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Shawn Michaels could've had a championship run as The Assman. Kosmo Kramer too.
I resent that the WWE needs someone to be "the guy"
- Thread starter skysolo
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They really should've given JBL the Beaver Cleavage gimmick. #Russobless
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Cena's wigga gimmick was fuckin money.
Yep, not a shit gimmick to be found
Not as Rocky Maivia.. TS is right
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Yes, but his Rock persona was largely his idea. So, he got himself over.
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But he can't do it all himself. The Rock was treated like a star by the announcers, he won his matches, he got time to cut his promos. They let the Rock develop his character. And the company was behind him.
Don't use the Rock as an example to saying whatever you are saying. Use someone like Bryan Danielson (who the WWE wasn't behind). Use someone like CM Punk.
My point is the WWE tried with the Rock, they tried with Tri. How about putting the same effort into more than one guy? Put the same effort into Ambrose and Cesaro and see what happens.
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I'm not against people being pushed man. But, that doesn't mean that anyone can get over just because they have a great gimmick or are given support.
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I wouldn't say that Austin got over by himself. He had the backing of the WWE. Bret Hart was a big supporter of him and so was Jim Ross and whomever else. This counted for a lot in 1996.
Austin also got time on the microphone to develop and connect with fans. Austin was treated like a star by the announcers. Austin was put in feuds that mattered where he won or he was treated like a big deal. Austin won at Wrestlemania and he was in one of the most important angles of all time with MacMahon.
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I didn't say everyone can get over. I said 'TRY'. Just like they did with Tri.
Let me be more clear, when I say "get over" I mean that person is pushed into the main event and he is treated like a top star by the company and fans. Where people see him/her as a big deal like Cena or Orton.
When Triple H turned heel on DX, did he immediately "get over"? Hell no! His gimmick and everything changed about him more than once in that two year period. How many times did his outfit and music change? They tried with Triple H. He was put into feuds with Austin and Foley and the Rock where he was an actual threat in kayfabe terms. Goofy, army tank "suck it", Triple H was never treated as a tippy, top star like the Game Triple H.
So give some others the same treatment and see what happens. The WWE has one of their best line up of midcard guys of all time. And all of them are just waiting to be pushed into the next level.
Imagine if the Triple H treatment or the Lesnar treatment was used on Finn Balor or Kevin Owens. Imagine if the 2004 Batista push is used on Cesaro.
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For sure. The rub he got off of Bret at Mania 13 was arguably the biggest event that propelled him to the top. To his credit, Austin was savvy and charismatic to take it, and use it to springboard himself into being the biggest draw in the business. A lot of variables have to come into play, for something like that to work.
Sorry but this thread is starting to aggravate me so I had to comment. Stop calling Triple H "Tri". No fucking body in the world calls him that. And Billy Gun got repackaged with a new gimmick. Remember The one Billy Gun?
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Hey Shawn Michaels and Jim ross called him Tri. So I will, screw you.
My point wasn't even about Billy Gunn. But let's use him. Did they do with Billy Gunn what they did with Tri or Cena? Hell no!
Thanks for not paying attention.
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That's called an investment. Companies don't just blindly invest into people because sometimes it doesn't pay off. These guys are running a business and we don't always know what kinds of problems they might foresee with some of the guys that they hire on that may become a PR nightmare and have a negative impact on the business(e.g., drug addiction). They invest in guys that they feel will be loyal to the business, have a marketable look and can bring something to the table to work with whether it's wrestling ability or mic skills.
HHH married the bosses daughter and had backstage connections before then. I also feel like Vince gained some respect for HHH after he took the punishment for the curtain call and never went anywhere. I'm sure loyalty has a lot to do with who they decide to push.
Roman Reigns comes from a long line of Samoans that have worked for Vince's family and they've likely got a very good working relationship.
The Rock had the same connections as Reigns which got his foot in the door and made WWE willing to invest in him along with the fact that he was 6'5" Charismatic and athletic which Vince noted himself in a documentary on the WWE network. Once he found his footing there was no reason not to let him do his thing but he also came up with his own material. WWE didn't hand him anything but an opportunity. You've also got to remember that Austin was the top guy for a long time and the Rock didn't really get to be the top face until Austin was out of the picture due to injuries.
Austin is one of those guys who wasn't well connected but he got his foot in the door because of his wrestling ability and eventually got himself over because of his own personality. I actually don't feel like he falls into the category of "They gave him a bunch of different gimmicks to try to get him over". Austin actually told them that he wasn't happy with the ringmaster gimmick so they let him come up with his own thing. His wife at the time Debra actually gave him the idea for the name. They tried to give him the name "Fang McFrost". I think Austin is a better example of one of those guys who was just left out there on his own to find his way and he really got himself over. Sure the machine got behind him once they realized they could make some money off of him.
John Cena you've got to give credit to whether you like him or not. Yeah they pushed him to the moon but he's also a guy that doesn't have any connections and got the WWE to notice him on his own. Maybe most wrestlers who come with the total package are primadonnas and difficult to work with. I don't know, but they saw fit to put the company on this guys shoulders for over a decade. Not Randy Orton, the third generation superstar who came out of ovw at the same time as John Cena.
That wasn't in response to your original point. It was in response to the remark that they tried a bunch of different gimmicks and outfits to try to get HHH over which I don't think they even really did. They gave him the My Time theme. He got the Time To Play The Game theme after coming back from his Quadricep injury at a point where he was already over and got a pretty nice reception from the fans on his return. I'm going to take a guess and say that it was his decision to change his music as well since he was pretty good friends with the guy from motorhead that sang his music. I don't count stable themes as giving a guy new music to get him over.
I'm not going to say that HHH didn't get a bigger push and better treatment than Billy Gun or a lot of guys but as I stated in a my previous post, it makes sense for WWE to push guys that will be loyal to the company and who don't have a bunch of other personal problems going on in their life that are going to bring them down. They gave Finn Balor a clean win over Roman and made him the first universal champion. To give a guy that small an unrealistic victory over a bigger guy who WWE probably wants to carry the company says a lot but of course you're only going to point out how Finn Balor or KO(another guy who got multiple victories over Reigns) don't get pushed the same way that Roman Reigns gets pushed.
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Again it's clear you didn't read or pay attention. I'm not going point by point because you didn't. Screw that. Screw your nonsense.
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You assholes are so opposed to trying. This is why you get the same old shit. Good bye.
That's ok, feel free to stick your head in the sand though and keep pretending like I didn't address every point you made in your op. Anybody reading the thread knows your full of shit.
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I'm not sure I get all the arguing and hostility in this thread, but I do agree with the idea that there doesn't have to be, and really shouldn't be, just one "top guy." I've been saying that the past couple years with all the discussions about Roman being "the new Cena." Having one top guy seems to me like a very dated concept going back to the Hogan days. You're absolutely right that during the AE there were multiple guys that were pushed like top guys or at least like legitimate stars. Austin was the top guy, sure, but Rocky, Taker and Mankind were pushed like stars, and later on Trips (not Tri, TS 
) was too. They didn't put all their eggs in one basket.
Today, they've got a ton of talent. There's no reason, creatively, to just focus on one "top guy." That would be the case even if "the guy" could get over the way they want him to. Reigns, Rollins, Ambrose, Wyatt, Braun, AJ, and KO are all super talented. Balor and Nak too, and I'm probably forgetting some really talented guys. They don't have to all be in the main event at the same time, but they should always be treated as legitimate and pushed as such. If a guy like KO loses a main event match to someone like Reigns, the next step should be a lower level feud that he dominates. WWE all too often just turns guys into a joke. Wyatt was crazy over and they just had him lose and lose and lose and lose. Then they tried to make him scary again and everyone questioned why they were supposed to take him seriously. It's OK for a guy like Wyatt to lose to Cena and Taker at back-to-back WrestleManias, but he should be dominating lower level guys in between, not losing 4/5 feuds.
Seriously, though, please stop trying to make "Tri" happen. I beg of you.
) was too. They didn't put all their eggs in one basket.Today, they've got a ton of talent. There's no reason, creatively, to just focus on one "top guy." That would be the case even if "the guy" could get over the way they want him to. Reigns, Rollins, Ambrose, Wyatt, Braun, AJ, and KO are all super talented. Balor and Nak too, and I'm probably forgetting some really talented guys. They don't have to all be in the main event at the same time, but they should always be treated as legitimate and pushed as such. If a guy like KO loses a main event match to someone like Reigns, the next step should be a lower level feud that he dominates. WWE all too often just turns guys into a joke. Wyatt was crazy over and they just had him lose and lose and lose and lose. Then they tried to make him scary again and everyone questioned why they were supposed to take him seriously. It's OK for a guy like Wyatt to lose to Cena and Taker at back-to-back WrestleManias, but he should be dominating lower level guys in between, not losing 4/5 feuds.
Seriously, though, please stop trying to make "Tri" happen. I beg of you.
Losing over half your viewers with in a decade is sticking your head in the sand.
