Why is FCW necessary for established indy talents?

[Mr. Socko's Brother]

I want to see Tyler Black or Seth Rollins or whatever you'd like to call him in a WWE ring, where he will hopefully not get the Low Ki treatment.

I have no doubt that he's ready. The guy's experienced. It's not as though you need to teach him anything more. He's not gonna botch every third move.

When they signed Chris Jericho during the Attitude Era, they didn't send him to developmental, did they? And they didn't do it with Taz either when they picked him up from ECW, right?

So why have they got these guys wasting their time in FCW today?

[comahan]

Lots of things. They have to learn how to work on TV, which is drastically different than working a typical indy match. Also, theres a lot of adjustments to be made regarding how matches are done in WWE. According to Al Snow, people in the Gorilla Position are almost constantly sending word to the guys in the ring (through the ref) to pick up the pace, show more intensity, etc. Basically telling them how to wrestle the match. Thats something theyve never had to deal with before. Just getting used to that kind of stuff.

[Steveweiser]

Tyler Black knows how to do TV, but he doesn't know how to work WWE TV, which is far more strict and well polished.

[Mr. Socko's Brother]

May 10, 2011 17:36:02 GMT -5 comahan said:

Lots of things. They have to learn how to work on TV, which is drastically different than working a typical indy match. Also, theres a lot of adjustments to be made regarding how matches are done in WWE. According to Al Snow, people in the Gorilla Position are almost constantly sending word to the guys in the ring (through the ref) to pick up the pace, show more intensity, etc. Basically telling them how to wrestle the match. Thats something theyve never had to deal with before. Just getting used to that kind of stuff.

So they have to get used to being micromanaged?

Seems like the bigger paycheck is the only good thing about working for WWE. I read about how in ECW under Paul Heyman, the only thing they told you how to do was the finish. Apart from that, it was just "Go out there and do your best to put on a good match."

[strykerdarksilence]

They have to keep to a very strict time scale on TV, especially RAW. Telling a story and working a match in a 5-8 minute tv slot including entrances is VASTLY different to going out and working 20 minutes in ROH.

It's a very different ballgame and one that requires practice to be familiar with.

[Bald Bull]

And just because you're 100% sure that he's ready doesn't mean that WWE is sure of it. If I was running it, I too would rather waste a year of a guy's career developing him than to send a guy straight to TV and having him potentially turn out to be the next Braden Walker.

[Chuckie Finster]

But FCW is a taped show so it doesn't really mimic the hectic micromanaging of a live Raw.

I think new talent should just be put on house shows to get use to the style and then on Superstars as those matches take place before Raw and Smackdown and thus are on a somewhat tight time schedule.

In my opinion, FCW is mostly a waste. Wrestlers with enough experience are wasted down there. It should be exclusively a school for new wrestlers like the WCW Power Plant and the ECW House of Hardcore.

[derrtaysouth95]

WCW Power Plant was a joke according to most everyone who came through it.

House of Hardcore didn't produce too many graduates.

FCW is basically a tune-up shot for guys coming from the Indys to turn them into WWE guys and teach them how to work the WWE-style with regards to show production and ring activity. If you're good enough and learn quick and they want you on tv you won't be stuck there long.

In Jericho's newest book he mentions how much trouble he had adjusting to the WWE style when he first came in back in '99 and how no one told him he was doing anything wrong along the way and just crapped stuff on him at times. Based on how that sounded he would've been best served to have taken a WWE tune up course with OVW but they chose not to send him that route. He ended up paying for his mistakes early on for his few years with the company.

[alabastergrim]

In short, it's not necessary. WWE just wants people to do things their way.

[Mr. Socko's Brother]

I get that it's important for them to complete the match within a certain amount of time, but don't they already know how to do that? With ROH matches, the time limit is actually announced before things get started. Since there's never a time limit draw except when that's the planned finish, I presume that the guys are able to keep track of how much time has passed, or they have the ref reminding them every couple of minutes, or something.

As for being told to pick up the intensity from somebody in the Gorilla Position, I feel that's just totally unnecessary. I mean, if you don't like the way these guys wrestle and think they need you to walk them through every one of their matches, why sign them in the first place?

[Cronant]

May 10, 2011 18:25:11 GMT -5 alabastergrim said:

In short, it's not necessary. WWE just wants people to do things their way.

Its very necessary.

The "bump and feed" method of babyface comebacks is primarily a WWE thing that isn't done other places, and is a staple of WWE matches. Jericho, with all his experience, noted that he had a though time getting it at first.

I know people take it as some sort of offense and think it means that the indy worker isn't good enough, but its just a necessary adjustment of working with the machine that is WWE.

[Red Impact]

If you work as, say, an engineer for a company and spend 5 or 10 years building your experience and doing work, then any employer is going to know that you are at least competent to do the job. But if you got hired away and went somewhere else, you'd still get training. It's not just that you can do the job and have done it elsewhere, it's that they have their own specific way of doing things, and any employee is going to have to get used to that.

That's what FCW is for those guys, it's learning specifically how they do it. They're not sent down there because they need to learn how to do a hip toss, they're sent down there because, like it or not, WWE TV has different ways of doing things than ROH or TNA. There's also an advantage on the company's end, because theoretically it gives them a chance to figure out how to use someone. Theoretically, of course, because it doesn't always work out that way.

May 10, 2011 18:31:54 GMT -5 Mr. Socko's Brother said:

I get that it's important for them to complete the match within a certain amount of time, but don't they already know how to do that? With ROH matches, the time limit is actually announced before things get started. Since there's never a time limit draw except when that's the planned finish, I presume that the guys are able to keep track of how much time has passed, or they have the ref reminding them every couple of minutes, or something.

It's not just an internal clock, pacing also comes into play. If you're used to working your match in 15 minutes, it's going to take time to adjust when they want you to do in 5. Even if you can tell the time, it doesn't mean you work in it the best way if you're used to doing the same thing in a different time frame. It drastically changes how you work a match.

[Chuckie Finster]

May 10, 2011 18:14:43 GMT -5 @derrtaysouth95 said:

WCW Power Plant was a joke according to most everyone who came through it.

House of Hardcore didn't produce too many graduates.

That's not the point. It was a comparison. Also, the HOH wasn't designed to produce many graduates so that doesn't lessen the impact of the school. Plus FCW doesn't have a good track record of producing homegrown talent either.

My point was that FCW should be specifically for trainees instead of a quagmire for everyone not on TV.

I believe if new guys were put on the house show circuit for 2-3 weeks before their TV debut going against veteran undercard talent, they would adapt to the WWE style better than in FCW going against other unpolished guys learning the style as well.

As for the timing, they can still do that on Superstars or dark matches before tapings begin. It still doesn't imitate timing on Raw, but then again Raw is the only TV show in North America that's live most all the time so the only way to get use to live TV timing is to be on live TV.

[bitteroldman]

Part of it may be to humble a guy a bit when they enter WWE; how many of the indy guys signed by WWE were big fishes in a small pond and need to have their ego's checked at the door? I think that would be preferable to someone like Dynamite Kid or Chris Benoit doing it via a vicious rib.

[worldsstrongestman]

Sometimes I think they're sent down there in order to help out the greener FCW guys. They get a lot of experience going against guys like Kaval and Seth Rollins.

[Mozenrath]

May 10, 2011 17:44:21 GMT -5 Mr. Socko's Brother said:

May 10, 2011 17:36:02 GMT -5 comahan said:

Lots of things. They have to learn how to work on TV, which is drastically different than working a typical indy match. Also, theres a lot of adjustments to be made regarding how matches are done in WWE. According to Al Snow, people in the Gorilla Position are almost constantly sending word to the guys in the ring (through the ref) to pick up the pace, show more intensity, etc. Basically telling them how to wrestle the match. Thats something theyve never had to deal with before. Just getting used to that kind of stuff.

So they have to get used to being micromanaged?

Seems like the bigger paycheck is the only good thing about working for WWE. I read about how in ECW under Paul Heyman, the only thing they told you how to do was the finish. Apart from that, it was just "Go out there and do your best to put on a good match."

I imagine the incredible boost in prestige is a big part of the decision making progress.

Even the most die hard WWE hater knows it's the biggest game on the planet, and if you work there, your legacy will be much more firmly established.

[skulldouggory]

May 11, 2011 2:01:25 GMT -5 bitteroldman said:

Part of it may be to humble a guy a bit when they enter WWE; how many of the indy guys signed by WWE were big fishes in a small pond and need to have their ego's checked at the door? I think that would be preferable to someone like Dynamite Kid or Chris Benoit doing it via a vicious rib.

I think this one of the core reasons, ive heard stories how some indy guys are too full of themselves in the eyes of wwe management, so they have to be humbled and trained like rookies next too wrestlers who never have stepped into a ring and likely don't deserve to.

[Monty Dawson]

FCW is far from a joke. If it wasn't important it would be gone.

[t3hmaniac]

May 11, 2011 10:37:31 GMT -5 Monty Dawson said:

FCW is far from a joke. If it wasn't important it would be gone.

This is WWE we're talking about, just because it would be stupid to keep it around wouldn't mean they wouldn't keep it around

[Azrael from Outerspace]

May 10, 2011 17:44:21 GMT -5 Mr. Socko's Brother said:

May 10, 2011 17:36:02 GMT -5 comahan said:

Lots of things. They have to learn how to work on TV, which is drastically different than working a typical indy match. Also, theres a lot of adjustments to be made regarding how matches are done in WWE. According to Al Snow, people in the Gorilla Position are almost constantly sending word to the guys in the ring (through the ref) to pick up the pace, show more intensity, etc. Basically telling them how to wrestle the match. Thats something theyve never had to deal with before. Just getting used to that kind of stuff.

So they have to get used to being micromanaged?

Seems like the bigger paycheck is the only good thing about working for WWE. I read about how in ECW under Paul Heyman, the only thing they told you how to do was the finish. Apart from that, it was just "Go out there and do your best to put on a good match."

Being fair to the WWE, the product you see on TV is micromanaged but house shows are not. If you wrestle 4 times a week and 3 of those times are fun matches you'd be happy. Hell, Evan Bourne has said he loves the E just because he gets to wrestle so much. The WWE TV presentation/dog and pony show is tough to get down on the fly. And if you sink, they will bury you and the fans will never forgive you.