Diamond Dallas Page - Why did he fail in the WWE(F)?

[californiachef84]

Ummm I'm an idiot cus I got someone race wrong...? Ok I'll bite. If u look at the at the record books The rock IS the first "not white" champion u goddamn hill Billy. The rock and Booker T ain't similar? The most electrifying move in sports entertainment: the spinarooy vs the people elbow (what the alliance was comparing to the WWE) ummm the Book End? The whole feud Booker T kept saying whatever the rock did he did the same plus more? I mean the creative team even tried to show stupid pencil dicks like u that they have similar characteristics but from
different companies and now that WCW became a part of the WWE, they had a World title match to see who's the better man. I'm sorry Rock for getting ur ethicitu wrong but this monkey turd doesn't see your accomplishment of being the first ever non-white to be a World champion.'what in the BLUE hell are u thinking!?! Get ur facts straight before I turn this post sideways and stick it up your candy ass!
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No... you are basically being idiotic for SEVERAL reasons. The first reason is that you have absolutely NO IDEA HOW TO SPELL! You call me a hillbilly, and in turn you cannot even complete a sentence without misspelling a word or having it be a fragment. Secondly, the Rock IS NOT the first non white champion. Have you ever heard of someone named Ron Simmons? He was a world champion.

Thirdly, Booker T was "modified" by WCW to replicate the Rock. This was during the period when WCW got desperate and were on the fast track to going out of business. WCW at that point was trying to "mold" some of their wrestlers by having them act like some of the wrestlers in the WWF. Does anyone on here remember when Juventud Guerrera would come to the ring during this same period and say "the juice is in the house, and the house is in the juice" followed by "if you smell what the juice is cooking"? By your logic, we should now be comparing Juventud Guerrera to the Rock as well. The point is that WCW was fresh out of ideas and the only thing they could come up with was having some of their wrestlers act like some of the WWF wrestlers. Remember during this time when Booker T would "look" at the camera the same way in which the Rock would. He would also refer to himself in the third person, and also was given a new finishing move called the Book End, which happend to be very similar to the Rock Bottom. Just because WCW creative could not come up with an original characters in the end should not be reason to justify any kind of similarity between Booker T and the Rock.

Get my facts straight? I think that you need to take some of your own advise. As an earlier poster pointed out, the Rock is half black. Okay, my bad... However, this still does not change the fact that the Rock does not even remotely resemble a person of African descent. Rock looks exactly from the same line as Snuka, Umaga, and Rakishii.

Anyways, shouldn't we all be addressing the topic at hand? Another reason that DDP was not successful in the WWE was because Vince used him as a heel instead of a babyface. DDP is much better suited as a good guy and should have been used as such.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

DDP was pretty old when he arrived in the WWE, so he was never going to be a long term investment. He was a manager for years before eventually stepping into the ring, surprising everybody by climbing to the top of the mountain in WCW pretty quickly (albeit due in large part to his friendship with Eric Bischoff).

He was pretty beat up by the time WWE signed him up, and couldnt really do that much in the ring any more, a fact even more noticable when you see he barely wrestled anywhere again after leaving the 'E.

However, we all saw in WCW how charismatic Page was and how he could get himself over with the crowd as a face. He was their "Peoples Champion", so he definitely could have got over in the WWE had he been given a real chance. To stick him with a stupid stalker gimmick and feed him to the Undertaker was ridiculous and a complete waste of a wrestler who could have really contributed to the WWE vs WCW Invasion storyline. Yes, he was involved in the initial Inaugral Brawl but was completely overshadowed after that, ending up fighting for the tag team titles with Kanyon against Undertaker and Kane. Page was a former world champion and should have been utlised as such in the feud, not stuck as Kanyons tag team partner.

After the Alliance was killed off, he ended up appearing at one WM facing Christian for the European title and acting as a ridiculous Motivational Speaker. It was completely pointless in my opinion, and again wasted Page's talents. He should have been given a worthy feud, he still had name value among wrestling fans, many of whom had seen him in WCW and had switched to watching WWE after the demise of their company.

I never thought DDP had a fair shot at success in WWE, it seemed like they just had little or no interest in giving him a main event spot, even for a short period of time. Maybe he would never have been a MEGA star, but I think he should have been used better than he was. If he had been younger I think he would have, but his age worked against him as the WWE was looking at younger, more long term talent

 

[klunderbunker]

Page was a home promotion guy that made it big in WCW because the fans got behind him. He spent years going from a dick to a hard luck story to a bigger dick to a guy that turned down the NWO to a people's hero to a world champion. That took years to set up and in WWF he would have started all over. That's not something you can do overnight and it wasn't likely going to happen again. Not worth the time and investment needed to make it work so they didn't try. No harm no foul.

 

[mrbrownstone]

There are a few reasons in my mind. First off unless my maths is wrong when he arrived in the WWF he was 44 years old, already that is a major problem at 44 most people are either retired or contemplating retirement so he was never going to make it as a long term investment.

Second, Vince didn't create him. We all know that for the most part if Vince McMahon didn't create a star himself then he usually has no interest in pushing them, sure there are exceptions to this rule and the Big Show comes to mind but for the most part it is pretty true, this was just another example of that.

Another thing, the storyline he was placed into was pretty poor, sure it was with the Undertaker and he is a bug name player but he was basically squashed in the feud as Taker absolutely dominated him. Also after the initial shock of him being reviled washed off people started to realise he wasn't that good, KB described it best in one of his reviews in saying, at first people were thinking "Oh Shit, it's DDP" but then they realised "Oh Shit, it's DDP".

Basically with age and Vince's personal prejudices working against him he never had a chance of making it in the WWE.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

Like Sally said earlier, i was under the impression that he quit due to extensive injuries that could have become crippling injuries if he'd carried on wrestling. In fact, i'm sure he came and did an interview on Saturday morning TV in the UK where he literally said just that.

I wished DDP would have gotten more out of his WWE run. While i thought the stalker angle was ridiculous, i still admired the work that DDP did during that angle, and really, really enjoyed the motivational speaker gimmick as well (for some reason).

Seemingly his momentum kept stopping and starting due to injury until the point where it just stopped dead, and he made the decision to seek out other endeavours.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

He ended up TNA for a short run, which surprised me as he had been off TV for a couple of years, but other than that (and an appearance at an indie show where he encouraged Kanyon to come out as gay) I havent heard much from him since his WWE run.

Anyone know what DDP is up to these days?

 

[MancMark]

Well he did that Devils Rejects movie whenever that was, so I dunno if maybe he's acting in some capacity.

Ideally, WCW should have invaded with their own face and heel characters. DDP would have been better off that way, because he'd have gotten a fair crack of the whip.

And just to interject in the pointless and irrelevant Rock vs Booker T debate, Booker T had been doing his "Rock Bottom" for years. The only difference is they used to call it a uranage suplex when he did it, and in the end it became the Book End.

 

[Cocky King of The World1]

Its a shame DDP wasn't used properly in the WWE, this man should have gotten a fued with either rock or stone cold. He was over tremendously and this guy was the definition of what a peoples champion was, he will always be the original (Sorry Rocky).

He was given a stalker gimmick out of all things , it didn't fit DDP at all and it didn't feel right if u know who the guy was in WCW. Injuries as well made the difference , and this main-eventer became a mid-carder.

No wonder why sting is never coming to WWE.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

No wonder why sting is never coming to WWE.

No offence dude but Sting is on a completely different level to what DDP was.

If Sting were ever to step foot in a WWE ring it would be under the condition that he was to be used properly. He is an icon of the business, and regarded much more highly than Page ever was. Sting coming to the WWE would be a much bigger deal and he would be given a storyline worthy of his status

Saying that, Page deserved much more than he got, as you can see my opinions on this in my earlier post about how he was wasted.

 

[harrythem]

See I think DDP got more then he deserved in WCW. He, to me, is like Jeff Jarrett. An upper mid-card guy that they tried in the main event but he just didn't cut it. Before Vince Russo's reign of error in WCW I seem to remember that DDP was at his natural level, having good matches for tag titles against good mid-card guys.

The stalker thing sucked, no doubt, but I don't think DDP would've gone much higher anyway

 

[The Eighties]

I read that DDP was way too brash backstage and didn't ease himself in slowly as Triple H had warned him, he pissed off Taker and thus was doomed to mid-card status.

His age would have prevented him from a long term run but he was over enough that if he had started out strongly he could have been used to put an up and coming WWE guy over.

Okay, I really got to dispute the Sara stalker angle as good! Asides from being in incredibly bad taste, it made no sense - DDP was brought in and given the Undertaker because he was one of WCW's biggest names, while the internet community wasn't that big at the time - anybody who knew anything about DDP knew he was married to Kimberley Page.

Why would he want Mrs Calloway...

and why'd his wife not turn up to object?

In fairness in his awesome debut promo DDP explained that it was merely about exploiting Taker's weakness and getting under his skin to become famous, rather than it being a sexual thing.

I think Taker was the wrong guy to work the angle with as Taker no sold it and basically acted like he cared more about his "yard" than his wife, and she was such a tough looking women that she didn't really sell cared either.

Now do the same angle with Triple H and Steph and I think it would have worked, going after the WWE owners daughter, Steph would have sold being afraid and she is all feminine and not a tough girl, and Triple H would have played the vengeful husband. Plus Triple H and DDP were friends so he may have helped DDP instead of squashing him.

 

[justinsayne]

In fairness in his awesome debut promo DDP explained that it was merely about exploiting Taker's weakness and getting under his skin to become famous, rather than it being a sexual thing.

I thought the whole "Make me famous!" shit was ******ed, at the time DDP had been featured in a movie, and had made several appearances on various late night talk shows, one could argue he was more known to the mainstream audience than Taker, so he was already Famous, if anything I think he should have come out and cut a promo where he was going to make Taker famous, had he done that and gone over Taker at least once or twice, his WWE run would have been instantly better, he should have been booked as a major threat, and at the very least held a belt higher up than the European title

All in all he did manage to get the chance to have a good match on WM, one that I think was prolly the 3 rd best match on the card, right behind the Hogan/Rock & Triple H/Jericho match

I think Taker was the wrong guy to work the angle with as Taker no sold it and basically acted like he cared more about his "yard" than his wife, and she was such a tough looking women that she didn't really sell cared either.

Taker had no desire to put DDP over, DDP, from what I understand pissed him off backstage, which is something you just don't do, as a result the angle suffered, though it was a rather ******ed angle from the beginning anyway, and one that just continuously got worse as it kept going

Now do the same angle with Triple H and Steph and I think it would have worked, going after the WWE owners daughter, Steph would have sold being afraid and she is all feminine and not a tough girl, and Triple H would have played the vengeful husband. Plus Triple H and DDP were friends so he may have helped DDP instead of squashing him.

This would have been fucking amazing, however with the Invasion storyline going on at the same time and Triple H out due to injury at the time it never stood a chance of happening

 

[Nikkolas]

Anyone know what DDP is up to these days?

Well he's been divorced from Kimberly for a few years but they're still friends.

i saw this video on YouTube that said he, Kim, Luger and a few others would be at something called "Promolast Atlanta Reunion Pro Wrestling Fanfest" and this was last summer.

His current job is yoga for guys program that is apparently a pretty big success.

He also turned down some offer from TNA to return (in what exact capacity no one knows) so it seems he's one of those fortunate few who had his hayday in pro wrestling but has moved na dn is content with his new career.