The Curse of Youth

[Deleted]

Jan 15, 2018 15:26:24 GMT -5 celtics543 said:

Basically my thoughts are that the WWE need to start waiting and letting guys mature somewhere else before bringing them in and pushing them hard. It's what they did in the 80's and 90's. Guys like Austin, Foley, Hogan, Piper, and Flair all came in and carried the company for periods of time. It didn't have to be a 5 year plan but they came in, got hot, carried the company for a while, and then transitioned out. That's the ideal format for pro wrestling and they've gotten away from it. Now we get guys at 25 pushed to the moon and they want to build everything around them for 10 years even though that's never proven to work ever in wrestling after Bruno.

With the signings of guys like Styles, Balor, Joe, Nakamura, Roode, etc... even Strowman turns 35 this year, so have we not somewhat seen a shift towards that in the last few years? They've been bringing in a lot of older guys who probably won't have 10+ year runs in WWE.


Realistically we aren't going to see guys come and go as much as they did during the territories or when WCW was around but signing older wrestlers helps prevent things from getting stale.

[psychokiller]

A big problem with today is there’s just way too much TV. You see these guys on TV wrestling each week constantly. So if they’ve been around for many years while young without winning the title than no one buys them as a main eventer anymore. With Bret & Shawn they were tag wrestlers for a long time so they had that going for them. With Orton he won the title way too soon but if they waited until he was in his early 30s for instance it would have been too late by then since his character would have been too beat up to be a legit main event level guy. Everything these days is just very fast paced with all the PPVs they have & guys moving from feud to feud pretty fast compared to years ago.

[HMARK Center]

I think a big question to watch for in WWE going forward is if it'll become a bit more of an older, veteran-dominated promotion, or if it'll try and amp up the "young prospect" development aspect they've tried to build up via NXT.

Look at guys like Styles, Joe, Roode, Nakamura, Anderson, and to a slightly lesser extent War Machine and Ricochet: these are guys who made their bones elsewhere, made good money in the process, and are largely entering the latter stages of their careers, or at least the twilight of their primes (though Ricochet is still pretty firmly in his physical prime). To some of them, WWE might seem a bit like a nice place to get higher visibility, add to their resumes, make some good money, get a chance to tour a few new places, and possibly position themselves for a post-wrestling career that's still in the industry for a few years before getting ready to hang them up or slow their schedules down. Since they've already made their names elsewhere they don't really need to worry about playing the political game to move up in WWE, they've likely been able to set some of their own terms in contract negotiations, and it can probably be pretty good for them on the whole.

Basically, in this model WWE shifts a bit toward what it was in a lot of the late 80s into the 90s; not a "retirement home", per se, but a place where veterans come in for a decent 3-5 year run before being phased out.

The other method is to double down on the Performance Center/NXT and really develop the wrestlers from "cradle to grave". Stock up your facilities with young 20-somethings, have them work exclusively for WWE-affiliated groups and NXT, and bring them up to dominate the show.

I suppose they could do a combination of the two, but it doesn't seem like they've been inclined to.

[Old Jack Burton]

Jan 16, 2018 13:33:31 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

Putting on great matches in the mid card should be a way to move up the card, or get others up the card. Hardly a waste of a talent.

Rollins is a great example of their lack of focus. He’s still doing the Shield thing with Roman, is a tag champ with Jordan about to face Sheamus & Cesaro at the Rumble- but is in a bizarre rivalry with Balor Club all at once. On top of all of that, Jordan is already starting to turn on him for no real reason. This is overbooking that would make Vince Russo tear up.

I say Seth has done quite enough of that for people at this point, and further mid-card wrestling will only begin to cement him as a fellow mid-carder. He's not at the point in his career where he can be a Shawn Michaels wrestling Shelton Benjamin and come out of the feud no worse for wear in his legacy.

If he goes away awhile WWE can start to feature him as part of a new generation of WWE Legends. This is not just limited to Seth. This is a big part of the building new stars everyone wants to see WWE do. Part of building a star is seeing them in replays of big moments from the past so you can be excited when they come back. As it is right now in WWE they have a huge hole in the history of the company where all your returning veterans and highlight reels come from about 2005 or earlier. WWE seems determined to not feature people who left the company on acrimonious terms like CM Punk, so at some point a few people would need to leave with the WWE's blessing if they plan to continue the pattern the company has been following of booking returning stars in big angles.