How would you rate Val Venis during his stint?

[CM Steel]

Val Venis made his debut in the then-WWF during the infamous attitude era with a porn star gimmick. He was a good pure wrestler during his day. Not a year later at a WWF pay per-view Val Venis won the IC title off of Ken Shamrock. He would go on to be a major player in the WWF as a potential main eventer...until Kurt Angle made his debut. Around that same time in the winter off 1999 Kurt Angle made his way up the ranks as the WWF's latest superstar to receive a big push towards the main event scene. A place where most wrestling fans were hoping to see Val Venis in. But instead he was placed in a feud for the European championship with D'Lo Brown and Davey Boy Smith.

Val Venis was the first "chosen one" so to speak by WWF/E chairman Vince McMahon as he was hired by the boss personally over the phone while VV was wrestling in Mexico at that time. Val Venis was finally released by the WWE in 2003. But in your own opinion. How would you rate Val Venis during his stint in the WWF/E? I give him a B+ for a strong effort but was at the right place at the wrong time upon his push towards the main event scene.

 

[Cena Is A Punk Rocker]

Solid hand, nothing that really stood out. I always liked Val, but was he really going to hit main event with the porn star gimmick? Had to be a Russo creation. I give him a C+ just for his solid ring work and funny promos. But there is no way he was ever going to see main event status.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

He would go on to be a major player in the WWF as a potential main eventer...until Kurt Angle made his debut. Around that same time in the winter off 1999 Kurt Angle made his way up the ranks as the WWF's latest superstar to receive a big push towards the main event scene. A place where most wrestling fans were hoping to see Val Venis in. But instead he was placed in a feud for the European championship with D'Lo Brown and Davey Boy Smith.

Really? Most wrestling fans were hoping Val Venis would be a main eventer? I've never heard that one before....

Val was a solid performer, good enough in the ring and with a gimmick that fitted the era perfectly. A "porn star" gimmick, much like the Godfather's "Pimp" character, Undertaker's satatic persona and plenty of others wouldn't have worked in any other era than the Attitude Era. It was controversial and filled with innuendos and sexual references that the WWE wouldn't go near these days.

It was the sort of gimmick that was always going to be popular, and could always be used to start storylines with Val hitting on another wrestler's girlfriend, or wife etc but as a serious main eventer? No chance. WWE wouldn't have made a porn star their champion even in the Attiude Era, it was a mid card gimmick. Plus, Val was popular but he would never have hit the heights of some of the other talents who were rising in the late 90s like The Rock, Jericho, Triple H, Angle etc. They were just better than Venis.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Val Venis was a gimmick and nothing more. The whole porn star schtick was funny for about 10 minutes in that juvenile, homeroom sorta way. You know, packed with one sexual, double entendre after another that was edgy at the time but, looking back, was truly some groan inducing stuff. WWE wouldn't do it today not only because of the return to a more family friendly product, but it wasn't all that good to be perfectly honest. Sure, it'd generate some buzz today, result in popping the live audience, but it wouldn't be long before droves of people took to social media to complain about how offended they are. I honestly never expected Val Venis to be anywhere near the main event and I certainly don't recall any of my friends begging & pleading for WWE to put him there.

Inside the ring, he was okay, nothing particularly special about him in my eyes. I had a feeling that the porn star gimmick would only go so far before it fizzled out to the point where it became completely silly rather than only semi-silly. Probably the single most memorable moment in Val Venis' time in WWE was when Kai En Tai had him tied up backstage and "cut his dick off" with a katana. The reason I remember it is because it had to be one of the all time lows in the creative history of Raw. It was all about controversy and crash TV a good deal of the time, whether it was good or bad was pretty irrelevant.

Val Venis had some popularity, but he was never remotely on the level of guys like Stone Cold, Taker, Angle, Triple H, The Rock, Jericho and a few others. They were just better all around, more entertaining.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Val Venis was a gimmick and nothing more. The whole porn star schtick was funny for about 10 minutes in that juvenile, homeroom sorta way.

True enough, although it's hard to come up with an original gimmick, and whomever created this one and gave it to Val Venis did an admirable job of developing and casting. Sean Morley was perfect for the part; I would think someone else trying to do this would come off as so ludicrous that it would never catch on. Yes, it was all silly, but it did score....for a while.

The guy also backed the whole thing up with some fine in-ring skills.....once he was done posing and teasing at the start of the match, he abandoned the gimmick and really got down to business.

Yes, the whole thing became repetitious and obnoxious, pretty much forcing an eventual change in Val's ring persona. That may be the nature of all way-out gimmicks, yet the odds of the second one being as successful as the first are pretty slim, one would think.

Plus, the sight of Val's naked ass as he was strung up and tortured by Kaientai soured me on the guy forever.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Val Venis' gimmick always seemed to be a low rate version of Ravishing Rick Rude; more in your face with the "LOOK I'M A PORN STAR", and therefore ultimately, limited in how far Morley could really go with it. I thought he was good in the ring, and played both the face and heel roles well. Not once did I ever think though: This guy should be in the main event scene.

 

[The Boss]

He was just another one of Vince Russo's attempts to take focus away from wrestling. Just another one of Russo's trademark shock value aspects. For some reason he felt that wrestling fans would rather hear people talk about penises than watch wrestling.

 

[Slash-LN]

As a hormonal teenager at the time I enjoyed his vignettes. I had no problem with his in ring ability either. They picked the perfect guy to play that role.

I wasn't much a fan of the RTC stuff though. I understood the point of it but I didn't seem to like Val in any other role besides the porn start gimmick.

Nothing stands out from the Chief Morley stuff either so I'm not going to comment any further on that.

Overall he would get a decent grade from me. He stayed on the place in the card where he needed to be and was part of a good thing.

 

[FromGlasgow]

I enojoyed watching Val Venis in the first couple of years the most, I would have prefered to see him feud with right to censor rather than join them. After that and his brief cheif of staff gimmick either the fault of himself or the WWE he just seemed to fizzle away and be going through the motions in his final years in WWE.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Sean Morley was a solid talent and one who could have moved up the card and main evented later on, but the reality is that several guys were ahead of him in terms of overall marketability if not actual skill.

The Venis character was I am sure, in part a dig at Rick Rude, who had just left in controversial circumstances having reverted to "guy in suit with briefcase"... Val was Rude x 20 in terms of smut, innuendo and to be fair Morley was at least someone who could carry the in ring side of it to come across as a strong "replacement" for Rude. But the reality is Matt and Jeff, Edge and Christian, Chris Jericho, then Benoit and Eddie were all ahead on the ladder... in today's WWE he'd be the Cody Rhodes of the piece, the guy you push if EVERYONE else is out of action, but not THE guy...

To me though his best chance came when the Chief Morley gimmick came along, he did have some real scope there but creative didn't use it right.

Two things probably did for Sean Morley more than anything, his love of real politics and backstage politics working against him...

He was slated for a return about 6 years ago and supposedly in a very substantial push but where as someone like Kane is quite tempered in his views, Morley is more outspoken and controversial... and with Linda's senate runs, they didn't want any "loose cannons" on the political field.

But what really did for him I think, particularly later on and killing the comeback... his sister married and divorced Edge, quite messily by all accounts and Edge by then was a major player... Considering Matt Hardy got fired when Edge stole his missus it's not inconceivable that Edge was able to nix Morley's return if "they wouldn't get on" or if it would be difficult to work together...

If you'd cheated on a guys sister, remarried and cheated on your new wife with your best friends girl within months, would you want you're first wife's brother around AND the guy you just screwed over?

It may have even affected things earlier, I am sure it did... Edge doesn't have much of a "politicking" rep but it would be a clear choice for Vince to stick with the guy who was proven over the "could be's" like Matt and Morley. We've seen relationship issues ruin a few careers over the years, it'd be very harsh if it did affect Morley, but totally the WWE way.

 

[RobbieGQ]

Val was decent. He was limited by his gimmick for sure but I thought he was above average in the ring, had decent mic skills and had the look. Given the right gimmick I think he could of had a better run then he did.

 

[thebarber]

excellent hand, solid in-ring talent who had a great gimmick upon entering WWE.
Once the Porn star gimmick faded, Morley was nothing more than mid to low card fill. Sure he had a rubbish IC Title run in 2000, but so did Rikishi and the IC Title changed hands so many times in 2000 that the belt was meaningless for a good period, unfortunately. The Right to Censor stuff was crap and his Chief Morley character was the shits

 

[CrucifiedRaven]

He was just another one of Vince Russo's attempts to take focus away from wrestling. Just another one of Russo's trademark shock value aspects. For some reason he felt that wrestling fans would rather hear people talk about penises than watch wrestling.

I disagree. Fans loved it in 1998. He was one of the most over guys on the roster, and certainly the most over midcarder under Rock and HHH at the time. Fans ate that stuff up back then.

He was never going to be a main eventer with his porn star gimmick. But you'd like to have seen him evolve from Val Venis the porn star into Val Venis the guy, the same way Hunter Hearst Helmsley evolved into Triple H. This is the only way he could have made it to the top.

The RTC stuff actually got huge heat, but that was all Steven Richards not Morley. After this I don't remember much of him.

 

[rbv13]

At the peak of his run the fans loved Val Venis. "Hello Ladies" was over like crazy. He was one of the fitting and truly classic characters of his time. Where the likes of Prison Guards and Tax Collectors got over in the '80s and early '90s the later years of the decade gave us a Porn Star and a Pimp.