Quote:
|
Originally Posted by The CyNick
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.
|
Sorry for waiting so long to reply to this, but I kinda lost track of it. Anyway, I was talking more storyline wise when I was talking about him "working his way up". Sure, Hogan went the fast route, but he's Hogan. Hulk Hogan is, like him, hate him, can't stand him, or whatever, most certainly one of a kind (and no, I don't mean he's Rob Van Dam
).
You mention Austin, and you MAY have somewhat of a point, but Austin DID lose to guys like Savio Vega and stuff in '96 and then of course Bret, and in the five on five match, Owen pinned him. It's not as though Kurt were being pinned by everyone and his brother. He lost a tag match here or there, or a triple threat match. He won two titles, and was never pinned or made to submit for either. He then went on to win the big one...doing it by starting at the bottom, working to the European Title, working to the Intercontinental Title, winning King of the Ring, and then and only then, getting into the World Title picture.
Granted, having him hold the title from just October to February was kinda lame, but they wanted to do Austin Rock for the second time at Mania, so there's not much to be done there.