Who has the better career

[Mr. TM]

I saw something similar in regards to baseball, and it got me thinking about what makes a good career. Would you rather be a:

A Wrestler who wrestlers for 10 years for one promotion and for 300 nights a year, he wrestles 3000 incredible four start matches or better. He puts up amazing performance at a house shows for 100 people, and he puts up the same great performance for 50,000 at a main pay per view. Always increasing his skill, he continues to get better. There is only one problem. He has never won a match in his life, going 0-3000.

Or would you rather be a wrestler who is pushed to the moon, winning 3000 matches, while wrestling the same length career as his counterpart. throughout that time, he wins multiple world titles, but for every title he wins, he injures twice as many wrestlers, ending their career's with botched moves after horrendous botched move. That is not all, those 5 minute matches he puts on at pay per views, are twice as long as he would ever do at a house show.

So who has the better career? An excellent star who is a career jobber, or the guy who is pushed to the stars and has little to no talent?


I would unfortunately probably pick the botchtastic wrestler, because like most wrestling fans, I remember title wins, and main events. A guy might have incredible work, but if he is wrestling dark matches and curtain jerking, I may think hes great, but never think anything of it.

 

[Fuel The Fire]

good post. I would rather be the "loser" of the two their because i dont want to have to retire and having that on my shoulders on how i would have taken everyone out of the business. I would get a heck of alot of my respect buy more people back stage. after i would retire people would see that i would have good matches in the end. just like hbk and undertaker at wm. ya hbk lost but i think that is the best wrestlemania match ever and will hbk be remembered in that match..hell yeah!

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Absolutely the jobber. The big differenc between the choices here, and the baseball thread, is that Baseball is legit competition, while Pro Wrestling is merely a preformance. If you truly get all hyped on your own title "wins" and "accolades" then your a fucking moron. er, hello? its not real. What IS real is the safety and well being of your fellow preformers, and the fun of entertaining a crowd for more than 5 minutes a night. My goals, were I ever to be a wrestler, would be to travel, earn money, and protect my fellow wrestlers. "winning" is about as dumb of a goal as you can set in pro wrestling.

 

[Checkmate]

Great post, and great concept.

As NorCal stated, this doesn't translate over as well from baseball as you'd like. However, it is a good idea to think about.

In the situation provided, the career jobber definately would have a better aura about him in the eyes of wrestling fans. Sure, he would never have won, a situation that normally would drop him from the radar, but your circumstances, he has a long and sucessful career anyway. In this business, being sucessful isn't about 'winning' but entertaining.

I'll cite a different example than the HBK/Taker match, and that is the famous Bret Hart/Austin match at Wrestlemania 13. Many consider this match a pivotal point in Austin's career, that slingshot'd him up the ladder even faster than he was going. The key: he lost that match. If one of the biggest victories of one of the best careers can come from a loss, than wins and losses don't matter as much as in baseball.

I'd also cite Hogan and the Warrior's match from Wrestlemania 6, as the post match moments really solidified Hogan as 'THE' face of the business, win, lose, or draw. Again, he lost that match.

However, I do believe that there is room to greatly expand upon this topic. I could probably think of a million different circumstances, and may be posting back here sooner rather than later. Until then, I doubt anyone will have any problem thinking up something new.

 

[HBK-aholic]

Definately the person who puts on the great matches and doesn't injure your opponent. It's by far the most important thing - in wrestling, like a lot of sports, you have to completely trust your opponent, as this is your career, and life, you're putting in their hands. I would never want to be the person who endangered a life or ended a career simply because I wasn't a good wrestler. The biggest talent of all would be being able to have a great match with an opponent; title reigns mean nothing.

 

[Razor]

It wouldn't be worth it to win all of those titles and injure your fellow workers. Sure, I'd be rolling in the money from all those Main Event PPV paydays, but for the amount of money I've received I've put hundreds of people out of work. Meh, probably the Liberal in me talking.

The career jobber is the better choice simply because he's not injuring so many people. That, and enhancement talent has a very important purpose. How else are those main eventers going to be there if they don't have someone there to beat? Kane is doing just fine right now, and he's been a glorified jobber for years now.

I'd love to be the glorified jobber. I'm going out, on TV, and helping the company that gives me my paycheck. Not only that, but if the dude who beats me takes his push and runs with it, I've just set up my fellow worker for an extraordinary career/life. Totally, totally worth it.

 

[Henry Hill]

if we're talking about who would be remembered more? than you have to say the guy who gets the pushes. who would likely be more respected? the jobber. if you're a guy who can have a five star match with anyone though, i'd think that you'd end up getting some kind of push, albeit likely a smaller one. on a professional level i'd like to have the recognition for a good career but i'd rather have it as someone who worked hard and put on a good show as a jobber than a huge star who injured people and performed lazily on "weaker" cards.