|
It's like...yeah, you don't want anyone to lose their job. But at the same time, this is a business and the more guys you have saturating the main roster as just bodies, the more diluted the pot is for everybody.
One of the things that really startled me about the Attitude era WWF (again, shout-out to the SCG Radio guys who do an amazing job with their podcast), was just how few stars were there. It was literally just Austin for a while. And you had Vince, and Mankind got hot, and Undertaker was a good auxiliary player. Kane was functional. But the real "star" was Austin. That was it. Then The Rock came along and he started being a star too.
But it was Austin and Rock. I don't know why it took me so long to click onto that. I had this idea that...I don't even know what I thought. But anyway, those guys made everyone else more over because they were stars. Like, there's no real disputing that more people watched Crash Holly on television than Kevin Owens.
So, I guess what I am arguing for is a "trickle-down" effect in wrestling. That's the bright side to downsizing a roster and getting some focus back. Because you'd need to do that for wrestling to get hot again. You need that star -- that Hogan, Rock or Austin. No one else really matters. It's good to have solid hands, good promos, fun acts, etc. But outside that star everybody is expendable.
So, while I would feel sorry for guys in the immediate sense -- selfishly I want wrestling to be good again. And I think that most wrestlers would like it that way too. And we're so focused on "jobs for the boys" sometimes that I don't think we really appreciate how much more money everybody would be making if wrestling were hot.
And, at the end of the day, if you're the sort of talent that is only around because there are five shows a week with three unique rosters, then how likely is it that you are that star? How valuable is your work, really? That's why when people say "the brand split offers an opportunity to more stars," I kind of groan. Because if you're only good enough to be there to fill hour four or five, then maybe it's because you're not quite good enough to fill hours 1 and 2. And those are the hours I really give a shit about, because they are going to engage me as a fan.
I feel like an asshole saying it, but there are actually benefits for the talent too. It freshens them up. They can go and learn new tricks. They can develop on their own, without scripting, without having all their matches planned out. Time away has obviously helped many acts. It would be a bit nicer if there were a real alternative product though. Could you just imagine how much better used guys like Dolph Ziggler and Cesaro would have been by now if they had left and gotten to be Nick Nemeth and Claudio Castagnoli in a promotion that could also pay them $200,000 a year and give them national exposure. Is Bo Dallas getting more out of just standing around and being a fall guy for The Miz, or could he have used a fresh coat of paint and a chance to find himself elsewhere?
Wrestling needs competition and it needs stars. If The Rock could just start his own wrestling promotion, that would be great.
|