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Originally Posted by Pepsi Man
It helps get pro wrestling over. It says just because you freestyle doesn't automatically mean anything in pro wrestling. It maybe opened some doors for Kurt, but ultimately he had to work his way up in the WWF just like anyone else. Builds character too, in my opinion.
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The way I see it, if a guy say dominates in boxing at the Olympic level (like a Lennox Lewis did with Canada) that guy should get a huge ush when he truns pro. If he is successful he will win championships and possibly dominate like he did in the Olympics. With Kurt, it was clear almost from day one that he had a bright future in the business. So why not use his past success as a means to get himself and the company over in the mainstream media. I'm not saying they should go back to pretending its all real, but Kurt is a very media friendly character, and he could have been used to put over the fact that it takes a very good athlete to make it in the WWE.
Also, the concept of 'working your way up' is a flawed concept when it comes to pro wrestling. I've used this example before, but when Hulk Hogan was given his push when he returned to the WWF in the 80s he was pushed right to the top, he wasn't forced to 'pay any dues' or anything crazy like that. The WWF realized he had potential and they did all they could to make him a star and it worked. Even if you look at Austin, and when they decided to push him in mid 96, he did very few JOBs. The only times he really lost were to Bret, and those matches were laid out to make Steve a star, so it didn't hurt him. If you contrast that to how guys are pushed today (with 50-50 booking and paying dues) one can see why a money draing star hasn't been created in the past 4 years. Even with Hunter he had the benefit of a Mick foley to make him a star, whereas a guy like Angle doesn't even have that, so the question remains how do you become a money drawing star?
IMO the WWE had a ready made angle with Kurt, where he's the Olympic champ in wrestling and as a result nobody should be able to beat him. The whole deal with him being an arrogant heel was a goood idea IMO (given the climate of wrestling fans in 1999), but where they dropped the ball was not having him dominate. It seemed so simple to make him be dominant, win the title, and then have one of the top babyfaces (ie Austin, Rock, or even someone new) chase him down and win the title, thus giving the person that finally beat him a huge rub.