Jobbers = PPV Buys

[Y 2 Jake]

WWE should introduce more jobbers into the company. Most of us would agree that we enjoyed wrestling far more when we first started watching in the late 80's. Yes that would be because we were new to it, but it would also be because PPV's were something to look forward to. And almost everyone was a star. Herculese, Koko B. Ware, Paul Roma and others all got reactions. People accepted 3 minute squash matches on PPV. All because of one thing. Jobbers. It's hard to get excited about Cena vs. HHH. One because it's been done before. And two because they interact week in and out, even if they aren't feuding. A couple of jobbers would help this out(and more interview segments).

Imagine how excited you'd be about matches if wrestlers hadn't already faced each other multiple times. Nobody would have got sick of Taker & Edge if they'd wrestled 4 times on PPV but never touched on Smackdown.

I know that WWE still has jobbers to a certain extent. But Paul London & Brian Kendrick win on occasion. What is needed is more Val Venis'. Wrestlers who never win. Who make their opponent look great.

 

[klunderbunker]

I've been saying this for months. When all we see are matches between big star and big star, it losses it's specialness on PPV. Give me an Jericho vs. Venis match for a match. Let Val get some work in, give Jericho that little bit of a scare, but let Jericho nail a codebreaker in the end. Makes both look good, builds up Jericho for whatever he's doing, and makes Val look a bit more credible. It worked in the 80s, it worked in the 90s, it worked in the Attitude Era, it'll work now. Things like Cena and HHH are dull because of just what Jake said: they're never apart. There's no big match left save for Cena and Batista, which amazes me that it hasn't happened yet. Let these main eventers have a match every now and then, but not all the time.

 

[healyz84]

While I do think that more jobbers are needed for the television shows in order to help keep things unstale, help build up the 'star' wrestlers and so on, I do not think there is any place for a jobber on a ppv. In this day and age, ppv's cost enough already for the consumer, who are looking for quality matches, matches between the 'stars' and the so called 'best in the business'. No one is going to put money down on a ppv when the headline matches are like HHH vs Val Venis or Cena vs Snitsky. The result will not be in question, and you could practically know what was going to happen move for move. Granted, with a lot of the matches today you could do that as well. But there is a reason a wrestler is branded a jobber, either they could not be a star or they were once and they just don't have it anymore. A ppv is suppose to be special because its suppose to have matches and things that you never would see on a television broadcast. Now, on any broadcast of raw or smackdown you are guaranteed at least 2 main event matches(though most of them end in dq/countout anyway). But it still takes away from the matches on ppv's. Could easily be solved by taking out a number of the ppv's, but that would never happen so add more jobbers to the television shows and keep the stars away from each other until the ppv's.

 

[Heel Tactic]

Jobbers are good because they help push talent and they're good in squash matches. Its also good to have them, the ones from local towns where ever the show is because they get experience with the WWE. But when your using jobbers you use them like once. When you could actually be using underutalized talent from the roster guys liek charlie haas and kenny dykstra. you could use them to job and start a feud to whoever theyr jobbing to so your pushing those guys and your also building the low card characters

 

[Afro-Ameri-Spawn]

The thing about jobbers is that it's outdated. Sure, there used to be a time when a wrestlers stepped in the ring with a jobber and you KNEW who was going to win before they even announced the jobbers name. But, in this new wrestling environment, they want to give the perception that anybody can beat anybody else. This started to be the case when you heard crowds cheer for popular jobbers who seemed to have more athletic talent than the wrestlers that they were laying down for. If anything, jobbers hurt wrestling as the squash match only made for terrible one dimensional wrestlers. Hopefully, by having gotten rid of jobbers, this will eventually help phase out the guys who lack the talent to get past a 30 second squash.

 

[kylexxx]

My memory is a little hazy going back around 2002-2003 and I don't remember names but there was a fued where a jobber challenged an established star and whilst continually losing he kept challenging the star. It was very entertaining and put both stars over in my eyes. I'm just cut I can't remember names but I only saw wrestling when I went to mates places.
Overall I like using jobbers like val who, whilst you know they are going to lose, are talented and entertaining and get in some decent offence

 

[Sparky]

That would be a great idea, As Jake said all we are seeing is The same people fighting each other even when they are not in fueds. It get's boring after a while. What they should do is Bring back all the popular Jobber's that they fired. Scotty 2 Hotty, Eugene etc. Those two when had a chance where good entertaining wrestler's (exept for the poor Eugene character) They need to try and Hire more people like those two, Im sure that some wouldnt mind losing if it mean't they would still become popular and get to wrestle at the occasional PPV. even some just for the money, I know i would. it would save us from seeing HHH vs Jericho for two week's straight then a month later you see that put in a fued you dont want to watch it becouse it has been done. Many time's before

 

[Tastycles]

What they should do is Bring back all the popular Jobber's that they fired. Scotty 2 Hotty, Eugene etc. Those two when had a chance where good entertaining wrestler's (exept for the poor Eugene character) They need to try and Hire more people like those two, Im sure that some wouldnt mind losing if it mean't they would still become popular and get to wrestle at the occasional PPV.

I agree, I think if they had a lower card of people who lost all of the time but had something a bit quirky about them, people would still be entertained by the matches, despite the foregone conclusion of the match.

Now that Heat has finished, all of the Charlie Haas, Val Venis, Super Crazy etc. kind of wrestlers should start being used for this purpose, but I doubt it will happen, and we will end up wishing them well in their future endeavors.

 

[Monkey_Mania]

I agree. I miss the days when supertars hardly touched before competing on a Pay Per View. If they introduce more jobbers it could build up their major stars and make them look stronger going into the PPV (obviously). What they need to stop doing though is makingguys like Umaga job out to everybody and then throw them into a PPV as an unstoppable force. Its totally unbelievable and it pisses me off that I've wasted the last couple of weeks watching them get degraded. So yes definitely BRING BACK THE BRAWLER and other believeable jobbers.

 

[reddevil69]

I agree with the point of keeping main event stars apart until a ppv. There is a reason why ppv's had higher buy-rates and a bigger buzz in the past than they have the past 6 or 7 years and it's because we've seen it all before. Why the hell does anyone want to pay for a match between two guys that are on tv for free every week together!!

This bullshit where Cena and HHH get in each others face every week is a joke. You better believe if i was facing a guy and he came up to me backstage every week and got an inch from my face and talked shit to me, i'd break his face with a head-butt. You never saw Hogan,Savage,Piper,Warrior,Bret,Taker,Roberts,
DiBiase,Perfect,Ramon,Diesel,Flair,Steamboat,Funk,HBK, or Mankind cut promos on each other two inches from the other guys face every single fucking week.Why? Because it's not believable.

And when you did see it, for example, Savage getting in Hogans face after the mega-powers blow out on Saturday Nights main event in february of 1989, what did Savage do after about one minute of arguing with hogan? He waffled him with the title belt and beat the dog-shit out of him and trashed the dressing room. The show went off the air an hour later with hogan frantically looking for Savage, screaming his name and freaking out, and from that moment on you never saw the two together in the same room for two months until WrestleMania 5 when they met in the ring.

Today they would have confronted each other 20 times in the locker room, shower, parking lot or whatever and Hogan would just sit there and take it because it's 'part of the show' and it's 'compelling dialogue'.And the Umaga analogy is a good one as well, he's made to look like an ass every week and then when the WWE wants us to be excited enough to pay to see a match featuring him, he's all of a sudden an unstoppable force and , oh my god whatever will Jeff Hardy do when he faces this monster on Sunday at One night stand? And if Umaga can't beat Hardy three times in a row, what business does he have working with Undertaker in the rumored feud that is coming up when Taker returns? Taker should be able to squash him in 5 minutes, Jeff did it in 15.

 

[hollyric]

I don't see why this is a good idea. First of all, do you think fans are going want to attend a TV taping with jobber matches? Would YOU rather attend a Raw with jobber matches or the way it is now?

Also, ratings wise, the show would do much lower since everybody knows who is going to win.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Back in the 80's there were no PPV events. Starrcade in 1983 slowly started changing that, as did the advent of The Great America Bash Supershow in 1985 and WrestleMania that year but for most of the decade there were no more than one or two major shows. The AWA had their annual SuperShow and World Class had their Parade of Champions and that was it.

TV during this time existed for one purpose - to get you to buy tickets to the house shows. House shows were the life blood of the business. The promos of course were what sold fans on either hating someone's guts or loving the guy they were fighting. The jobber matches were done so that everyone looked dominant on TV, which combined with the promos made you interested in seeing them battle someone good they were fueding with at the house shows. Major fueds lasted several months (while the company played it's entire house show circuit) and usually culminated at the big "PPV" either at mid year (GAB, SummerSlam) or the big super blowout show (Starrcade, WM).

The advent of monthly PPV, which started in WCW somehere around 93 or so changed this. Now TV was needed to encourage PPV buys as much ifnot more than house show attendance. Considering the significant production costs associated with PPV, the promotions (pretty much just WCW & WWE by this time) couldn't afford to risk low ratings on ppl tuning out boring squash matches and not getting the full build up tothe next PPV.

It is incorrect however to say that viewers did not see confrontations between top wrestlers "back in the day". WWE always showed quality matches mixed in with jobber bouts on their Monday Night Program. I remember watching Honky Tonk Man's IC Title win on TV, as well Randy Savage's IC Title win over Tito Santana (using a near identical ending as a previoulsy shown TV Title win by Arn Anderson over Dusty Rhodes). WCW Saturday Night gave us several quality matches, however most of the program was jobber bouts. Some of the old NWA's most memorable 80's matches were shown on the regular TV programs including Ric Flair vs Ricky Morton in 1986 (45 minute non title match on Saturday Night), Tully Blanchard vs Dusty Rhodes in 1987 ($100,000 vs TV Title Match on syndicated World Wide Program), Tully & Arn's victory over the Rock & Roll Express for the tag titles in 1987 (syndicated Word Wide program), etc.

Since the advent of Monday Nitro and ensuing Monday Night Wars there has been little in the way of jobber bouts on regular TV. At this point it would be hard to go back to that way of programming, fans would resist that step backward. WWE needs more fresh match-ups, not re-treads of match-ups that are not that old (HHH vs Cena for instance). I know "back in the day" Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage had a terrific rivalry but WWE gave it a break from 1987 thru 1989, even changing the dynamic between them and making them partners for awhile. NWA didn't change much between Ric Flair & Dusty Rhodes (other than the summer of 1985 they were pretty much mortal enemies the entire decade) but Rhodes would take long stretches in which he would fued other ppl (often Flair's co-horts in the Horsemen, but also the Russians and The Midnight Express among others) while Flair faced long term challenges to his title from The Garvins, Road Warrior Hawk, Barry Whyndham, The Russians, Magnum TA, and others. It may eventually come back to Flair/Rhodes or Hogan/Savage but it didn't have to be just them 24 7 virtually all the time facing only each other in the ultimate showdown for company supremacy.

TV would be more exiting with more quality matches between ppl who don't face each other that often. You would tune in to see how the match will play out and who would go over. An actual real Tag Team Division would be nice as well, plus it would allow WWE to take some guys floundering in the singles ranks (Carlito anyone) and give them something useful.

 

[Agrex]

In my opinion, more jobbers will not help the WWE out at all. If there are too many "big guy v. jobber" matches the outcomes will be predictable, if they get too predictable fans will stop tuning into Raw, Smackdown or whatever. If they stop tuning in then they won't know the card for the PPV, therefore they won't buy the PPV. It's a domino effect with the finale being WWE losing money.

WWE is struggling due to the popularity of UFC. Pro wrestling isn't in anymore, but MMA is. WWE can't afford to lose anymore fans, and the jobber idea will do just that. Big matches attract fans to watch WWE, when they watch it they get informed on the PPV's, and then they will watch the PPV which will give the WWE money. Sure big matches get repetitive, but there's a simple solution, the draft. The draft moves the wrestlers around, so they can continue the big matches, but it doesn't get too repetitive.

So I don't think adding jobbers would help the WWE, or any other pro wrestling promotion at all.

 

[nbda1997]

The enhancement talent model worked back in the '80s because the WWF wasn't concerned about ratings. It was using its television shows solely as a vehicle to sell tickets/merchandise/PPVs, etc. "Superstars" and "Wrestling Challenge" were more akin to magazine shows such as "Entertainment Tonight" than they were actual wrestling shows. The "matches" weren't really matches, but filler to accompany all the marketing and hullabaloo. It wouldn't make sense to give away legitimate bouts in that kind of atmosphere, so they just hired local kids to come in and get thrown around for $25. No biggy.

Nowadays, although the wrestling boom is over, the WWE is still a much larger entity than it was, and it's television products are judged just as much on the ratings they receive as they are on how many PPV buys they entice. They have obligations to big-money TV sponsors now. So, in essence, they're forced to "give away" legitimate matches every week. There are much better things to watch on Mondays at 9:00PM than Chris Jericho kicking around some jabroni you don't recognize.

Not to say that repetitive feuds and headlining PPVs with matches we've seen over and over again (and for free) isn't a huge problem. The WWE has more than enough talent. The difficult part is leveraging all that talent to its fullest potential. This, of course, requires thinking out of the box and putting politics/personal differences aside (both of which the WWE folks don't seem to have the ability to do).

 

[The Dungeon]

The thing is too, even during the 80's, they weren't concerned about ratings, but yet, "Superstars" and "Wrestling Challenge", probably had an INSANE number of viewers. But the shows were great vehicles, to put house shows, and what not over, as well as the upcoming supercard, and/or PPV.

These days, the only time we'll see enahncement talent is on "Heat" (yes I'm aware it's gone now). Wrestling has changed so much, in the 20 years, it became more in demand, by the mid 90's, people were tired of the seeing the same old stars, beat the same old jobbers, with the odd good main event here and there, week after week. Hence why "Raw" and "Nitro" were both a huge success. It was different.

The WWE & WCW, still kept those shows around, and while the viewership was down, it was still a good way to get new talent over, or use a bigger name on the odd occasion (on the odd time, if a upper-mid carder was only doing an angle on "Raw", and not wrestling, they'd do "Heat" or "Metal" for a match, just to get the crowd going).

I certainly would enjoy a Colin Delaney, 1-2-3 Kid, type underdog storyline being built towards a PPV, but in the main event slot, I really couldn't see it fly.

 

[midgensa]

This is an absolutely fabulous and thought-provoking thread.
On one hand, I really like the idea of "jobbers" being someone like Val Venis or in the area ... on the other ... it means a little less TV time for some of the other talent trying to climb the ladder. After a couple of days of thinking about it I think that more jobbers would not just equal more PPV buys, it would equal a much higher level of entertainment in those PPVs.
I have been so let down over the past five or six years because Wrestlemania was SUPPOSED to signal the end of feuds between stars we had waited A LONG TIME to see go at it. Instead, it is now just the middle of five-six match feuds. The return of the jobber and more "can't touch until the PPV" stipulations would be fantastic. Could have Cena and Trips constantly bashing jobbers to show off for one another.
This would also lead to the return of stronger promos.
As I said before, this is a very good thread and something that I had not really thought about before, but the lack of jobbers regularly taking on upper-tier talent definitely hurts the build up for a PPV.

 

[midgensa]

I also think some people are taking the jobbers thing a little wrong here. I don't think we are talking about bringing back the "Bob Smith" ... I just think we are talking more about utilizing the Val Venis and Jamie Noble types. I could be wrong I guess, but if that is what we are talking about, I think that it could be quite beneficial.