Youth Movements vs Established Veterans

[shattered dreams]

Among many things that perplex me about the IWC one stands out today. This idea that younger is blindly better and everyone established should be put out to pasture. Nevermind that practically every wrestler drew more later in their careers opposed to earlier. Nevermind that for years the industry has used veterans differently than they are now. Nevermind that young, in-ring talented, nobodies basically describes the old TNA as well as ROH (shows that never drew much of anything). Nevermind that Vince McMahon has an economic incentive to convince you these cheaper options are the better choice. Nevermind that the success rate on getting an unknown established is hit or miss and often time consuming.

You might like AJ now but is he going to get the Rey Mysterio treatment in a few years? I figure Rey would have been an IWC god back in the day but now everyone seems to put him down. Not all that much has changed except that he actually accomplished what people would want for an AJ. Is Samoa Joe just going to be a Rhyno in a few years? Bryan a Benjamin? Why does the IWC fall in love with potential but rebel against it once it is realized? If a company is always simply starting from scratch with new potential stars they never get to capitalize on the right side of the drawing cycle. Potential is great but potential doesn't draw a damn thing compared to realized potential.

It is additionally confusing when the IWC's biggest criteria for pushing up the card or pushing out of the company is in-ring ability, something we know is at best loosely tied to success with the audience. Characters and stories are what sells. It takes a while to establish a character. However, once the character becomes recognizable on a larger scale then it is basically over with those people forever.

To me it seems there is a certain inefficiency in such an approach as the IWC advocates. Thoughts?

 

[Remix]

Among many things that perplex me about the IWC one stands out today. This idea that younger is blindly better and everyone established should be put out to pasture. Nevermind that practically every wrestler drew more later in their careers opposed to earlier.

The Rock, Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan would like a word about is, as would Goldberg and Brock Lesnar. If guys are going to draw big with a lot of people, it won't take them a huge space of time to do so.

Nevermind that for years the industry has used veterans differently than they are now. Nevermind that young, in-ring talented, nobodies basically describes the old TNA as well as ROH (shows that never drew much of anything).

Vetrains who are losing their ability to go have their place. To put over the young guys so that they can get over and draw. They're not going to be there for long enough to build a long term plan around. The young guys will.

Nevermind that Vince McMahon has an economic incentive to convince you these cheaper options are the better choice. Nevermind that the success rate on getting an unknown established is hit or miss and often time consuming.

Depends on the tallent involved. Austin sure as hell didn't take long to become a superstar once he became Stone Cold. Nor did The Rock when he was given a mic and new gimmick.

You might like AJ now but is he going to get the Rey Mysterio treatment in a few years?

Not unless he becomes a draw.

I figure Rey would have been an IWC god back in the day but now everyone seems to put him down. Not all that much has changed except that he actually accomplished what people would want for an AJ. Is Samoa Joe just going to be a Rhyno in a few years? Bryan a Benjamin? Why does the IWC fall in love with potential but rebel against it once it is realized?

The IWC is a melting pot of differing opinions and idiots. If you do one thing some people will complain (and others will jump on the band wagon), if you do something else people willl complain (and others will jump on the bandwagon). We'll never be satisfied with anything. People would bitch if AJ wasn't pushed as a megastar or if he was.

If a company is always simply starting from scratch with new potential stars they never get to capitalize on the right side of the drawing cycle. Potential is great but potential doesn't draw a damn thing compared to realized potential.

Who said anything about starting from scratch? There does have to be a balance between guys who carry the company now, and the people who'll be carrying it ten years to 15 years from now. The vetrains won't be around forever, and you need to establish people who can replace them before they go. If not you end up with people who can't go in the main event while you've got guys who can go and have all the potential in the world being incredably misused.

It is additionally confusing when the IWC's biggest criteria for pushing up the card or pushing out of the company is in-ring ability, something we know is at best loosely tied to success with the audience. Characters and stories are what sells. It takes a while to establish a character. However, once the character becomes recognizable on a larger scale then it is basically over with those people forever.

I agree 100% with this paragraph.

 

[hatehabsforever]

It's really not that perplexing at all. You need a good combination, a healthy mix of both young up-and-comers and established veterans. If you go fully and completely with one or the other, you will either be in trouble now or in trouble later.

I think WWE, despite the OP's negative and biased opinion of such, is combining both very well. On one side of the coin, we have our established veterans in force. Taker, Orton, Cena, Mysterio, Kane, etc., along with a soon to be returning Triple H or Chris Jericho., as well as others. You have your mid-card presence, namely JoMo, Miz, DBD, Kingston, etc., And you have your newer talent. Nexus, Sheamus, and Del Rio to name a few. Does every fan love every member of each of these sub-groups? Of course not. But the end result is an established core of veterans in the main event, a selection of guys one tier below this who will be ready to step up soon as some of these others are phased out, and a group of new guys, some of whom will make it and some of whom will not.

In stark contrast, we have TNA's roster. I really do not intend this as a derogatory bash of TNA, but merely as an observation. We have a roster completely stogged with almost exclusively old guys. Hogan, Bischoff, Flair, Sting, Nash, EV2.0, Foley, Jarrett, and others. There are some guys in the main event who are not old, such as Hardy, Anderson, and Pope. They have a mid-card which is OK, but not a lot of development of guys who are ready to step up tio the main event, except for such guys as Styles or Joe who should already be there. And they're very thin in the new talent department.

On one side of the coin, we have the Nexus, with their group of guys consisting of one guy ready to main event, some guys ready for the mid-card, some guys who will likely remaon in the lower card or be enhancement talent, and a few guys who won't make it, a collection of guys who can interact with different levels of existing guys. As opposed to the Immortals who are all old. They won't/can't be around for too much longer, and I feel their departures will leave a huge void when they occur.

Now I know the marks are going to jump on these comments as a pro-WWE and anti-TNA tirade but that is not the intention. I just think you need both young talent and older talent to give a suitable blend to your programming.

 

[Calderownz]

Wrestling fans have fast-track minds And it hinders wrestling story lines in two ways.

1. Fans want the story to be out there and in the open as soon as possible. Otherwise, they claim that the story doesn't make sense. Then, when it's out there, they get pissed that it took too long or they were wrong and it's not how they would have done it. So, story lines have gone faster and that uses up new talent and young talent quicker.

2. The talent gets used quicker. Fans then begin to get tired of the talent and want the newer talent to take over, already.

It's unfortunate, but is often times the case.

More often than not, story lines are better, TV is better, PPV is better, with more drawn out story lines. But the IWC overall mentality is for quicker action in all types.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Ideally, it's always best to have a good mix of established veterans and young stars on the roster. However, there are always exceptions to be made.

In the WWE's case, they really waited longer than they should have when it comes to building and pushing younger wrestlers. As of this year, there are less established veterans on the WWE roster than at anytime I can remember. HBK & Batista are gone, Triple H is out injured and there's no word on when he'll return, The Undertaker is out with another injury and might even miss WrestleMania, Christian is out for 6 months due to a torn pectoral muscle, Kane, Mysterio & Edge will probably be gone within a few years so that leaves a big hole. Over on Raw, John Cena & Randy Orton are pretty much the old war horses and they're only in their early 30s. It's not as if the WWE has had many choices over the course of this year but to instigate a youth movement. They should have started a few years ago in my opinion but, now that they have, I've got no problems. One thing I read a LOT of when I started posting in WZ over a year and a half ago was that people were tired of seeing the same people in the same spots in the same matches all the time. They wanted to see some fresh blood injected into the product and that's what's happened. The timing hasn't been ideal overall, but it is what it is.

When it comes to TNA, they rely so much on established veterans that I have trouble identifying more than a very small number of stars that they've actually created. When I say stars, I mean people that can potentially be the faces of the company and carry it on. They've had a roster loaded down with big or well known names over the past few years like Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Ric Flair, Sting, Kevin Nash, Rob Van Dam, Kurt Angle, Ken Anderson, Scott Steiner, Booker T, Mick Foley & Jeff Jarrett. Generally speaking, even at this moment, TNA has more "big name" stars on their roster than the WWE but it hasn't done much good. A lot of these older stars have been put at the forefront of TNA and have used the younger talent to elevate them rather than the other way around. The veterans listed in TNA, with few exceptions, have either been stale and/or unable to perform at the high level that TNA needs. When veterans are unable to perform at a high level due to one thing or another, then it's most definitely time to step aside and use them to build up the next generation of talent. For example, since Immortal began, the centerpieces of the faction have been Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair & Eric Bischoff. Jeff Hardy has been mainly MIA since winning the championship and, even when he made his return last Thursday, he was overshadowed by the big three. If Hardy's not up to the task of being the "top heel" in the company, then he shouldn't be "top heel" of the company. In the Fortune faction, all the members of the group are overshadowed by Ric Flair. Flair is often depicted treating them like they're subordinates or green rookies or whatever and it sends a message that TNA prefers veterans over their young roster. When the current centerpiece of your company are three heels, two of which don't wrestle and one of which wrestles rarely, equal 160-170 years of age, I consider that to be a problem.

Younger doesn't automatically mean better by any means. But you can only rely on veterans inside the ring for so long. Eventually you simply have to elevate fresh talent to take their spots. As of right now, TNA doesn't have a reputation as a company that builds stars. It's not a slam against them, it's simply how it is. Virtually all of the stars in the company over the past several years have been wrestlers in their 40s and 50s that were made stars by the WWE and/or WCW.

 

[Dagger Dias]

It's not that people think the old guys need to leave, it's that they want to see new stars become established. In the argument of "Youth Movements VS Established Veterans" I fall in the middle but lean towards the younger guys. Why complain about how some guy has been in the business for 15+ years? How about enjoying the last leg of his career instead? There is also no reason to whine about how (insert random rookie here) needs a push. If he's good enough, he'll earn it when the time comes. How about we all just enjoy the matches we get to watch? Whether it's a match between two veterans, a veteran VS a rookie, or a rookie VS a rookie, we should be focusing on the matches and how much we can enjoy watching wrestling. We are wrestling fans, not promoters. Let them do their jobs. My thoughts in the end are that it shouldn't matter if it's youths or veterans because we as fans do not focus enough on watching and enjoying the shows instead of picking them apart by complaining about who is getting pushed. There should be a balance of some criticism and a lot more enjoyment by just watching the shows as fans. I try to do that myself.

 

[shattered dreams]

The need for a mix is obvious. The main question I am trying to solicit an answer for here is which way should that mix tilt ideally. I thought Hammer made a good analysis of the current WWE situation. What is interesting about it is he was clearly not trying to argue that a youth movement is better, simply that WWE had no other choices and this might possibly be due to questionable decisions in the preceding years. Like me, he seems to realize that WWE is uncharacteristically low on established veterans and that might not be a great thing. This is much different than the idea that youth movement is such an awesome development. Necessary? Likely yes. An example of a great business model? Not so much because it is a byproduct of being backed into a corner by prior previous questionable decisions. It is also interesting because what they were doing up until they had no other choice was relying on veterans and not pushing youth. When they are only changing the model with their backs against the wall I find it amusing that people buy into the new model as something special, or the "correct" approach, opposed to the one they only left because they had to.

The problem is familiarity. Across most entertainment mediums it is well known that the battle is getting people exposed to your product. That is an obvious problem TNA struggles with on a regular basis. They have talented wrestlers but contrary to popular belief the biggest problem is not that the stories are "bad," it is that no one knows who these guys are. On the radio the most likely reason someone is going to switch the station is not a bad song but an unknown one. I suspect this carries to many other sources of entertainment. You can only push so many guys into the main event at once. WWE has a real logjam there because they held back in prior years.

My problem is that so much of the undercard is then made up of guys that are both unfamiliar and essentially stalled. A relative unknown treading water in the midcard is not going to develop much of an audience and surely isn't drawing what a veteran could there from that established fanbase. Anywhere I look in an entertainment setting it is only a few of the best of the up and comers that get mixed in with a group of predominantly established entertainers, even if those are not as fresh as they once were. Quality is more important when you are trying to become established than after the fact. WWE failed to build when they needed to and now basically put in the rush order to fling as much shit at the wall as possible and see what sticks. In that process they discredited and pushed out some of that established veteran presence because they had to rush that imperfect science of building someone unestablished up. At some point that leaves WWE with guys that never had an audience and were not good enough to make it filling out key spots in the card.