan would not be the stars they are/were if this style of booking existed in their eras. Crowds believe what you tell them. And for the most part, if you show them that a guy is hopeless for years, they'll believe it and that stigma will be hard to shake. It's easier to create and make money off a Goldberg/ Ultimate Warrior. For every Jeff Hardy/ Foley there's dozens of others who never shake the JTTS label.

[DSR]

Mar 14, 2010 22:01:05 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Guys like Austin and even Hogan would not be the stars they are/were if this style of booking existed in their eras. Crowds believe what you tell them. And for the most part, if you show them that a guy is hopeless for years, they'll believe it and that stigma will be hard to shake. It's easier to create and make money off a Goldberg/ Ultimate Warrior. For every Jeff Hardy/ Foley there's dozens of others who never shake the JTTS label.

Well, in Austin's case, that style of booking kinda did exist in his era. He was in a great feud with established main eventer Bret Hart, never got a decisive win, segued into a feud with Owen for the IC titlein the midcard, etc. From the time the feud with Bret started to the time Austin finally won the WWF Title was about a year and a half.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Mar 14, 2010 22:22:40 GMT -5 DSR said:

Mar 14, 2010 22:01:05 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Guys like Austin and even Hogan would not be the stars they are/were if this style of booking existed in their eras. Crowds believe what you tell them. And for the most part, if you show them that a guy is hopeless for years, they'll believe it and that stigma will be hard to shake. It's easier to create and make money off a Goldberg/ Ultimate Warrior. For every Jeff Hardy/ Foley there's dozens of others who never shake the JTTS label.

Well, in Austin's case, that style of booking kinda did exist in his era. He was in a great feud with established main eventer Bret Hart, never got a decisive win, segued into a feud with Owen for the IC titlein the midcard, etc. From the time the feud with Bret started to the time Austin finally won the WWF Title was about a year and a half.

Was there any doubt though during that time that he was either the top babyface in the company or number 2 behind Undertaker?

No one looked at Austin and thought of him as Bret's bitch like they do with Kofi and Orton, or hell, Orton and HHH. The guy just kept coming and coming like a terminator. And even kayfabe put Bret on the shelf for 4 months to get his heat back. He was never de-railed or made to look stupid or incompetent. That's the difference. You can lose and still look like an equal. But that doesn't happen anymore. You just lose. And lose. And lose. And then they try to pull the trigger on you after you're significantly cooler and then wonder why you're not on fire anymore.

[Rorschach]

Mar 15, 2010 0:19:58 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Mar 14, 2010 22:22:40 GMT -5 DSR said:

Well, in Austin's case, that style of booking kinda did exist in his era. He was in a great feud with established main eventer Bret Hart, never got a decisive win, segued into a feud with Owen for the IC titlein the midcard, etc. From the time the feud with Bret started to the time Austin finally won the WWF Title was about a year and a half.

Was there any doubt though during that time that he was either the top babyface in the company or number 2 behind Undertaker?

No one looked at Austin and thought of him as Bret's bitch like they do with Kofi and Orton, or hell, Orton and HHH. The guy just kept coming and coming like a terminator. And even kayfabe put Bret on the shelf for 4 months to get his heat back. He was never de-railed or made to look stupid or incompetent. That's the difference. You can lose and still look like an equal. But that doesn't happen anymore. You just lose. And lose. And lose. And then they try to pull the trigger on you after you're significantly cooler and then wonder why you're not on fire anymore.

Exactly...he lost, but he was so goddamn obsessed/DETERMINED to win that he lost not one iota of overness/heat in the process. Austin was one of the cases where you just couldn't put out the fire that was lit underneath him.

By contrast, Kofi not only losing his momentum...but goddamn it all, the very CHARACTER he had been portraying just cut his balls right off and left him a heatless, heartless neuter. Who CARES if his relatives are bitching about him playing a Jamaican? Tell them to shut the hell up and let their son/cousin/nephew become a star. It's akin to the Rock's relatives bitching that their boy wasn't playing a Samoan savage, for God's sake! And don't hit me with that "his accent was holding him back" garbage either. Holding him back from what? Being another generic angry black man with no hook to his character? Being on the coldest cold streak in recent memory? Having NO DAMN CONNECTION at all to his theme music anymore? In that case, yeah to all those things. It was holding him back from doing and being all that.

But holding him back from being a star? No goddamn way. Scott Hall talking like Scott Hall (and NOT Tony Montana) NEVER in a thousand years would have gotten Razor Ramon over. Accents don't hold you back....they give fans something to remember you by, and imitate.

[mrjl]

Mar 15, 2010 0:28:21 GMT -5 Rorschach said:

Mar 15, 2010 0:19:58 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Was there any doubt though during that time that he was either the top babyface in the company or number 2 behind Undertaker?

No one looked at Austin and thought of him as Bret's bitch like they do with Kofi and Orton, or hell, Orton and HHH. The guy just kept coming and coming like a terminator. And even kayfabe put Bret on the shelf for 4 months to get his heat back. He was never de-railed or made to look stupid or incompetent. That's the difference. You can lose and still look like an equal. But that doesn't happen anymore. You just lose. And lose. And lose. And then they try to pull the trigger on you after you're significantly cooler and then wonder why you're not on fire anymore.

Exactly...he lost, but he was so goddamn obsessed/DETERMINED to win that he lost not one iota of overness/heat in the process. Austin was one of the cases where you just couldn't put out the fire that was lit underneath him.

By contrast, Kofi not only losing his momentum...but goddamn it all, the very CHARACTER he had been portraying just cut his balls right off and left him a heatless, heartless neuter. Who CARES if his relatives are bitching about him playing a Jamaican? Tell them to shut the hell up and let their son/cousin/nephew become a star. It's akin to the Rock's relatives bitching that their boy wasn't playing a Samoan savage, for God's sake! And don't hit me with that "his accent was holding him back" garbage either. Holding him back from what? Being another generic angry black man with no hook to his character? Being on the coldest cold streak in recent memory? Having NO DAMN CONNECTION at all to his theme music anymore? In that case, yeah to all those things. It was holding him back from doing and being all that.

But holding him back from being a star? No goddamn way. Scott Hall talking like Scott Hall (and NOT Tony Montana) NEVER in a thousand years would have gotten Razor Ramon over. Accents don't hold you back....they give fans something to remember you by, and imitate.

Kofi becoming a native of Ghana in character happened at the same time as his feud with Orton, maybe slightly before. Notice how when he was smashing Orton's race car he was speaking without any accent at all? So that actually happened while he was gaining momentum, not losing it. And Kofi didn't have a lot of promo time before that point, just brief interviews, never really anything in depth so it's hard to say how much he needed the accent.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I would actually say the removal of the Jamaican character helped Kofi. Now he does not have to worry about faking an accent and can talk with his real voice. Of course, now that's the least of his worries.

[parder]

Mar 15, 2010 0:19:58 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Mar 14, 2010 22:22:40 GMT -5 DSR said:

Well, in Austin's case, that style of booking kinda did exist in his era. He was in a great feud with established main eventer Bret Hart, never got a decisive win, segued into a feud with Owen for the IC titlein the midcard, etc. From the time the feud with Bret started to the time Austin finally won the WWF Title was about a year and a half.

Was there any doubt though during that time that he was either the top babyface in the company or number 2 behind Undertaker?

No one looked at Austin and thought of him as Bret's bitch like they do with Kofi and Orton, or hell, Orton and HHH. The guy just kept coming and coming like a terminator. And even kayfabe put Bret on the shelf for 4 months to get his heat back. He was never de-railed or made to look stupid or incompetent. That's the difference. You can lose and still look like an equal. But that doesn't happen anymore. You just lose. And lose. And lose. And then they try to pull the trigger on you after you're significantly cooler and then wonder why you're not on fire anymore.

Love this post. I have a suspicion those kind of yo-yo pushes have a political element to them backstage. Sometimes it's when the new guy getting pushed says or does the wrong things according to locker room etiquette, or there are people in power who deliberately sabotage them to prove a point where they lose a bunch of times. Then when they start pushing them again to no crowd reaction, the point can be made 'ah you see they were never over in the first place! Lets give up on him'.

The interesting thing with Austin was that Vince knew he wanted to put the title on him at WM14 well in advance - the only issue was whether it would be Bret or Shawn who put him over in the end. Austin knew this, so that when Vince wanted him to drop the IC belt to The Rock in order to start his push to the Royal Rumble, Austin put the argument that why would he lose to a (at the time) mid carder if he's the one getting the mega-push to be the face of the company by Wrestlemania. Vince agreed and they changed it to him being stripped of the title to keep his momentum and simmering feud with Vince going.

[Feyrhausen]

With Kofi, I dont think they expected him to get over like he did. They just wanted a midcarder they could make look good against Orton for a month, then drop him back down. He got over, they used it to stretch out the feud for a couple months more, then because they did not expect him to get over so much they had no further plans, so he is forgotten.

In the old days they would have taken advantage and run with it, but now they feel they dont need to bother. IMO they feel like they can always build him back up if they want to, and if they fail at that then its the talents fault not theirs, so he does not deserve the push.

[jobsquad]

Mar 14, 2010 19:17:01 GMT -5 Jason said:

WWE does this alot and it just boggles my mind. Kofi Kingston tore the house down at MSG back in November and was on an absolute roll, he was my favourite to win the Royal Rumble at that point and then it all went down hill. He lost about 3 times to Randy Orton, clean and now, he suffers the infamous "Conway Pop" in some cities. I just don't get it, why do WWE constantly drop the ball intentionally when a star is about to be made?

People say Sheamus was the last built up star but no he wasn't. He won the world title and slapped a few midcarders around, that isn't being built up. Built up is Brock Lesnar, clean wins over Hogan, Taker, RVD, Angle, etc. Sheamus has yet to beat anyone credible clean, he won via DQ against Cena in his rematch and he won via DQ against Orton at the Rumble. He didn't even win the title clean according to King and Cole (Or King and Queen as I like to call them). How many times did they stretch that Cena fell through the table? They insisted this and it's little things like this that make the new guys look bad. Cena doesn't need to be put over anymore, he is already one of the most over guys in the company. Sheamus NEEDED to be put over and they wouldn't do it.

They constantly de-push the new guys who are on the verge of breaking out, for the expense of guys who already ARE over. Everyone suffers the yo-yo push because of this, this is why guys like Kingston will never be main eventers. The Miz suffered this back when he first came to Raw, they made him look like crap in the Cena feud. So anyone who is getting built up, think again. They'll just fall back down the card in a few months after they get "too over" when they enter a feud with a main eventer.

It's mainly a wave in how you push someone. Theoretically, they debut, enter the title picture, get derailed by a feud, enter the title picture again, get derailed, finally get the title when they are ready. That used to be how it was when they debuted someone, and the title in question was the IC title.

Once a guy proved he could get over with the IC belt and be accepted, they could generally start the main event push. This wasn't always the case, but generally it took a slow and steady push that lasted at least 2 years before someone was elevated to the main event. Of course, people like Lesnar were pushed differently.

Someone like Kofi has to have that steady build in order to end up being credible. Sort of like what they did with Bret and Shawn.

Their big issue today is not having a guy get that background he needs through the steady push. It is like fans see a guy, the learn about him, accept him as a midcarder, and eventually he gets the push up. Now it is like people come in, do a few angles, then they are expected to be main event players.

[Rorschach]

Mar 15, 2010 7:23:27 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I would actually say the removal of the Jamaican character helped Kofi. Now he does not have to worry about faking an accent and can talk with his real voice. Of course, now that's the least of his worries.

And of course, they still play up the Jamaican theme with his music, the colors of his tights, and his hairstyle...which makes him seem like a huge fraud to a lot of the fans because it reminds them of how he was "fakin Jamaican" for so long.

If they're gonna get rid of it, get rid of ALL of it then.

[Metalheadbanger Man]

Mar 15, 2010 14:19:55 GMT -5 Rorschach said:

Mar 15, 2010 7:23:27 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I would actually say the removal of the Jamaican character helped Kofi. Now he does not have to worry about faking an accent and can talk with his real voice. Of course, now that's the least of his worries.

And of course, they still play up the Jamaican theme with his music, the colors of his tights, and his hairstyle...which makes him seem like a huge fraud to a lot of the fans because it reminds them of how he was "fakin Jamaican" for so long.

If they're gonna get rid of it, get rid of ALL of it then.

To be fair, I think it was at Bragging Rights when Kofi explained that he was doing the Jamaican thing as a tribute to...his heritage or something to that effect. Which may be an explanation of why he still has the music, the attire etc.

The rest of this thread I do agree with though. The number of guys to gain momentum only to have it come to a screeching halt, especially on RAW, is getting ridiculous. None more so than Mr Kingston.

[WWE Trademarked My Name]

Mar 14, 2010 19:17:01 GMT -5 Jason said:

Built up is Brock Lesnar, clean wins over Hogan, Taker, RVD, Angle, etc.

That could be why they're so hesitant to put Sheamus over cleanly. Look at how much investment they put into Lesnar only for him to go and be a star elsewhere (UFC), in my opinion WWE's only true competition at the moment.

[mrjl]

Mar 15, 2010 14:19:55 GMT -5 Rorschach said:

Mar 15, 2010 7:23:27 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

I would actually say the removal of the Jamaican character helped Kofi. Now he does not have to worry about faking an accent and can talk with his real voice. Of course, now that's the least of his worries.

And of course, they still play up the Jamaican theme with his music, the colors of his tights, and his hairstyle...which makes him seem like a huge fraud to a lot of the fans because it reminds them of how he was "fakin Jamaican" for so long.

If they're gonna get rid of it, get rid of ALL of it then.

At Elimination Chamber he came out with red and black tights. His hair is HIS hair. It's most likely how he chooses to where it. And his theme song is an exciting one, that might have Jamaican flavor, but if you haven't noticed people are allowed to like music from places they aren't from.

[mrjl]

Mar 15, 2010 14:25:27 GMT -5 Metalheadbanger Man said:

Mar 15, 2010 14:19:55 GMT -5 Rorschach said:

And of course, they still play up the Jamaican theme with his music, the colors of his tights, and his hairstyle...which makes him seem like a huge fraud to a lot of the fans because it reminds them of how he was "fakin Jamaican" for so long.

If they're gonna get rid of it, get rid of ALL of it then.

To be fair, I think it was at Bragging Rights when Kofi explained that he was doing the Jamaican thing as a tribute to...his heritage or something to that effect. Which may be an explanation of why he still has the music, the attire etc.

The rest of this thread I do agree with though. The number of guys to gain momentum only to have it come to a screeching halt, especially on RAW, is getting ridiculous. None more so than Mr Kingston.

I believe officially it's he moved from Ghana to Jamaica for a few years, then to America and he felt very at home in Jamaica.