(My theory on) The problem with Superstars today

[Rip]

So I'm sitting at work, working hard (or hardly working HAR HAR!), picking my own brain. I don't post that often, I make thread even less often. This one time though, I'm really curious to see what you guys think. Is there sense to my point or am I full of it? Obviously, you guys can move it if I posted it in the wrong place.

So here's what I think is the problem with wrestlers today (WWE Superstar specifically). I don't find them believable to be in the postions they're in. I'm somehow supposed to believe that guys like Cena, Orton and Batista are this generation's equivalent of The Rock or Stone Cold or Shawn Michaels. Those guys were true, household name, larger than life wrestlers. I feel like they were built properly and subsequentally booked properly. HHH, Kurt Angle etc... all fit this profile to me. Then guys like Cena came along.
I've been watching since 88/89ish. Hulk and Warrior and Macho Man were big when I started, I watched HBK and Bret Hart get built, then I watched Stone Cold, HHH and The Rock be built. When the latter came along, I felt there were believable to be on the level on Warrior, Hulk and Savage.
It feels like WWE forgot how to make real superstars. I think the problem is 3-fold:
1) Mic skills: Back in the 80s and 90s, they didn't script so much. Nowadays, everyone except the vets are scripted. It seems counter-productive. Reading sentence by sentence is a different world from adlibbing, even just a litte. It can make you seem robotic and boring. How can you expect a young wrestler to hone his mic skills when he has to worry so much about memorizing his lines? Plus, the dude is only going to be as clever and funny (or badass or whatever you're trying to go for) as the guy who wrote the script.
2) Booking style: I think the thing that stands out most for me is guys like Stone Cold and the Rock had WARS in that ring! The image of Stone Cold bleeding and passing out to the sharpshoot comes to mind. They were in classic matches that really made you feel like they were giving it all and leaving it in the ring and that they were really scratching and clawing their way to the top. Now it feels like I'm supposed to believe that after JBL defended his title against Kurt Angle, Guererro and Undertaker that Cena is supposed to be the man to dethrone him? Wow. I just feel like Cena didn't fight his way to the top, but he was fed with a silver spoon the entire time. Batista and Orton were handled a bit better, but this is the general view I have of this generation. Matches just lack emotion nowadays (with exceptions like HBK-Taker or HBK-Flair). Storytelling is gone because now matches are even scripted, you can't let the guys do what they want to do out there, especially if an undercarder outshines a main-eventer. OH the humanity! They just don't have wars in that ring anymore, except maybe at Wrestlemania and even then, only sometimes.
3) Creative team: So, remember all those classic moments? Remember when Kurt Angle drove a milk truck down and hosed down Vince and everyone in the ring with milk? Then started drinking milks Stone Cold style? Backstage skits of him playing guitar? Classic Kurt Angle moments? Yes and no. They were also classic CREATIVE moments. Remember, it was in the script for Angle to do those things. He pulled them off well of course, but he didn't come up with the idea. What happened to all these classic moments!? Those really help guys get over. Imagine if Punk drove a pepsi truck to ringside (when he was a face) and hosed everyone down. New? No. Still classic though! Why can't creative do things like this anymore? You can still keep it PG.

See, overall it's not even the wrestlers' fault, but the guys above him. Everything is so controlled and scripted nowadays, why won't anyone take a risk?

Thoughts?

 

[BatistrioFlyPunt]

Because it is simply PG. They won't take risks because they are limited to what they can do. And on the "new superstar" topic, they try to hype up their new stars but they just fall back down to where they come from. I think they are waiting until the main-eventers of this decade to retire so they can make new stars, which is a huge mistake.

 

[kash_is_money]

I think its just the WWE's unwillingness to take risks. They seem to have no creative drive what-so-ever. In recent memory, the last compeling feud was Punk vs Jeff, and the only reason i belive that was as good was because of the calabire of the workers involved.

In the middle of a global fianincal crisis, WWE is making close to $15million per quarter. Not many other companies can boast that. I believe they have just found a boring formula that admitily is still producing cash for the company.

They couldnt care less if their boring, what else do we have to watch?

 

[bigdan7885]

There is no problem with the superstars of today. They're just different. Different than the guys we grew up watching. Doesn't make them worse. It isn't fair to compare wrestlers of today to those of the past. The WWE is geared toward a different type of audience now. Obviously guys in their 20s aren't going to feel the same way they did 10 years ago during the attitude era.

As far as the writing goes, I agree with you on that one. Seems there hasn't been a lot of creativity floating around. Maybe every idea has been done already, who knows.

If anything, I think the superstars of today deserve a lot of respect. To have this tremendous workload AND dealing with the cracking down of steroids? Mad props.

 

[Rip]

Hmmm, well I'm not saying

"Their mic skills suck"

"booking is horrible"

"creative team sucks"

Which is what I feel most people say.

I think that wrestlers are often blamed, when I think it's not them, it's guys behind the curtain. Further, booking isn't "horrible" or even "bad", I think it's just different, and they kinda just lost their way. Same with creative. My theory is that they have too many people with non-wrestling backgrounds in the back. I think overall, it's the restrictions put on the wrestlers as a whole, from scripted promos to scripted match to banned moves.

So, I think it's a bit different, but maybe I'm over thinking/bored at work.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

This, above all else, is a new generation of wrestling in the WWE. Everyone I know who watches wrestling says they want something new, something fresh. New stars. But when they finally get it in the likes of Sheamus or Jack Swagger, they say it's too soon.

You just can't please everyone.

John Cena is the new Rock. Randy Orton is the new Stone Cold. We have to face facts here. But that doesnt mean they don't have their own personality, which they do. Look closer and you will see these superstars are getting there, if not already the major stars of wrestling today.

The days of The Great One are over compadre. WWE is doing all it can to put other stars over as the next Rock or even the next Triple H.

 

[FromTheSouth]

Why do Cena and Orton have to be the new Rock and Stone Cold? Why can't they just be the first Cena and Orton?

All this constant clamoring for the Attitude Era is ridiculous. It's over and it's not coming back.

I think the problem is that Vince and the creative team don't have anyone that can be the go to guy to go be spectacular. Austin and The Rock could make anything interesting. Singing country songs, drinking beer, these guys did things with a certain flair that the guys today don't always have. Cena and Orton are good, and they can be interesting, but when they are given shit to work with they don't have what Austin and The Rock had in those moments. You could have given The Rock anything and it would have been hilarious.

The problem with today is that the fans are a giant pile or dumbasses. They expect every match to be epic and every promo to be hilarious. The Attitude Era certainly wasn't like this. The wrestling in The Attitude Era wasn't any better than it is today. The writing was so over the top sometimes as well.

Just appreciate what we have today. If you don't like it, perhaps you've outgrown the product.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

FTS basically hit the nail on the head. Everyone was so in love with the Attitude Era, that they wanted it to continue 24/7 when it simply couldn't. I remember when Angle debuted Stasiak in a match which was decent but the crowd couldn't care less because it wasn't violence or shocking. Angle, Benoit, and Jericho helped bring wrestling back to the forefront and it was one of the better contributions to wrestling in the past two decades. Everybody wants the next Austin or Rock but they are just living in the past. The superstars of today are doing great and will continue to do great in the future if people stopped living in the past.

 

[Rip]

No no, some of you are misunderstanding. I don't want to the Attitude Era, and I'm not looking for the second coming of Stone Cold or The Rock. I'm saying that guys who are at the top today, in MY eyes, are no where near the level of top guys of the past. I don't mean talent or size. I mean in the psychology behind it. They were more credible. Like those guys were household names, larger than the sport in some ways. These guys today don't compare.

Yes, part of me thinks I just outgrew it. Like yeah, I was younger back then, saw those guys through younger eyes. BUT why is it that I could buy into the early 90s guys that I watched being built, then I watched the late 90s guys I bought into them. I just don't buy into these guys.

 

[Suneeboy]

No no, some of you are misunderstanding. I don't want to the Attitude Era, and I'm not looking for the second coming of Stone Cold or The Rock. I'm saying that guys who are at the top today, in MY eyes, are no where near the level of top guys of the past. I don't mean talent or size. I mean in the psychology behind it. They were more credible. Like those guys were household names, larger than the sport in some ways. These guys today don't compare.

Yes, part of me thinks I just outgrew it. Like yeah, I was younger back then, saw those guys through younger eyes. BUT why is it that I could buy into the early 90s guys that I watched being built, then I watched the late 90s guys I bought into them. I just don't buy into these guys.

Yeah man, I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t think everyone got you on your first post, although you spelled it out perfectly.

The guys of today can’t compare with the guys of yesterday. The characters lack that emotion and connection with the audience that they had in the past. There is no electricity in the arena anymore, and I do not feel excited when watching. Did I outgrow wrestling? I don’t think so, because wrestling is timeless, plus I still watch old wrestling matches and shows.

Randy Orton seems to be on the path of generating true electricity from the crowd, so let’s hope that continues. What is missing is that true sense of emotion from the audience that lets you know that the character is truly adored and loved. Drawing raw emotion from the crowd isn’t something that we see these days. We pop who we’re supposed to pop for, and give heat to those who are supposed to get heat. There’s no real emotion behind it, in comparison to those superstars of yesteryear. I felt it during HBK-Taker at ‘Mania, and Orton has gotten it somewhat the past 2 weeks on RAW, but as a whole they don’t compare those of the past.

It’s kind of like the saying goes “They don’t make them like they used to”.

It’s not because its PG, and it’s not because I want the Attitude Era back. It is because I want to be entertained, and the product is just not as interesting as it once was. I'm no longer feel a connection forming between myself as a viewer, and the character (Orton a little bit as of late). It has absolutely nothing to do with it being PG, or me looking for the 2nd coming of the Rock or Austin. Great thread OP.

 

[Takerfan93]

This is such a great thread and I agree with everything you said. But yes, I believe it is because of the PG era. WWE is a business now, back in those days they treated it as a wrestling world. Now it is all about money to the shareholders.

The PG era is so overly catered to kids that merchandise sales mean more than the quality of the product they are putting out. Back during the Attitude Era they had no choice but to put out the best product possible. Now that there is no competition anymore, they focus more on making money. Cena = merchandise sales with kids, CM Punk driving a Pepsi truck woudln't. Of course CM Punk driving a Pepsi truck into the arena would be classic (or anything similar to stuff we saw back in those days), but only to the real wrestling fans. The kids wouldn't appreciate that kind of thing, the kind of thing they would appreciate is Cena's spinning belt.
This is why TNA NEEEEEEDS to step up, boost their ratings, move back to the 9 - 11 timeslot and give WWE competition so once again they will have no choice but to put on a good quality product. But sadly, that is far from happening.

 

[Vanderhook]

I'm sorry but I don't see why the product has to be dumbed down to appeal to kids. I remember the Attitude era and I LOVED it.. and I was a kid back then. I'm not saying resurrect the attitude era can't we have an edgy product AND appeal to kids?

 

[The Idiot]

So I'm sitting at work, working hard (or hardly working HAR HAR!), picking my own brain. I don't post that often, I make thread even less often. This one time though, I'm really curious to see what you guys think. Is there sense to my point or am I full of it? Obviously, you guys can move it if I posted it in the wrong place.

So here's what I think is the problem with wrestlers today (WWE Superstar specifically). I don't find them believable to be in the postions they're in. I'm somehow supposed to believe that guys like Cena, Orton and Batista are this generation's equivalent of The Rock or Stone Cold or Shawn Michaels. Those guys were true, household name, larger than life wrestlers. I feel like they were built properly and subsequentally booked properly. HHH, Kurt Angle etc... all fit this profile to me. Then guys like Cena came along.
I've been watching since 88/89ish. Hulk and Warrior and Macho Man were big when I started, I watched HBK and Bret Hart get built, then I watched Stone Cold, HHH and The Rock be built. When the latter came along, I felt there were believable to be on the level on Warrior, Hulk and Savage.
It feels like WWE forgot how to make real superstars. I think the problem is 3-fold:
1) Mic skills: Back in the 80s and 90s, they didn't script so much. Nowadays, everyone except the vets are scripted. It seems counter-productive. Reading sentence by sentence is a different world from adlibbing, even just a litte. It can make you seem robotic and boring. How can you expect a young wrestler to hone his mic skills when he has to worry so much about memorizing his lines? Plus, the dude is only going to be as clever and funny (or badass or whatever you're trying to go for) as the guy who wrote the script.
2) Booking style: I think the thing that stands out most for me is guys like Stone Cold and the Rock had WARS in that ring! The image of Stone Cold bleeding and passing out to the sharpshoot comes to mind. They were in classic matches that really made you feel like they were giving it all and leaving it in the ring and that they were really scratching and clawing their way to the top. Now it feels like I'm supposed to believe that after JBL defended his title against Kurt Angle, Guererro and Undertaker that Cena is supposed to be the man to dethrone him? Wow. I just feel like Cena didn't fight his way to the top, but he was fed with a silver spoon the entire time. Batista and Orton were handled a bit better, but this is the general view I have of this generation. Matches just lack emotion nowadays (with exceptions like HBK-Taker or HBK-Flair). Storytelling is gone because now matches are even scripted, you can't let the guys do what they want to do out there, especially if an undercarder outshines a main-eventer. OH the humanity! They just don't have wars in that ring anymore, except maybe at Wrestlemania and even then, only sometimes.
3) Creative team: So, remember all those classic moments? Remember when Kurt Angle drove a milk truck down and hosed down Vince and everyone in the ring with milk? Then started drinking milks Stone Cold style? Backstage skits of him playing guitar? Classic Kurt Angle moments? Yes and no. They were also classic CREATIVE moments. Remember, it was in the script for Angle to do those things. He pulled them off well of course, but he didn't come up with the idea. What happened to all these classic moments!? Those really help guys get over. Imagine if Punk drove a pepsi truck to ringside (when he was a face) and hosed everyone down. New? No. Still classic though! Why can't creative do things like this anymore? You can still keep it PG.

See, overall it's not even the wrestlers' fault, but the guys above him. Everything is so controlled and scripted nowadays, why won't anyone take a risk?

Thoughts?

Great post. One thing I think you're forgetting is how important the actual character is. Hogan and Warrior never had ANY wars and never really scratched and climbed their way to the top. Vince was looking for a super hero and he found it in Hulk Hogan. When time came for something a little different, something more energetic and crazy he brought the Warrior in. What happened then? In little over a year he was WWF champion.

Fast forward to today and you see the same thing with who you're talking about, John Cena. Vince is really looking out for the future of his company because he knows all of his stars have disappeared or only have a year or two left.

In the end it's all about how well the fans respond. Us old school wrestling fans appreciate a Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin who climbed their way to the top from the very bottom. Unfortunately, that's not the case with everyone...but that's what makes that era so special.