The New Generation of Jobbers

[klunderbunker]

Last night on Raw we saw both Miz and R-Truth getting destroyed by Big Show and Kane respectfully in a combined 1:53 of action. This right here shows one of the major problems with WWE: there is no such thing as a proper jobber anymore.

WWE has a roster with more people on it than they could ever hope to have stories and actual characters for. They have an unthinkable six hours of TV a week, and the people they use as jobbers are a guy that was won the world title match at Wrestlemania last year and a guy who was in a PPV world title match less than three weeks ago.

Why? Was there NO ONE else available to take these losses? You have any of the following to choose from: Hawkins, Reks, Usos, Bateman, Curtis, O'Neil, Young, Tatsu, Barretta, Kidd, Riley, JTG, all of FCW and a TON of others that probably are never on TV at all. But instead, you have R-Truth and Miz, two guys that could be used as high level guys getting crushed in under two minutes each totally clean.

What good does this do? Are you that worried about a few people changing the channel? Do you have to have top names against each other every five seconds? Is that how spoiled the audience has gotten? These people are all under contract to you so it's not like it costs a ton of money to put them out there. You have a huge roster. USE IT ALREADY!

 

[Saeros]

Because its a much more credible win for the person getting the victory. I mean which victory is bigger. Beating The Miz or beating Curt Hawkins...

Its meant to build their momentum heading into Wrestlemania

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

It doesn't matter to me what victory is bigger. It's the Big Show we're talking about. I've seen him beat the best of the best so I'm not going to look at him any different if he was beating up on Curt Hawkins.

The midcard could be really strong right now but all their top guys are sacrificed to the main eventers so it gets weaker and weaker. That's why you have the Reks and the JTG's of the world. It won't affect them if they lose. It will affect the wrestlers who are in a higher position than them.

 

[The_Sharpshooter]

People that paid to see Raw last night barely have anything to go home with other than they watched Cena/Rock do the weirdest staredown of recent memory. Now think about if people came out there to see Miz or Truth. Better to see them lose than to have to watch Hawkins or Reks on the main show.

Its Wrestlemania time. I'm going to the Atl show before Wrestlemania with my lady and I told her "be warned. We MAY get ONE match that night and it'll probably be between two wrestlers you've never heard of. But at least you get to see the Rock!" Thats all she needed to hear.

No one wants to see jobbers. I'm expecting more slow nights, in ring wise, as Wrestlemania approaches. But being on Raw jobbing to whoever still guarantees that Wrestlemania check, so hopefully Miz & Truth act accordingly.

 

[mrfantastic111]

Because its a much more credible win for the person getting the victory. I mean which victory is bigger. Beating The Miz or beating Curt Hawkins...

Its meant to build their momentum heading into Wrestlemania

How much more credible do Kane and Big Show have to be? Do you believe that Big Show cannot put up a challenge against the likes of Cody Rhodes? Do you need convincing? The guys are HUGE, they don't even need to fight and you can already tell that they're packing heat.

Sure, it might help sustain Kane and Big Show's strong image heading into Wrestlemania, but it severely makes Miz and Truth look WEAK going into Wrestlemania. The whole card should look strong, hence why they're at the biggest event in pro-wrestling. Wrestlemania is like a gourmet dish at a restaurant - you have to treat every ingredient well so that together it works. If I'm paying lots of money to order a good steak as a main course, I at least want my vegetables to be cooked nicely too! What I'm saying is, don't just make 4 or so good matches and expect people to give the PPV a pass; make the whole damn show feel important!

I've noticed over the last few years that you constantly have main-eventers or big stars jobbing to each other. It makes RAW interesting, but then you end up losing all of these huge opportunities for great matches in the future because we've already seen them. For example, Punk vs. Cena was a great angle last year, but in the back of my mind it was kinda spoiled because I had seen Punk (Back when he was a three-time world champion) job to Cena in less then a minute on RAW a few years ago. I think that jobbers should be ACTUAL jobbers; save the top stars to face each other on more rare occasions - it makes their confrontations way more special.

 

[PlayTheGame]

Last night on Raw we saw both Miz and R-Truth getting destroyed by Big Show and Kane respectfully in a combined 1:53 of action. This right here shows one of the major problems with WWE: there is no such thing as a proper jobber anymore.

WWE has a roster with more people on it than they could ever hope to have stories and actual characters for. They have an unthinkable six hours of TV a week, and the people they use as jobbers are a guy that was won the world title match at Wrestlemania last year and a guy who was in a PPV world title match less than three weeks ago.

Why? Was there NO ONE else available to take these losses? You have any of the following to choose from: Hawkins, Reks, Usos, Bateman, Curtis, O'Neil, Young, Tatsu, Barretta, Kidd, Riley, JTG, all of FCW and a TON of others that probably are never on TV at all. But instead, you have R-Truth and Miz, two guys that could be used as high level guys getting crushed in under two minutes each totally clean.

What good does this do? Are you that worried about a few people changing the channel? Do you have to have top names against each other every five seconds? Is that how spoiled the audience has gotten? These people are all under contract to you so it's not like it costs a ton of money to put them out there. You have a huge roster. USE IT ALREADY!

I thought the same thing after both of these squashes happened. However, while I agree with your overall premise, I think these two matches in particular are forgivable. For one, I think both Big Show and Kane did in fact need big wins going into 'Mania. Kane just got decisively handled by Cena in the Ambulance Match, and Big Show got beat out by that little pesky twerp Daniel Bryan. Both needed to remind us of their monster-selves, and they did just that. Since we're on the road to 'Mania, desperate times call for desparate measures, yadda yadda yadda. They needed to get a lot of cred quick, so they went over Miz & R-Truth. In context, I can forgive this.

However, it would have been nice if the matches could've gone at least 5-7 minutes to let the other guys get some offense in, but that's obviously where Raw's time constraints kick in. I agree with your point, I just think that if any situation deserves a pass, it's this one.

 

[Loveless]

Jobbing out a former world champion in 30 seconds, who on earth thought that was a good idea. Is the benefit to Big Show greater than the damage done to The Miz? In my opinion no.
Going back to that first question, think about it happening in another era. Take a WWE champion and then imagine them losing clean in 30 seconds to further a midcard feud. The logic is fucked.

 

[gh88us]

steve lombardi, barry horowitz, 123 kid, sd jones, JYD, etc. the WWE is needing to put young faces on TV, even if they get beat on a regular basis, to give them exposure. PPV's are not special anymore. If you tune in the night after, you will see the same matches that you didn't have to pay 50 bucks for. I've been watching wrestling since the early 80's, WWF, AWA, NWA, Chicagoland, WCCW, Mid-South, all the time you had your big names come in and dominate a younger buck, and during the show maybe one or two big stars would face off. Then is was really special at a PPV to have the stars go at it. 123 Kid(x-pac) is a prime example of what a jobber can be made into.

 

[The Voice]

Because WWE needs to use all their top stars. The Miz vs Big Show and R-Truth vs Kane are much more likely to get ratings than Big Show vs Eric Young and Kane vs Ted DiBiase Jr. This is RAW not Superstars, or Friday night Heat as i remember it.

Miz seems to have done something to piss off Vince McMahon or somebody else in high power because he has gone from being one of the top guys to being someone who would probably lose to Zach Ryder in a 1-on-1 clean match.

What they need to do is re-unite Awesome Truth. Those two superstars need it and WWE needs another great and exciting tag team. I'd give Awesome truth the tag titles and have the hold it for however long it takes to get the tag division up and running again. Even if it is a year.

 

[The_Main_Event]

This is my first time posting but I saw this and I 100% agree.

How the hell can we be expected to take the likes of Miz and Truth serious if they ever get back to main event status? Like the above said they should limit the amount of matches "top stars" face off against each other it just does nothing for anybody in the long run.

Another thing I hate is the tag-team matches put together like last night (Punk/Sheamus vs Bryan/Y2J) what is the need for it? it didn't really further any of these matches going into WM.

 

[crickett0137]

I find this a very interesting topic as far as jobbers go...I believe that WWE is wasting a lot of time and money on pushing the top rated super stars and not the stars that you see every once in awhile. For example: what happened to Mason Ryan or Alex Riley, just to name a couple, that was having great story lines with the company and then...woosh they are gone!!! I do see the need to push the top matches @ Wrestlemania because it is the grandest stage of them all...but Vince come on man your wasting your losing out on alot of great talent that is back in the back and not out front where we should be seeing more of them....I can remember back in the day where there was more action and alot less talking...now more talking and alot less action...yes push the super stars...but also realize...they are super stars and know how to raise the bar...

 

[TempestH]

Miz jobbing at least is an actual storyline of sorts, but what happened to R-Truth was unforgivable. Alex Riley or Ted DiBiase are over with the crowd and one of them could've easily been used in that match against Kane.

 

[d3thRoW]

Totally agree here. Getting squashed in under a minute is a bit harsh for a former world champion, regardless of his current situation, Miz deserves better than that. At least Show going over in a longer, more hard fought match might have helped them both. If you feel like you need him on the show somehow, a backstage segment would be enough, but it would be better to keep him off TV that week if you didn't have anything better for him to do...

 

[Champ1432]

They probably wanted to get Truth and Miz on TV somehow and figured this was the only way to do it. I guess they figure getting squashed is better than not being seen at all.

It seems to be the way things are in WWE now. There are no out and out jobbers, at least as far as the main shows go. Sure, you'll see guys like Reks, Riley, Barretta or whomever on Superstars getting the crap beat out of them. But these days, a "Superstars jobber" and a "Raw or Smackdown jobber" seem to be different. A superstars jobber is closer to a real or "traditional" jobber. Usually they are the younger guys not many people have heard of. But it seems pretty much anyone except the very top tier of guys could potentially be Raw or Smackdown jobbers. As the OP said, Miz was main eventing WM just one year ago. Quite a precipitous fall. R-Truth was in a PPV title match recently. Mark Henry was World Champion recently and as popular as he'd ever been in over a decade. He's been jobbing lately as well. Granted, jobbing to the Big Show, and that situation is probably related to his contract issue and injury as well. It seems though, if your name isn't Cena, Punk, Orton, Jericho or Sheamus, you could be jobbing sometime soon. I could honestly even see Bryan have a little jobbing stretch after he loses his title, if they can't find something else to do with his character.

As to why they do it, could be a few reasons. I think as I said before, they want to keep these people in viewers' minds. I think in their reasoning, losing, even losing bad, isn't as bad as being absent totally.

There is also the issue of putting "real" jobbers on your main TV program. I think a lot of viewers would complain if we saw guys Reks and Barretta on Raw and Smackdown, even if it's just for a 60 second match, over guys like Truth and Miz. There would be a lot of griping on these forums and in general about using D level talent on TV over B level talent. Not saying McMahon cares what goes on in internet forums, but it seems the writers may have that opinion, too. Who's to say?

The issue with Miz may also be deeper. I don't know if he's still being punished for recent events, but he's really had a rough go of it lately. I've never been a Miz fan, but even I feel a little sorry for him right now. A little........

 

[Nada]

Let me say this: External competition in wrestling is good, having another company trying to better you will automatically make the bookers book all of their guys, even the lowest on the totem pole to look good. This is what you saw in the 80s and 90s in WWF/E.
There was pride involved and you wanted your talent to be the best talent.

Today that competition is internal, and its very bad for the company and talent. As they are more concerened with "giving a lesson" to wrestlers who date certain women, act certain way or lean on someones jacket. The top guys want to stay top and everyone else is given 1 month jo-jo like pushes, then sent back to the dog house.

A company that is infested with massive egos who cannot simply take the responsibility when one of their PPVs does badly, has to blame someone! I mean its not Vinces or Stephanies fault, how can it possible be!?

Miz and Truth are just casualities in todays wrestling, not like they are the only ones who WWE has chewed up and spat out. In any other era both would have been stars but in the era where lashing out at your own talent is the prefered way to "solve problems", which dosent solve anything. The same mistakes will be made next time again.

 

[sephx42]

While we're on the subject, why have we exhausted all of the main eventers by 10PM? I mean, main event is supposed to be the last match of the night, and instead we get a Kane squash and 20 minutes of Cena and Rock having a pissing contest on the mic?

I get the tag match, it makes good sense to hype. What doesn't make sense is 2 commercial breaks in the middle of it, while Rock/Cena goes on and on uninterrupted. Remember when you saw Stone Cold at the top of the show, and waited ALL NIGHT to see what he was going to do in the ring? Days seem long gone. I can't even remember the last time I saw the World Champ after 10PM.

 

[Radical Canadian Goose]

You are totally right. I was quite upset to see the Miz lose to Show so quickly and then I was fuming when Rtruth got decimated by Kane.... Personally I think if you are going to feed people to these monsters then they should have made it Show vs tyler reks and Kane vs Mason Ryan. And although I agree with you about several jobbers on the roster, I think that you should have left guys like Titus Young and the entire FCW roster off of the list. They haven't even made an appearance on the big show yet, so it's not fair that their first appearance is a "job to one of these monsters

 

[DirtyD79]

Totally agree here. Getting squashed in under a minute is a bit harsh for a former world champion, regardless of his current situation, Miz deserves better than that. At least Show going over in a longer, more hard fought match might have helped them both. If you feel like you need him on the show somehow, a backstage segment would be enough, but it would be better to keep him off TV that week if you didn't have anything better for him to do...

Beating a former world champion should mean something. It should mean you beat somebody who is one of the best in the company. How does somebody look like one of the best in the company when they get flattened in under a minute?

 

[Beer Money]

See this is what I do not understand with this. Kane and Big Show are in there 40's and yet they are going put over in there prime superstars like The Miz. I think WWE has gone the wrong way in regards to The Miz as this guy last year was piggy backing the WWE into Wrestlemania. I think its going to be quite difficult for Miz to reach the level he did last year now that he has been given a poor 2011/2012 as of late.