Age Is Just A Number, Experience Is Immeasurable

[The Brain]

In most professional sports once a player reaches a couple years north of 30 they are considered to be past their prime. In recent years I think a lot of fans have mistakenly applied that thought to pro wrestling. There always seems to be a desire for some sort of youth movement. Whenever such a movement is in effect I read about how the youth don’t have the necessary skills to be successful in wrestling. People often wonder why when the answer is really quite obvious. It is impossible for a young wrestler to possess the most important thing it takes to succeed. Experience. You think wrestling is a young man’s game? Think again.

While 30 isn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, a lot of people think it’s the 20 somethings that stand the best chance for success. In the world of professional wrestling life begins at 30. While there are exceptions I believe that the most successful wrestlers achieved their greatest levels of success from the mid 30s to early 40s. Here are some examples:

Hulk Hogan: Won his first world title at 30 and main evented WM3 at 33.

Ric Flair: Won his first world title at 32. Original Four Horsemen were formed when he was 37.

Randy Savage: Classic match with Ricky Steamboat at 34. First world title at 35.

Bret Hart: Won his first IC title at 34. First world title at 35.

Shawn Michaels: Won his first world title at 30. Comeback match at SummerSlam 2002 at 37. The classic match vs. Undertaker was a 43 year old vs. a 44 year old.

Steve Austin: Classic match with Bret Hart at 32. First world title at 33.

Triple H: Won his first world title at 30. Formed Evolution at 33.

Even though some of these notable accomplishments occurred during these men’s early 30s the first things I mentioned for each were launching points. Their true primes came in the following years and in many cases went well into their 40s. John Cena is 34 and is at the best he’s ever been. CM Punk is 33 and is seemingly ready to break out. The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Wade Barrett, Sheamus, and Daniel Bryan are in their early 30s now. Ideally they will be able to take the experience they got in their 20s and be able to take their talents to the next level in the coming years. There are very few people that can claim to be an instant success in this business. I think a lot of members of this forum were very young when the Rock and Kurt Angle debuted so they think it’s easy for anyone to be able to step right into the spotlight and shine. Rock and Angle were the minority. Most people need years of experience before everything clicks. I’m not saying we’re on the verge of another boom period, but I think now that some of the roster has the experience and are reaching their mid 30s we could see good things to come.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

I never really noticed that age trend before, but I am inclined to agree.

Most of the matches that even today are considered classics like Hogan/Andre occured when both men where at an age that today would be considered "past their prime" or "Washed up has beens that need to go away". Hell the most recent instant classic Cena/Punk was between 2 guys above the age of 29.

To me wrestlers spend their early years (19-29) attempting to or succeeding in honing their skills to the point where they are masters at storytelling and psychology. These 2 intangibly are like fine wine, get better with age and experience. Now the physical needs to do this deteriorates as you get older, but that doesn't matter you can still put on a great match. As of right now John Cena is in his prime, the same can be said for Orton, and Punk. Guys like HHH and Undertaker are always reliable on to have a great match because they have spent many years in the ring, and know what goes into making a great match.

When superstars at at their very best, physically, psychologically and story-telling wise is the 30s to mid 40s the likelihood of wining either of the world titles seems inevitable. You can't always rely on Ziggler to put on a GREAT match week in and week out. Sure the man can do it but there is still room for improvement that he will get as his duration with WWE grows longer. As for the guys entering that primal age range, they may one day be the the top stars of a generation. People think that old people can't wrestle for anything, but the last time I saw the Sting/Flair match on Impact was better than any Curt Hawkins match in awhile. Not all wrestlers that are older are great, and not all younger guys suck, but the one with the most experience is the one that will eventually put on a better match.

Experience is what counts, and that depends on how good you were in your prime, and how long you were good at it.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

I tend to agree with you guys, but I will go so far as to say, most wrestlers don't hit their PRIME until they're around 30. At that age, their body is at it's peak and so are their skills.

It's usually around the late 30's and early 40's where they start to take a step down. But even this has exceptions. Look at DDP didn't start wrestling until he was 35. Didn't get the WHC until he was in his 40's.

 

[kabby420]

well just for the sake of having fun i'm going to disagree...but in all honesty i agree....
in the age of being tested for drugs its very hard to be confident in a long lasting career, perhaps theres a sense of urgency maybe even panic...alot of issues have come to the surface about past pro wrestlers and its kinda scary....so to say it is not a young mans game might not hold true anymore....without the aide of drugs these guys are gunna fall apart at the seams by the time they turn 35....double edged sword.....
thats all i could come up with to disagree with that post....experience is the key to success anywhere you go especially wrestling..

 

[Xumer]

I agree, age doesn't mean much especially if the guy stays healthy. The wwe product now is much more easy on the body than pro wrestling was in the territory days. I'm not saying that it's an "easy" life or that taking bumps today isn't painful, I'm just saying that alot of wrestlers today take better care of themselves than wrestlers in the 70s and 80s did. When CM Punk and Cena reach undertakers age, I expect they will be able to live a much more comfortable life than taker does today. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

well just for the sake of having fun i'm going to disagree...but in all honesty i agree....
in the age of being tested for drugs its very hard to be confident in a long lasting career, perhaps theres a sense of urgency maybe even panic...alot of issues have come to the surface about past pro wrestlers and its kinda scary....so to say it is not a young mans game might not hold true anymore....without the aide of drugs these guys are gunna fall apart at the seams by the time they turn 35....double edged sword.....
thats all i could come up with to disagree with that post....experience is the key to success anywhere you go especially wrestling..

We have nowadays doctors readily prescribing TRT doses to patients to keep testosterone levels at optimal levels. Now I don't know what the WWE's policy on TRT is (and I'm suspecting the majority of the talent is on it), There is no reason they can't keep wrestling later in to their careers. Injuries seem to be what will stop them in the long run.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Look at wrestlers such as Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. They are 3 of the best performers in the history of the business and they became that way through EXPERIENCE.

Those guys travelled the world, picking up knowledge, experience and skills from wrestling guys from different styles and different backgrounds. Y2J himself has stated how much it benefitted him from wrestling in Japan, Mexico, Germany and others. You cannot learn that kind of stuff in FCW or any of WWE's developmental territories.

WWE today are trying too hard to push people before they are ready, then dumping them when they arent an immediate success on top (Jack Swagger etc). Of course they arent going to be a hit, they aren't yet ready for that spot.

As Brain pointed out, guys like Hart, Flair, Michaels etc learned their craft, gained experience and then were elevated to the main event when the time is right. Its rare that an inexperienced guy can hang in their with the top dogs, Brock Lesnar being a big exception.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

There is no magic age...it is a misnomer to track ages of World Champions...All these guys the OP mentioned and many he doesn't not only started in the business very young, but with some kind of specialist or respected ongoing training. This gave them a stronger base to work from, often far younger than their peers. I am counting the AWA World title in this as well...

Savage, Rock, Yokozuna, Curt Hennig, Kerry Von Erich and Bret had family who were not only were respected wrestlers and trainers but owned or booked territories, thus they were subjected to the business from a much younger age than most of their peers and allowed the chance to shine.

Guys like Trips, Hogan and Punk, D. Bryan were trained by guys who were considered the best at what they did at the time and exposed to others as a result who advanced their knowledge much quicker than they would normally have gained. Trips with Kowalski, then Shawn then with Flair... Bryan trained initially with Shawn and then Regal... Hogan with Matsuda and later Gagne.

Shawn and Austin were trained by respected wrestlers who were active competitors at that time and both benefited from that, in Austins case even feuding with Chris Adams. They also had natural charisma and pizazz that afforded them room to grow as workers over time, something rarely afforded.

Of the list given, only really Flair fits the OP's point, and its arguable that had Flair not been in his plane crash he would have been champion much sooner. Some like Rick Martel, Iron Sheik Ron Simmons, Vader or Sgt Slaughter, Diesel or Undertaker won titles at times that best fit with the promotion, there was no real progression for them, they were just the right people at the time...

Experience is important, but I feel the OP is missing that pedigree played the main part in those reigns, something that it is impossible to duplicate in today's business... There is no guarantee that any of the current younger wrestlers will peak at 30 or be around at 29... Some might wait till near 40 like Christian or DDP did... but the bulding blocks of a world champion start with how they are trained... but today a percieved mistake could scupper the progression curve... Politics is much more of a factor now.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I have noticed something of an age trend going on in WWE for a while and I've looked at how it might pertain to certain wrestlers on the card. As The Brain pointed out, guys like Miz, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, Wade Barrett, etc. are still young men ranging from their early to mid 30s. They've gained experience before really being pushed or used as main eventers in WWE. Miz & Ziggler are two guys that've worked really hard in WWE paying dues, Sheamus & Barrett came up quickly out of nowhere but their whirlwind pushes stopped and have been moving up at a more normal pace and gaining a lot of experience along the way. Punk & Bryan both spent a decade traveling the indy circuit, honing their craft and gaining tons of experience. That's not to say WWE hasn't quickly pushed guys before they were ready, such as Jack Swagger's WHC run, but I think they're moving away from that sort of theory.

Pushing someone very young to the World Championship picture can be a good thing or a bad thing. Randy Orton is one of the youngest World Champions in pro wrestling history. He's a talented guy, I don't think that can be denied with any shred of legitimacy, but, at the same time, they pushed Orton so quickly while he was so young that there's really nothing left for him to accomplish. He's a 9 time World Champion, a former IC champ, multi time tag champ, Royal Rumble winner, headliner of multiple WM cards, feuded with the biggest stars in the WWE at one time or another and is only 31 years of age. What do you do with someone that's done it all before entering the third decade of his life?

I've looked at other young wrestlers on the card and I think WWE is trying purposely not to make that sort of mistake again. Orton is still a huge star, he's still massively over and he brings a ton of positive qualities with him. Still, he can't shake the fact that he's accomplished everything. I sometimes see threads complaining about how certain guys are underappreciated or underused or not pushed hard enough, etc, and most of those threads are about guys that are really young. The latest one involves Curt Hawkins. As I mentioned in that thread, Hawkins is only 26 years old. Drew McIntyre is about the same age, maybe a little bit older, and these are two examples of guys that WWE could potentially plan on using in a big way once they get further experience under their belt and once they get a little older. It looks as though Daniel Bryan just came out of nowhere to win the WHC but there's more to it than that when you look at the overall picture. Bryan has been one of the best overall in-ring workers in WWE since he got there. He's worked hard for them in the ring and has worked hard improving himself in areas where he's lacking. Often, WWE has used Bryan on the road in house shows as sort of a test for some of their other guys to see how ready they might be. Jinder Mahal's performance against Bryan in house shows last year likely lead to Mahal's major de-push.

In pro wrestling, when you look back over its history, most of the biggest stars in the industry have generally been guys that really started to peak when they were in their 30s and there's a reason for that. While still relatively young men, they've had a world of experience and that's the ideal combination.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Their true primes came in the following years and in many cases went well into their 40s.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I need to bring up my guy Drew McIntyre in connection with this. He seems to be making a resurgence on Smackdown lately, yet I watch the audience that can be seen in the first few rows. During his matches, they just sit there, barely reacting to (what I consider) the great ring work Drew is showing. Now, as during his last run on Smackdown, he simply doesn't seem to be getting the fans into what he's doing.

So, why is he still with the company? Management kept him on the sidelines for a long time after moving him to Raw, and I really thought he would be gone at any moment. Why hasn't it happened?

I point to this topic for an answer: the experience Drew is building will serve him well in the future.....and it will be WWE's call as to whether the Drew McIntyre of the coming years will be utilizing that experience on their roster or not.

Right now, although some will disagree, he has an incredible upside. He's been doing this for a lot of years already, knows exactly how to work a match with technical wrestling, has some amazing moves for a man his size......and he's only 26. He's only going to get better.

Look at what the OP is saying about John Cena at 34 and C.M. Punk at 33. Drew is years away from that; what might he be by then? To my thinking, that's what has saved Drew's job this past year (so far). If the wrestler doesn't have the physical ability, it's anyone's guess whether they will ever develop it. But if they have Drew's assets, a smart company will realize that he is only one Creative Dept. program away from real stardom.

Experience......how young you are when you first start building it, and how far you can take it before your body starts breaking down due to age and injury. A smart wrestling organization looks not only at what the guy (or gal) has now, but also what they will become.

 

[Alex]

Yes this is true. If you look at current TNA world champion Bobby Roode, he's only in his early/mid 30s and this is his first time with the belt. So far he is having an extremely successful run, because of the experience he's picked up working in the company for the better part of 10 years. Do you think he'd be as successful if they had given him the belt when he was much younger??? probably not.

Thing is, people seem to have less patience than they used to, if a guy isn't getting a world title shot within three years he's criminally underused. it takes time to hone your skills in various areas (mic skills, wrestling ability etc) and you can't really do that effectivly in three years.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

I think that pro wrestling is an oddity. In most sports when you hit 33ish you start to decline a bit. Its just wear and tear. These guys have been playing whatever sport basically their whole lives.

In pro wrestling most guys don't get into the actual full time training until they are about 20ish. You spend a few years training, then a few more in the indys and you probably don't get a look from major promotions until you are in your mid 20s. Then it takes 2 or 3 years before most guys get the main event push so they are already close to 30 by that time. Even a guy like Sheamus who won the strap in like 4ish months was like 29 at the time. I think 40 is the time most guys hit the downslope in wrestling. Just look at a lot of the big names right now(These won't be entirely accurate since Wikipedia is down)

Punk is 31
Jericho is 39
Christian is 37
Kofi is 30
Ziggler is 30
Kane is 41
Cena is 33
The Rock is 38
HHH is 40
Taker is 44
Mysterio is 36
Big Show is 40
Mark Henry is 39
Miz is 30
Orton is 30
R-Truth is 38
Swagger is 29
Barret is 30
Sheamus is 31
Santino is 32

Even guys that haven't been around a while, like the former Nexus members and the guys on NXT are all around 30

 

[Davi323]

While there are exceptions I believe that the most successful wrestlers achieved their greatest levels of success from the mid 30s to early 40s.

I agree completely...and in the case of most of those guys you mentioned, they didn't even make it to the "big leagues" until they reached that age. It took years of struggling in the territories for these guys to learn what they were doing. Pro wrestling is not like football...you don't have pee-wee wrestling at age 6, and carry it through high school and college. You do have amateur wrestling, which does give some guys a head start, but for the most part, wrestlers learn how to wrestle after they have already graduated whatever level of schooling they stopped at, whether it's high school or college. Well, the equivalent would be like a football player who never played football as a kid, didn't play it in high school, didn't play it in college, and then after only a few years training, expecting him to play at an All-Pro level in the NFL.

Most wrestlers in their 20s don't have a clue about what they are doing yet. They are still learning their craft, not fine-tuning it. Experience definitely matters as much, if not more than raw athletic ability. It's not really how strong you are, how fast you are, how agile you are, it's about whether or not you know how to put on a good, entertaining match. Your physical skills might have declined, but if your experience has trained you how to tell a better story in the ring, you will succeed.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I think that this trait of the fans wanting for the "youth" to step up has more to do with the entertainment side of wrestling. It does not really matter to most fans what the age of the wrestler is, what matters is for how long they have been performing. A wrestler can be, say, only 25 or 26, but if he has been performing for say 5 to 6 years, fans start yearning for a change as that wrestler becomes stale to them. Whether the wrestler that replaces the previous one is younger or older than him, it does not matter. Sure, if the wrestler who has been performing for a while happens to be old as well, it gives such type of people another crutch to lean their arguements on.

Even if you go by that theory of a wrestler becoming more and more worthless the longer he performs, it would still make for a stupid arguement. Flair had some of his best matches after he had spent fifteen years in the business, Austin and Hogan achieved superstadom after roughly a decade in the business. Same with Michaels or Punk. I guess it makes sense in more ways than one because the longer you are at the business, the better you get. Pro wrestling may appear to take place inside the ring but a lot of it takes place inside the minds of the wrestlers and most of the great wrestlers happen to be the ones who have understood the business thoroughly.

 

[IHW]

The first 5 to 10 years (19-29ish) can and should be used to find your character, and focus in on who you are as a pro wrestler.

After that, the great build you got in those years and hard work you put in should be awarded with a World title.

Coming up during those years is where you should obtain the mid-card champions.

That's my view on age and time in wrestling.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Again age is a misnomer as WWE rarely hires any wrestler without a college education... Only really in the case of exceptional 2nd generation talents like Ritchie Steamboat or Harry Smith... They want people with life experience as well as an athletic background to avoid problems with talent going off the rails. Look at Randy Orton when he started, total ass clown backstage, immature, arrogant and at times offensive...

So to get on WWE's radar you need at minimum a college education, which takes you to 22-23, then you need to dedicate yourself to wrestling for a while on the Indy's, which means also pursuing a career and paying the bills for that time... or in many cases a football career or similar so that is taking your mid 20's out of the equation... Most guys can afford to go full time and come into FCW/WWE in their late 20's or early 30's regardless of experience... then you start learning...

The old territory system meant that guys could learn far more about their craft during those intervening years... the guys like Sheamus and Barrett who are coming in to big pushes have had more grounding in the UK system than someone like Ziggler had when he came onto TV... TV time and crowds are so scarce in the UK that you have to be "on" to get over and recognised and that translates to quick starts when they join WWE. In the past there were more shows in more areas so guys could conceivable work full time and wrestle weekends, today shows and spots are scarcer so it forces many to sacrifice either training time or ring time to pay the bills or travel.

Youth Movement or New Blood are phrases that are often misused... What it should mean is exciting new talent of any age not simply under 25's...