ToyfareMark
Vegeta
A WINNER IS YOU!
In Hutch I trust!
Posts: 9,660 
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Post by ToyfareMark on Aug 9, 2020 3:57:06 GMT -5
And its affect on today. I'm not gonna even pretend to know the names of all these guys. But I'm talking about the developmental guys from the mid 2000's or so. The guys who came in late WWE era OVW, Deep South, and places like that. A huge chunk of them just never made it, or flamed out, and I'm wondering how much of the fallout from all of that shapes the stuff happening in WWE now.
I mean sure now they have NXT and everything but even that is a byproduct on their failures at the developmental level in the mid 2000's. It was just something I was randomly thinking about, and was wondering what anyone else thought.
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Post by crowley1986 on Aug 9, 2020 6:58:21 GMT -5
Johnny Ace probably should shoulder the blame, JR/Cornette and other's had the OVW farm system working well, but he had to put his "stamp" on it, let clowns like DeMotte/Jody Hamilton/Greg Gagne/Al Snow run it...it was untill HHH Went down and saw Al Snow's methoods and he/others came up with the NXT
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Bad Moon
Unicron
for reasons known only to the goblins that live in my brain
Posts: 3,091
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Post by Bad Moon on Aug 9, 2020 7:38:09 GMT -5
Johnny Ace probably should shoulder the blame, JR/Cornette and other's had the OVW farm system working well, but he had to put his "stamp" on it, let clowns like DeMotte/Jody Hamilton/Greg Gagne/Al Snow run it...it was untill HHH Went down and saw Al Snow's methoods and he/others came up with the NXT Did they though? JR and Cornette rightfully get the credit for breaking in Cena, Orton, Lesnar and Batista, but for every one of the OVW alumni who went on to be huge successes there were a dozen Bull Buchanans, Matt Morgans and Mr. Kennedys. Some of that certainly can be laid at the feet of Laurenitis like Festus and Eugene, but even the guys who were projects from the start like Lashley or McIntyre or Morrison didn't get any good until they took a sojourn and actually got good far away from WWE or any WWE-adjacent system. And most OVW trained people just never got any good, in WWE or elsewhere.
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msc
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,555
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Post by msc on Aug 9, 2020 7:43:55 GMT -5
2002-2011-ish basically.
There's a parallel world that got Cheerleader Melissa v Beth Phoenix, or Daizy Haze v Molly, or Trish v Portia Perez. Lucky sods. Womens wrestling suffered badly, as we went from Trish/Jazz and Lita/Ivory to Christy Hemme title pushes and Kelly Kelly. Booking based around the godawful diva search and Playboy editions. (Even if the divas search brought us Layla, that was by accident, not design...)
The Johnny Ace era seemed to be full of decent picks being rushed to the main roster to drown: Rene Dupree, Gavin Spears, Kozlov, Mr Tarver, Rob Conway, Manu, Ted DiBiase Jr, Mason Ryan, Wade Barrett, Johnny Jeter, Ken Doane, Elijah Burke, Mr Kennedy, Jack Swagger, and so on. People who'd get 2-3 years to season in NXT these days, or time to find the gimmick that fits them.
I'm more amazed the number of folk who managed to survive coming in in that dark age. Drew Mac, Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston, Big E, Cody for example managed to carve HoF careers despite that handicap. But many others were lost.
Mind you, you bring in the Power Plant people to run development and you get WCW Power Plant results: a few gems among lots of overpromoted generic dudes. And even Goldberg, Big Show, Shane Helms and DDP (who predates the full PowerPlant method) sort of learned on the job because they were promoted to the main roster too quickly.
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msc
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,555
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Post by msc on Aug 9, 2020 7:52:14 GMT -5
Johnny Ace probably should shoulder the blame, JR/Cornette and other's had the OVW farm system working well, but he had to put his "stamp" on it, let clowns like DeMotte/Jody Hamilton/Greg Gagne/Al Snow run it...it was untill HHH Went down and saw Al Snow's methoods and he/others came up with the NXT Did they though? JR and Cornette rightfully get the credit for breaking in Cena, Orton, Lesnar and Batista, but for every one of the OVW alumni who went on to be huge successes there were a dozen Bull Buchanans, Matt Morgans and Mr. Kennedys. Some of that certainly can be laid at the feet of Laurenitis like Festus and Eugene, but even the guys who were projects from the start like Lashley or McIntyre or Morrison didn't get any good until they took a sojourn and actually got good far away from WWE or any WWE-adjacent system. And most OVW trained people just never got any good, in WWE or elsewhere.
Not to interrupt a good point, well made, but unbelievably Bull Buchanan signed in late 1995 under JJ Dillon! Yes, they spent 7 and a bit years trying to find some space for him on the roster. Mr Kennedy was signed in 2005 by Ace and spent less than 6 months in development before his Smackdown debut. Prime example of that rushing people. |
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Bad Moon
Unicron
for reasons known only to the goblins that live in my brain
Posts: 3,091
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Post by Bad Moon on Aug 10, 2020 4:10:24 GMT -5
Maybe the reason why developmental systems don't seem to work out for WWE is because of their image of themselves as an All-Star company. They have all the top stars in the business, from the main event all the way down to the curtain jerks. They want to be able to say that a main event anywhere else is a mid-card filler match for them. So they have HHH scout anyone who makes even a blip on the radar and sign them on, give them a short big fanfare run and then relegate them back to mid-card where they clutter up the roster and make it even more difficult for the few people they have spent time and effort developing from scratch to shine.
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Post by Jedi-El of Tomorrow on Aug 10, 2020 5:01:32 GMT -5
2002-2011-ish basically. There's a parallel world that got Cheerleader Melissa v Beth Phoenix, or Daizy Haze v Molly, or Trish v Portia Perez. Lucky sods. Womens wrestling suffered badly, as we went from Trish/Jazz and Lita/Ivory to Christy Hemme title pushes and Kelly Kelly. Booking based around the godawful diva search and Playboy editions. (Even if the divas search brought us Layla, that was by accident, not design...) Gonna defend the women, it wasn't all their fault. WWE was obsessed with making the next Trish, but never allowed for the biggest thing that made Trish a big success, she was trained by Finlay. The system that was in place for women like Kelly Kelly, Layla, McCool, and Eve, was a system that didn't allow them to succeed. Finlay trained the women to wrestle like men (and he got heat for it), the system the dark age had was a system that wouldn't train the women to wrestle, and only gave them a few minutes at most. Hell, if they had too good of a match, they got heat. McCool's told the story that she and Melina got in trouble for having too good of a match. Women like McCool, Eve, Layla, and Kaitlyn became solid wrestlers despite the terrible system in place. Hell, despite the terrible system in place, Kelly Kelly got over and was a good bumper. That era really wasn't given the tools to grow and succeed. It was a dark age of training the men and women. The men had the clone factory, with nobody really standing out because everybody was the same. It's not all on the talent, a lot of it's on WWE for not giving people the tools. |
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msc
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,555
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Post by msc on Aug 10, 2020 9:00:52 GMT -5
2002-2011-ish basically. There's a parallel world that got Cheerleader Melissa v Beth Phoenix, or Daizy Haze v Molly, or Trish v Portia Perez. Lucky sods. Womens wrestling suffered badly, as we went from Trish/Jazz and Lita/Ivory to Christy Hemme title pushes and Kelly Kelly. Booking based around the godawful diva search and Playboy editions. (Even if the divas search brought us Layla, that was by accident, not design...) Gonna defend the women, it wasn't all their fault. WWE was obsessed with making the next Trish, but never allowed for the biggest thing that made Trish a big success, she was trained by Finlay. The system that was in place for women like Kelly Kelly, Layla, McCool, and Eve, was a system that didn't allow them to succeed. Finlay trained the women to wrestle like men (and he got heat for it), the system the dark age had was a system that wouldn't train the women to wrestle, and only gave them a few minutes at most. Hell, if they had too good of a match, they got heat. McCool's told the story that she and Melina got in trouble for having too good of a match. Women like McCool, Eve, Layla, and Kaitlyn became solid wrestlers despite the terrible system in place. Hell, despite the terrible system in place, Kelly Kelly got over and was a good bumper. That era really wasn't given the tools to grow and succeed. It was a dark age of training the men and women. The men had the clone factory, with nobody really standing out because everybody was the same. It's not all on the talent, a lot of it's on WWE for not giving people the tools. Oh, no, in case it wasn't clear I was putting the blame at Johnny Ace's door, not the actual women wrestlers. I think NXT's record of progress shows how important that development stage is, and how the likes of Melina and Candice Michelle - to pick 2 - picked it up as they went along suggests many of the women from this era would have blossomed with the same attention to training that people get nowadays. |
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Aug 10, 2020 9:29:22 GMT -5
Johnny Ace probably should shoulder the blame, JR/Cornette and other's had the OVW farm system working well, but he had to put his "stamp" on it, let clowns like DeMotte/Jody Hamilton/Greg Gagne/Al Snow run it...it was untill HHH Went down and saw Al Snow's methoods and he/others came up with the NXT FCW was the developmental system prior to Triple H descending from the heavens to create NXT, Al Snow wasn't a trainer there as far as I remember. Seems kind of odd to object to someone's training so strongly, you found a territory five years later, after another territory has been founded, and then put a guy in charge who was known to be a bad trainer and a violent bully. |
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Aug 10, 2020 18:08:25 GMT -5
1. WWE had an atrocious eye for talent at the time, only getting it right, let's say for argument's sake, half of the time.
2. The other half of the time, they recruited an endless array of identical meatheads with boring gimmicks who didn't do very interesting moves and mostly didn't get that over.
3. WWE only felt they could push, say, half of the guys they recruited. And they chose the identical meatheads.
For every 'should have been a star' Evan Bourne, you had plenty of 'they seriously are letting Triple H work Kozlov' going on too.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Aug 10, 2020 18:13:19 GMT -5
1. WWE had an atrocious eye for talent at the time, only getting it right, let's say for argument's sake, half of the time. 2. The other half of the time, they recruited an endless array of identical meatheads with boring gimmicks who didn't do very interesting moves and mostly didn't get that over. 3. WWE only felt they could push, say, half of the guys they recruited. And they chose the identical meatheads. For every 'should have been a star' Evan Bourne, you had plenty of 'they seriously are letting Triple H work Kozlov' going on too. You could look at a lot of people in that generation and think their only real intention was to lose to your Ortons, your HHHs, your Michaels, your Takers etc which is just a mindboggling way to look at talent you should be aiming to replace some of those guys. The fact some took until a decade into their careers to achieve some kind of solid grounding in WWE is an indictment of not just their ability to build talent back then but their ability to build talent now. |
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Aug 10, 2020 18:17:43 GMT -5
1. WWE had an atrocious eye for talent at the time, only getting it right, let's say for argument's sake, half of the time. 2. The other half of the time, they recruited an endless array of identical meatheads with boring gimmicks who didn't do very interesting moves and mostly didn't get that over. 3. WWE only felt they could push, say, half of the guys they recruited. And they chose the identical meatheads. For every 'should have been a star' Evan Bourne, you had plenty of 'they seriously are letting Triple H work Kozlov' going on too. You could look at a lot of people in that generation and think their only real intention was to lose to your Ortons, your HHHs, your Michaels, your Takers etc which is just a mindboggling way to look at talent you should be aiming to replace some of those guys. The fact some took until a decade into their careers to achieve some kind of solid grounding in WWE is an indictment of not just their ability to build talent back then but their ability to build talent now. WWE's got so many issues with talent building right now. NXT was hot and has now cooled because they way they push new guys is basically 'this indie person will have great matches' and they eventually get sent to the main roster after four five star TakeOver matches in a row to get 'and does a funny dance' added to their gimmick. Then they (possibly) win a US title, lose it a month later and disappear until a ladder match or a Rumble. |
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Aug 10, 2020 18:27:26 GMT -5
You could look at a lot of people in that generation and think their only real intention was to lose to your Ortons, your HHHs, your Michaels, your Takers etc which is just a mindboggling way to look at talent you should be aiming to replace some of those guys. The fact some took until a decade into their careers to achieve some kind of solid grounding in WWE is an indictment of not just their ability to build talent back then but their ability to build talent now. WWE's got so many issues with talent building right now. NXT was hot and has now cooled because they way they push new guys is basically 'this indie person will have great matches' and they eventually get sent to the main roster after four five star TakeOver matches in a row to get 'and does a funny dance' added to their gimmick. Then they (possibly) win a US title, lose it a month later and disappear until a ladder match or a Rumble. My “favorite” in recent memory being Bianca Belair “So she hasn’t won the NXT title yet? Well, she has a good build so let’s let her have a solid Royal Rumble performance. Then what? Well, don’t let her win the NXT title and then we’ll bring her up to appear with her husband and his tag team partner. Afterwards? Well, we need bodies on Main Event, so let’s have her spend the next 3 months there and THEN start building her up to debut on the show like it’s her first time! We’re a billion dollar company!” |
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