Quote:
Originally Posted by Innovator
GQ: You've talked a lot about your treatment within the WWE and the way the company generally runs. How could it be done better?
C.M. Punk: A lot of the people who are in charge—and this isn't a negative thing—are old. They have a wealth of experience, yes, but there's no youth that's involved in anything. The youngest people there are all performers. I don't envy their job, trying to get inside somebody's head and figure out who they are and what their character is. It's a nerve-racking thing when you first get there. If you're like me, this was your dream job; you worked 13 years to get to where you are. The normal course of action is mouth shut, eyes and ears open, not stepping on toes. But that's how you get ahead. A squeaky wheel gets the grease. If something sucks, I've always been completely vocal about it, and I've been punished many, many times because of that. But I don't think I'd be in the spot I'm in right now if I wasn't me. I've always just been me. I don't think we should be looking externally for talent; there's plenty of guys and girls in house that are super-talented that we don't do enough with. A guy like Evan Bourne, who's a fantastic high-flyer, does the most fantastic stuff on the roster. I could go on: Kofi Kingston, Dolph Ziggler, Beth Phoenix. There's Nattie Neidhart, Tyson Kidd. Tyson Kidd is a fantastic wrestler, maybe not the greatest promo. So let's help him. Let's teach him to get better instead of signing someone from Europe who failed at Euro football. I could talk about this forever. Part of it is that there's no territories; there's no place for people to learn. And the places that people can learn aren't the best, and they're completely looked down upon. Like independent wrestling. It's easy to shit on people from a great height, but it's another thing to pull them aside and try to impart knowledge. And I've been on the other side of the coin where I try to help somebody out and they blow me off like they know everything.
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I wonder if this is actually something Vince worries about as well since the future plans is to hand the company off to Steph and Triple H but at the same time they won't have their own group they can develop and need to rely on an ever-growing older base for experience. It would give them instant experience but at the same time lacks fresh ideas or stuck in the old-style for wrestling.
Triple H already copied one thing from Vince with the idea of only having 1 masked wrestler to sell masks and pander to the Lucha or Hispanic markets instead of having a few masked wrestlers as insurance in case one gets hurt like Mysterio did a lot recently.
TNA also has the exact same problem so its not just a WWE issue with them only relying on both older wrestlers and management/writers for experience.