Wrestler's Comebacks And Debuts.....How Should They Be Done?

[Mitch Henessey]

Anytime a wrestler makes a comeback, it can always be a huge moment. When Triple H returned from his first quad injury in 2002, he got a massive reaction at MSG, and went on to have pretty nice run as a face before his feud with Shawn Michaels. Both of Triple H's returns from major injuries were built up in a big way, and both his return runs were pretty successful. Also, John Cena's return at Survivor Series 2008 was done with a huge build up. After being out for a while with a neck injury, Cena's return was promoted in a big way with video packages.

A wrestler's return from injury or a long hiatus can also be done as a complete surprise. Most recently, Edge made a shocking return at this year's Royal Rumble as the #29 entrant. Edge got a huge pop, and went on to win the Rumble. Edge has been doing pretty well so far. He had a very good match with Jericho at Wrestlemania, and he has become a face now. When a wrestler makes a surprise return, you always have the shock factor. The wrestler will most likely get an insane reaction from the crowd, and there's sure to be a buzz even after the return.

As far as a wrestler's comeback/return goes, I believe a HUGE build up is the best way to go about it.Show tons of vignettes, and promote the wrestler as much as you can. Let the fans know the wrestler is coming back. Make them anticipate their return. If you constantly build up a wrestler's return, then the fans will be so anxious to see them come back, and return to their glory days. A surprise is always nice, but besides the insane pop, what else will the wrestler receive from the fans? There's a chance the buzz can die down quick, and the wrestler might become lost in the shuffle, but if you build their return in a huge way, then the fans will only want to see more of them because they know what they've been missing.

First of all, let me clarify the debut part of this thread. When I say debut in this thread, I'm talking about wrestlers debuting for another company such as TNA or WWE. Examples of this would be Kurt Angle's debut for TNA, and Hulk Hogan's debut for WCW. I'm NOT talking about wrestler's debuting from the indies or FCW because that would be a whole different discussion.

First impressions are always important, that's why a wrestler's debut can be crucial. Again, this can be done as complete surprise or it can be done with a huge build up. Now a days, when a wrestler debuts with another company(WWE or TNA) it's usually kept a secret. If the wrestler is a big name such as RVD of Jeff Hardy, then the shock factor will be doubled win the make their debuts. The fans already know their track records, and the fact they're in another promotion just adds more shock to their debut.

Although surprises are nice, I again believe a huge build is the best way to go when a wrestler makes their debut. A huge build makes the fans want to see the wrestler that much more, and the anticipation will make them even more excited. Let the fans know who the wrestler is just in case some people don't know who they are or because they've forgotten who they are. Unless the wrestler is a big name, a surprise might not be a good idea because a lot of fans might not know who the person is, and their debut can become a huge failure.

What are your thoughts on how a wrestler's debut or comeback should be done?

Surprise or a huge build up?

 

[LitasRevenge79]

I agree. There's a certain way to go about building them up. you can do it with a repackaging, or to show the road back. Or just shock the hell outta people like Cena did at the Royal Rumble that one year. But with the internet, I think it gets harder and harder to do that. Like, take Christian's return. According to the internet, it was WIDELY speculated he was the person sabotaging J.Hardy and that was what it was most likely to be. Then you see every entrant come in 1 through 30 and then we see Cena show up and we're like Where is Captain Charisma? We just saw Matt betray Jeff, what is up? Then you see him out of the blue during a regular airing on ECW.

I think its a double edged sword how to build up a comeback. Especially when its someone who can be so 50-50. Then when you hope for it to be a surprise, and you see signs for the 'surprise person' in the arena, and the atmosphere is already kinda what's the point? But in terms of the buzz, I do believe there should be a buzz around that person, there was a reason for the build up, because that person was./is anticipated and was THE breath of fresh air it was lacking after some time.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

Yes, the internet does make it hard to keep comebacks or debuts a complete surprise these days. Sure we might not know the EXACT date when a wrestler is suppose to return, but still, we know the wrestler is going to return soon enough, so it takes away some of the shock factor. That's one of the reasons why I believe a huge build is the way to go when it comes to a comeback or debut.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Shocking debuts/returns have the potential to make a bigger impact.... but it's better to rely on huge buildups with a lot of video promos because the internet spoils too much these days. By showing a lot of video promos it begins to increase the anticipation to see the wrestler show up onscreen. Then he finally does, it gets a huge reaction from the crowd. The internet is going to ruin nearly every "surprise" debut/return, so it's better to use that to their advantage by hyping up the return as best they can. It isn't entirely the online community's fault for ruining the "surprises" though. Cena's return at the Rumble was very shocking. The federations need to keep debuts/returns as secretive as that one. So some of the blame lies there. Unless that issue is dealt with, it's better to hype up a return/debut with a huge buildup. This leads to a huge reaction from the fans who can't wait any longer. That's a better option since you eventually reach the point where people are so impatient that they will pay money just to see the return/debut of the wrestler. Fans get an awesome moment, and the federation makes more money. Everyone wins.

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

Somethings are best kept a secret. Cena returning at the Rumble in 08' was a huge suprise that no one saw coming . Sometimes weeks of build can helpt hough. Remember when Vader was being built up for his debut and all those vignettes appeared? Or how about Chris Jericho's initial debut witht he Millenium Clock? Or even the return of Y2J? Those code vignette's had everyone talking. It works both ways. If you want to keep things a secret then a suprise is obviously the better way to do it but if you want major hype around a returing or debuting superstar then months of build should pay off.

 

[Ferbian]

I believe a build-up could prove to be the better move for business, seeing as you mentioned quite a few times, there were build ups to a lot of returns from injury or hiatus' such as John Cena and Chris Jericho, which proved to be quite successful.

Promoting stuff for a return puts the crowd into an anticipating "mode" where they will most likely tune in to watch the episode, purchase the pay per view etc. as opposed to lets say someone making a surprise return at Royal Rumble like Edge did, people didn't know Edge was returning, Royal Rumble is like the only pay per view that suits a proper surprise return, but think about it, had people known someone big was returning at Royal Rumble, wouldn't that have caused for more pay per view buys perhaps?

While promoting stuff can prove to be a climax killer for some of the die hard fans that follow everything anyway, but on the other hand, a surprise return can prove to be less of a raise in the business section because how are you supposed to know "oh hell I better buy this pay per view, ... is returning" or "I better tune in to watch RAW because ... is returning"

Same really goes for superstars of drawing power, I believe TNA promoted Kurt Angle going to TNA, that was a good move, rather than the regular Kurt Angle fans that didn't know of a return, were watching something else as opposed to watching TNA when Kurt made a debut.
Drawing superstars should always be promoted, hell I feel that the better returns are those that are promoted (while Triple H's 2002 return is a obvious exception to this, cause I don't believe that was promoted.. I could be wrong)
But that doesn't mean I'm against a surprise return, not at all, and it works to some degree, I mean what's to stop someone from doing a run-in return cause ...'s former tag team partner or what not is being attacked by ...'s soon to be feuding rival.

 

[LUFC HBK]

I see one or two of these replies talking about how it would affect the business. I dont care about the business side of it I'm a fan and a fan only. I want those shock returns with the massive pops.
Cena's return at the Royal Rumble 08 is the perfect example of this. At the time I wasnt a massive Cena fan but I completely marked out when he cam back because I wasnt expecting it.
When Jericho came back, sure I was excited, but imagine if he had come out of nowhere during a No. 1 contenders match or running in and taking out the top heel at the time (Orton I believe.) Had he come back completely out of the blue and the WWE not have made it so obvious I from a fans perspective would have enjoyed it 10 times better.
Cool Thread

 

[Dagger Dias]

I see one or two of these replies talking about how it would affect the business. I dont care about the business side of it I'm a fan and a fan only. I want those shock returns with the massive pops.

Why don't you care about the business side of it? I understand the "fan only" mentality, I was that way for a while. However, if you truly care about an organization such as WWE or TNA then showing interest in the business side of things is just one more factor that can be added to your fandom, making you a bigger fan of the federation.

Cena's return at the Royal Rumble 08 is the perfect example of this. At the time I wasnt a massive Cena fan but I completely marked out when he cam back because I wasnt expecting it.

That was one of very few times lately when WWE has successfully kept a return/debut secret. Someone inevitably spoils it, the websites find out, and thus we as regular visitors to Wrestlezone get it spoiled too. Cena's return being as shocking (and awesome!) as it was, is a rarity these days.

When Jericho came back, sure I was excited, but imagine if he had come out of nowhere during a No. 1 contenders match or running in and taking out the top heel at the time (Orton I believe.) Had he come back completely out of the blue and the WWE not have made it so obvious I from a fans perspective would have enjoyed it 10 times better.

I disagree with this part. We kept seeing all those blue screens of codes. New fans had no idea what this was supposed to be. Older fans knew it was Jericho. Anticipation was built for both types of fans. The newer fans HAD to know what those strange codes were, while us older fans wanted to see what Jericho would do when he returned. Then he finally made his comeback by attacking the guy who was running with Orton's torch, and cut an epic promo. I found that return to be much better than running in on one of Orton's matches could have been at the time.

Jericho's return is actually a perfect example for this thread's discussion. The anticipation of his return (or findind out what the codes were, for new fans) had reached the point where we would do nearly anything to get answers. That's why his return was so great. His return had been spoiled anyhow, and WWE hyped it up as best they could. That made it better. Running in on a match wouldn't have done justice to Jericho's return. It should have happened the way it did because I felt that was done even better than any kind of "surprise" return could have gone, at least for that particular scenario.

So.... in these days of online spoilers floating around everywhere, hyped up returns/debuts are better because then the spoilers ruining the surprise is canceled out by all the hyping, which leads to everyone marking out when the wrestler finally shows up onscreen.

 

[Ferbian]

I see one or two of these replies talking about how it would affect the business. I dont care about the business side of it I'm a fan and a fan only. I want those shock returns with the massive pops.

There's one problem about that, as in what I mentioned, what would you do if you forgot to purchase the pay per view that X wrestler returned at? then you would've missed it anyway and wouldn't have been able to experience the massive pop of it until the next day (depending on if you watch it live, stream etc.)

And to the Chris Jericho part of it, I would've much rather seen the promo he did than a run in, Chris Jericho's return and debut was handled the same way, people knew who this guy was when the stuff started running, and that was absolutely awesome, I must admit I wasn't watching wrestling at that time, but if I had I would've been absolutely ecstatic from the pure hype of it

 

[LitasRevenge79]

I'm going to agree with the Ferb-master on this. What would the point of all those crypty-codes been back in '07 for Jericho have been only to have him run into a match and leave it at that? It would've been a big let down business wise, for him not to come back and start off the way he did when he first debuted back in '99 with his 'grand' speech when he interrupted The Rock. It only made sense to make it something as main event like Randy Orton's big moment that night. It would be something people would remember, those witty comebacks he was famous for when he first showed up back in '99. Sure enough it did just that as they'd hoped.