Barry Windham vs. Randy Savage

Ted DiBiase vs. Tito Santana

To the best of my knowledge, neither match ever happened.  Tito vs. Ted might have on some house show but I’m 99% positive that Windham vs. Savage never did, at least not when it would have been great (read as before 1989ish when Windham just stopped trying).  Imagine either of these matches getting 20 minutes and see if you don’t smile a little.

For some reason wrestling fans expect wrestlers to be able to do everything. I’m not sure where this comes from but I think it has something to do with the theory that wrestling is based around being able to do a lot of moves. This is another of those ideas that needs to be crushed and needs to be crushed quickly. Today I’m going to be talking about wrestlers using the moves that they’re supposed to use and why the amount of moves someone uses is completely irrelevant to their talent level. Let’s get to it.

Back in 1997, Shawn Michaels had a “knee injury” and couldn’t wrestle at Wrestlemania 13, so instead he did commentary on the world title match. That night, Sid defended the world title against the Undertaker. During the match, Sid was in control and Shawn said something like “Sid doesn’t deviate from his game plan that much, because that power takes him everywhere he needs to go.”

That right there is a lesson that a large amount of wrestling fans need to learn. Today, you hear people talking about guys like Punk and Bryan and using the words Best in the World to describe them. Their justification for this seems to be that Punk and Bryan put on long and entertaining matches with a wide variety of moves. These same fans tend to criticize guys like Hogan and Cena for using a much smaller moveset.

Think about it: how many times have you heard someone criticize Cena because “he only knows five moves”? If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it way too many times. This is a stupid thing to say for a number of reasons which we’ll cover today. Not only is this stupid to say about Cena, but it’s a stupid thing to say about anyone.

Let’s take a look at the greatest wrestler of all time: Hulk Hogan. Love him, hate him, whatever you think about him, there is zero denying that since 1980, no one has had a bigger influence on professional wrestling. No one has been a bigger star than Hogan and few have become a bigger household name (which is another article for another time as well). In short, he’s the biggest star ever in wrestling and there isn’t much to argue about that.

Now that being said, I don’t think anyone would call Hogan a ring general, in the sense that he wrestled a lot of matches the exact same way. Hogan had a formula to his matches and he rarely shifted from that formula. There isn’t much denying of that, nor is there really any denying that Hogan used probably less than ten different moves (punch, big boot, legdrop, high knee, choke, back rake, suplex, ax bomber and that’s about all that jumps to mind) in his entire career.

Here’s the big secret though: there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Hogan wrestled a very basic style and found something that worked (aside: how many botches can you think of from Hogan when he was in the red and yellow? I’d be impressed if you could come up with more than five. The guy was a very safe worker which he never gets credit for) so he never really shifted from it.

Why did Hogan never change or mix it up? Well why should he have done so? Hogan got some of the biggest reactions for well over 20 years doing the exact same stuff, and it never stopped working. Hogan got to the top of the wrestling world using the same formula and it never stopped at all. Somehow being the biggest star ever made him into the worst wrestler ever.

Another subject that often gets the same reaction is the current biggest star in the world, John Cena. I’ve never been what you would call a Cena hater. I’ve never come close to one and I likely never will be one. I’m not a huge Cena fan either, but I respect the guy. One of the biggest knocks on Cena is that he doesn’t have as wide ranging of a moveset as Bryan or Punk. This is another criticism that has a true premise (Bryan and Punk likely do have more variety in their offense) but an untrue conclusion (this makes them better wrestlers).

Cena’s offense (which has more than five moves: shoulder block, AA, STF, Shuffle, top rope legdrop, spinout slam. There, idea proven wrong) is one based around firing up the crowd at the right times. Look at his matches with Punk. I don’t think anyone would suggest that they’re boring and I don’t think anyone would suggest they’re bad. Cena and Hogan both are masters at making comebacks and working a crowd, just like guys like Bret and Shawn were.

This is what makes Hogan and Cena great: they know how to work a crowd. Look at the biggest names in the history of wrestling (in no order): Hogan, Cena, Rock, Austin. What do these four have in common? Among many other things, they play to the crowd. That’s what makes them great. They get the fans to care about them and get the crowd to care about them. The true test of the greatness of a wrestler is the amount of a reaction they can draw from an audience.

Think of it like this: when is the last time you remember Cena coming out to no reaction? Ask the same question about Rock, Austin or Hogan. The people respond to them and care about them. How many wrestlers have you seen come out and no one moves? How many times have you seen a tag match with the hot tag without a reaction from the crowd? The match may be fine from a technical standpoint, but no one cares at all. I can’t count how many indy matches I’ve watched with a lot of flips and high flying moves and ten minutes after the match I can’t remember the people in it. That’s not a good sign.

Let’s take a look at another side of this. Another criticism of guys like Cena or Hogan is that they don’t know how to perform moves like Punk and Bryan do. Is this honestly believed? Do you think Cena couldn’t do a hurricanrana if he tried to and practiced it? Let’s take a look at this from the other perspective: what do you think would happen if Punk tried to AA the Big Show? Even with months if not years of physical training, do you think he could pull it off on that frame? Cena uses his physical abilities in the right way. Here’s another example of that which might make a little more sense.

When the names of worst wrestlers in the world are brought up, one that is often mentioned is The Great Khali. Usually when people say this, I roll my eyes because it’s clear these people have little idea what they’re talking about. Khali is legitimately over 7’0 and weighs probably 400lbs or so. He has physical attributes that only a handful of people on the planet have. In other words, almost no one in the wrestling world are built like Khali.

SO WHY WOULD PEOPLE WANT HIM TO WRESTLE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE??? Khali doesn’t run the ropes or use armbars and wristlocks because it would be REALLY stupid for him to do so. He’s a freaking giant, meaning that everything he does is enhanced. Khali using a simple move like a chop isn’t the same as say Michael McGillicutty using a chop. You’re talking about a guy’s arm probably being ten feet off the ground and coming down with 400lbs of weight powering it. His size alone makes it look painful.

No, Khali can’t get down on the mat like a Bret Hart or fly through the air like a Kofi Kingston, but Bret Hart can’t make power moves look as devastating as Khali and Kofi can’t realistically use a chokebomb as a finisher. It would make no sense for them to try because that’s not their natural strength. Complaining because Khali can’t perform basic wrestling moves is ridiculous because he doesn’t need to perform them to be effective.

In short, the idea that a wrestler’s ability is tied to the amount of moves that he uses is ridiculous. To say that for example Daniel Bryan is a better wrestler than Cena because he uses a ton of submissions makes no sense. If that’s what determined who the best wrestlers in the world were, William Regal vs. Dean Malenko would have headlined about seven Wrestlemanias in a row. Wrestling is a performance first, not an athletic event first. It’s about using what works, not using everything there is.

This is something that occurs to me a lot lately and something WWE is very bad at: everything that is done should be to either make you want to watch the TV show or make you want to buy the PPV.  That’s the point of the company: they should be trying to make you want to see more and preferably to make you want to pay to see it.  Instead, it seems to be to do whatever whim the company is on at the moment.  Instead things seem to be about pushing whatever their latest endeavor is to get them publicity.  It’s like they’re focusing on everything but their in ring product if that makes sense.  How many times do you see the company pushing the in ring product or a future match on the show?  Now on the other hand, how many times do you hear something pushed that is about hearing something else about the product?  As in hearing about Twitter, Tout, Facebook, the App etc.  As in you’re not hearing about the product, but about something that is about the product.  That seems to be counter productive to me.

This is something I’ve thought of before but this was written by Lance Storm, who you should certainly read on a regular basis.  As you can likely tell, this was written late last year. What do the Intercontinental and United States Titles even mean? Punk is the best wrestler in the WWE, Bryan the best wrestler in the World, so is Rhodes the best wrestler in North and South America, and Ryder the best wrestler in the USA. There seems to be a lot of contradiction and over lap with that explanation.

This is one of the reasons why NXT is possibly the best wrestling show today.Dusty Rhodes is the GM of NXT and he’s been on the show maybe three times.  He makes matches but he doesn’t do so on screen.  What might happen is two guys will have an altercation in the back and then when they have the match, Regal might say something like “this match was set up by NXT GM Dusty Rhodes.”  No TV time wasted, no theme songs being pounded into our heads, no holding the hand of the viewers, just matches being made when they make sense.

Why can’t Raw or Smackdown get this?

Back in 1908, the Ford Motor Company began manufacturing a car called the Model T. The idea behind it was simple: use the same format on an assembly line to mass produce affordable automobiles. It was a smash hit and became the standard method used for designing cars that is still used today. All of a sudden everyone had the same kind of car, but a lot more people could get their hands on one. The idea was that if you take away the uniqueness of cars, you could get then out faster, cheaper, and sell a lot more.

Now the problem with this method is just as I said: it takes away the uniqueness of the cars being released. Basically the Model T was one size fits all and everyone got basically the same thing. This brings us to the modern WWE and one of the many (among other) problems the company is facing at the moment: a large portion of the roster could be interchangeable with anyone else on the roster and it would make almost no difference. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Before I get into this: note that I am talking about characters only. Their in ring work isn’t being considered a factor here.

Let’s take a look at Randy Orton. Orton’s character is that he snaps quickly and has anger issues. Here’s where we get to the problem: practically anyone on the roster is perfectly capable of handling that part. Orton is someone that is going to be over no matter what he does because of his reputation and the RKO. However, his character has nothing unique about it and there’s almost no depth to it.

As for someone who doesn’t have a big finishing move to fall back on, let’s look at say Heath Slater. Slater is a guy who came out week after week and got beaten up by various legends. He ran his mouth and talked about being a one man band, but there’s nothing to him. Slater has won some matches and even a few titles, but at the end of the day he hasn’t done anything of note in years and almost anyone could play his part. The titles that he won don’t mean anything for the most part as so many people have won championships, but that’s a discussion for another time.

I could go on and on with names like that, but there’s a name in particular that explains things far better than anyone else I could talk about: Cody Rhodes. Cody has had an evolution to his character over the last few years. In June of 2010, Rhodes won a poll of the WWE Divas, naming him the best looking male wrestler in the company. This led to him becoming Dashing Cody Rhodes, a man obsessed with his looks and grooming.

Up to this point, almost anyone could have portrayed the character. However, all of that was groundwork for his next feud. After about six months of this gimmick, Rhodes faced Rey Mysterio where Mysterio’s knee brace smashed into Rhodes’ face. For the next few weeks, Rhodes refused to let his face be seen as he required facial reconstruction surgery to repair the damages.

After staying off of TV for about six weeks, Rhodes returned while wearing a mask. He claimed to be scarred under the mask, but due to it being clear, we could see that no scars were there and the damage was all in his mind. He basically turned into Dr. Doom from Marvel Comics, as he hid his face as much as he could due to the fear of what people would think of him. This is where things get important.

After spending months caring only about his looks, Rhodes was now ashamed of them due to the severe damage he had suffered. The six months beforehand had laid the groundwork for the character that he had become, and the new character only would have this kind of impact with Cody portraying it. In short, it was a unique character that we had watched evolve over the previous few months into the person that we saw before us. These things combined to make Cody a successful and interesting character, as opposed to just being the son of Dusty Rhodes.

Then it stopped. Rhodes still wore the mask but wasn’t as insane as he had been before. Rhodes did little of note before winning the Intercontinental Title in August of 2011. A few months later, Rhodes began feuding with Randy Orton, eventually resulting in him losing his mask and having it broken.

Since then, Cody Rhodes has been Cody Rhodes. He’s a guy in trunks that comes out, has the occasional match, and then goes to the back again. Nothing of note happens, his matches are about the same every week, and he only occasionally has a feud. At the moment, he’s feuding with Sin Cara because he wants to take Cara’s mask. Why does he want to do that? No apparent reason. No mention of Cody’s time in a mask. No mention of anything unique at all.

Today, Rhodes is lucky to get on Smackdown for two straight weeks most of the time. He’s lost most of the intriguing characteristics and traits that he had going for him before and is now little more than a cocky heel who says he’s better than everyone else. That would be basically the same exact gimmick as Miz and Ziggler, as well as the same as guys like Del Rio and Mahal, although minus the ability to be able to say it in other languages. It’s hardly a gimmick at all other than someone being cocky.

For a contrast, let’s take a look at a few of the people who are freshly coming up on the roster. Instead of talking about various people and listing their personality traits, we’ll focus on one: Damien Sandow. Yes he says that he’s better than you, but he has a unique spin on it. Instead of just saying how great he is, Sandow says that he’s smarter than you. He talks about how bad society is with the obsession with celebrities and pushes the idea of intellectualism.

If that doesn’t work for you, let’s take a look at David Otunga. Again just looking at his character, there is no one else on the roster that could play his character of a smug lawyer as well as he could. This is the case for one simple reason: Otunga IS a smug lawyer. He doesn’t have to try to figure out what a Harvard educated lawyer would say because he just has to say what comes naturally to him. This is where you can solve a lot of the issues I’m mentioning here.

It makes little sense to take the gimmicks of people that aren’t right for a part and trying to make them into that. The most successful wrestlers of all time are the ones who live the gimmick they have and see it as an extension of their own personalities. People like Undertaker, Savage, Flair, Austin and Rock all have been described as portraying themselves with more intensity than they would have in real life. It makes for a more believable performance and the characters are more successful.

If this doesn’t make sense, think back to the Attitude Era. Just a quick look at the roster shows the following gimmicks: a redneck, a jock, an outcast who hangs out in boiler rooms and is craving acceptance while suffering from multiple personalities, a burn victim, a man who may or may not be dead, a pimp, a group of degenerates, a group of oddities, a group of vampires, a guy who looks like an Academy Award, a mixed martial artist, a superhero, an outdoorsman, a sex obsessed powerlifter and a security guard. For the most part, there is almost no overlap to any of those things and they’re all unique characters. You could say the same thing about a lot of people in the 80s as well.

In short, the problem that I see with a lot of the gimmicks in modern WWE is that there’s nothing really specific about a lot of the characters. You could easily replace almost anyone with anyone else and you would have the same thing all over again. That doesn’t make for interesting television and you have to rely on in ring talent to make up the difference. When you have almost everyone trained by the same training staff, you’re not likely to see anyone break out in the ring with a different style that is going to set the world on fire. Mix it up and things will improve a lot.

I went to my first Raw in June 2009.  On that night, The Miz was on the show.He called out John Cena in a “feud” that basically consisted of Miz calling out Cena over and over and when Cena didn’t acknowledge him, Miz declared himself the winner.  Eventually Cena beat him in basically a squash at The Bash.

Flash forward less than two years.  Wrestlemania just went off the air and this is the final result you see:

The Miz b. John Cena – Miz pinned Cena after a Rock Bottom from the Rock

Who in the world would have believed you would have seen that?  Miz went from being the host of Smackdown to a chick magnet to a guy in a funny show on WWE.com to a joke tag champion to a good tag team champion to a guy who called out Cena to the US Champion to Mr. MITB to world champion, pinning Cena in the main event of Wrestlemania.

Oh and Rock came back and was in the main event of Wrestlemania and will be in the main event of the Royal Rumble next year.  You never know what you’re going to get.

I was watching a Flair match and he put his feet on the ropes on a cover.  It wasn’t the end of the match, it wasn’t a plot point, it was nothing more than a regular cover.  However, it got the fans to boo him louder and cheer for his opponent more.  Flair did that because he’s a heel and that’s what heels do.  Today, the only time you see something like that is to end a match and advance a plot.  During matches, heels glare at crowds and that’s about it for the most part.

See how easy it is to make thing better?

I’m watching a Raw from 2000 and I’m amazed at how good HHH is at being evil.  He gets a lot of flack for his stuff in 2002 and 2003, but when he’s on, sweet goodness is he on.  This got me thinking.I’ve often said that DiBiase is the greatest heel of all time and I still say that, but was HHH in 2000 even better?  It didn’t last as long, but man alive was it great.  I honestly can’t pick which I think is better, but which do you think was better?  Do you think someone was better at it?  The only other I can think of would be Hogan in the original NWO days.

This seems like an appropriate topic with Wrestlemania being about two weeks away. This is something that is very important and can really make or break a company if not done right. Yet for some reason over the years, it’s very rarely been done right. On Rise and Fall of ECW, Heyman talked about Terry Funk wanting to get the next generation ready so that there was a business to pass on to them. That’s what we’re getting at today so let’s get to it.

Now first and foremost, there’s a BIG difference between giving someone a rub and passing the torch to someone else. Back in the 80s, Hogan tagged with a bunch of guys that were known names but didn’t become anything important until they were his best friend for a few months of house show tag matches. Then they’d be Hogan’s partner for awhile and they’d be bigger stars than ever before. That’s giving someone a rub.

Passing the torch means that you make someone the new big name in the company. We’ll get to examples of that later on, but the main idea is that someone is either leaving, is dropping down the card after being on top for a long while, or that the other person is going to be taking their place. To use the example from earlier, Hogan wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t moving down the card. He was still top dog but the others were up higher than they were before. That’s an important difference.

On second thought, this was going to just be about passing the torch but I might as well cover rubs in here too. We’ll get to passing the torch first.

Let’s go back to the past as I’m known to do. The better example is probably King Jackie Fargo passing the torch to King Jerry Lawler but we’ll go with something actually in the last thirty years with Harley Race and Ric Flair. Now let’s take a good look at what put this together and why it was a true passing of the torch. There were a lot of factors that came together to make it work.

First of all, Flair was already a big name. He was a two time NWA World Champion and was well established as a top guy. This is important to passing the torch because if you want someone like Race to go out, this is how you do it: to a guy that has proven he can do something already. Otherwise you might need to go to someone else which makes the moment weaker.

Second, this was built up. It had a long and personal angle to it which resulted in real emotion. Race had put a $25,000 bounty on Flair’s head and it was cashed in, resulting in Flair being put out of action for months. He took care of the attackers and then came after Race to take the championship and get his revenge. It was an angle that people wanted to see get paid off which makes the match that much more interesting.

Third, the match was great. It’s a classic old school cage match with Race working him over and Flair making the comeback for the pin and the big moment. It was also in the main event of the first Starrcade, which at the time was the biggest card ever put together. Look at Cena vs. Rock this year: they’re having this match in the main event of Wrestlemania after a year of these two arguing and bickering. In short: take your time and make the match feel important.

Most importantly though, RACE LEFT. After this happened, Race was gone from the NWA spotlight. There was a three day title change in New Zealand but other than that, Race went back to the smaller territories and eventually on to the WWF. Now, that’s not to say that Race couldn’t have come back in a smaller role. If Race had come back in say a year or even six months it would have been fine, as long as he didn’t challenge for the title or feud with Flair. That’s one of the main things: Race didn’t try to come back against Flair. He had been defeated and was done.

There really aren’t that many of these moments to talk about in history, and since most of them have been done well there isn’t really a point to going through them one by one because they would all mostly say the same thing. The other few of note are the Fargo/Lawler one that I mentioned earlier, Austin vs. Michaels in 1998, HHH vs. Batista in 2005, and really those are all of the major ones.

Now let’s get to the problems that can come up when these rules are broken. This can also be called The Hogan Section.

Hogan has had a few chances to pass the torch onto someone else and both times he’s broken one of the aforementioned rules and caused the next person to not be able to do as well on top. We’ll start in 1990 at Wrestlemania 6. You could argue the first time was at #4 with Savage but the end result of that was ALWAYS Hogan vs. Savage for the title the next year so I can’t fault Hogan for that as it was part of a major angle instead of Hogan not going away. Anyone on to #6.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the main event of that show was designed to be a moment where Warrior became the top guy. However in short, Hogan didn’t leave. He stuck around in 1990 and feuded with Earthquake, taking all of the spotlight (as well as the top and most obvious feud for Warrior) from the new champion. The right thing would have been for Hogan to take AT LEAST a few months off and made a movie or whatever.

Instead he stuck around and therefore made Warrior look like a second rate guy, which made the main event of Wrestlemania completely pointless. Warrior was a failure as the top guy but there was never a real chance for him to be the top guy. Everyone thought that Hogan was still top dog and him simply not having the title wasn’t going to prove that wrong. Considering Warrior barely beat him, it didn’t really prove that Warrior was the top guy. Instead of passing the torch, Hogan basically gave Warrior the title for about 7 months and then got it back later. Good for him, bad for Warrior.

Jumping to WCW, we have the moment that was a big bullet to WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Sting FINALLY stopped Hogan and won the (nearly) year and a half long title reign and it should have been the end of an era in WCW. This is probably the biggest botch of one of these things ever. First of all, the match sucked for reasons that you can read elsewhere. Second, Sting didn’t get to even hold the physical title for two months, so how much do you think the fans cared by that point? Third, Sting officially won the title in February and Hogan had it back by mid-April. Sting is defeated, Hogan is champion AGAIN, and the fans are screwed over.

The third example of Hogan doing this would be in 1998 with Goldberg. Now to be fair this was probably much more about WCW than Hogan, but depending on what you believe about Hogan having creative control in the back, that could be a matter of debate. Also to Hogan’s credit, he lost the match clean (mostly) and never got his win back against Goldberg, which is a big help. However that being said, he got the title back in just a few months. There was WAY more to it than that, but at the end of the day, the problem was that Hogan had the title back about half a year later, Goldberg was defeated, and the fans were screwed over AGAIN. Sound familiar?

There are probably other example that I’m overlooking, but I think by now you more than get the idea. The WWF in 1990/1991 was in real business trouble and was even on the verge of going under for awhile. The WCW instances are times where the company took big hits because either they wouldn’t let people have the title or they wouldn’t let anyone get thrown out of the main event. The moral: bad things happen when you don’t change things when you need to.

Now onto the other topic that I wasn’t going to talk about here but it fits as well: rubs. As we’ve established, a rub is where someone is going to be sticking around but is going to bring someone else up the card by giving them some of their star power and making them look like a bigger deal. We’ll begin in the 80s, as I am known to do.

The perfect example of this is usually Flair and Sting from March 27, 1988 and there’s a good reason for that. Sting wasn’t a big time name like he is today. He was a guy that had been brought over from a regional company and was looking for his first big break in the national scene. The company knew he had talent but they needed a way to let the masses know that.

Enter Ric Flair, who in the words of Jim Cornette, made a career out of making other people look way better than they ever could have done on their own. So at the first Clash of the Champions, Sting fought Flair for the NWA Title and had him in the Scorpion when the bell rang and the time was up. Flair made Sting look AWESOME that night and Sting became a huge star because of it. Flair kept the title and would for a good while, but Sting was a major player all of a sudden. I think you get the idea.

There are dozens of other examples from history that I could go into, such as the tag teams that Hogan had which I mentioned earlier and Bret vs. Austin in 96/97, but you more than get the point by now. On the other hand, there are examples of times where bigger names lose matches, but the win doesn’t do a thing for the smaller name guy. Let’s take a look at a quick example.

I hate to do this again, but the best example is Hulk Hogan. In the year 2000, Hogan lost to Billy Kidman. What’s forgotten about this is that Hogan DOMINATED Kidman and Kidman won after Bischoff hit Hogan with a chair. The win didn’t do anything for Kidman because it didn’t look like he had a chance to beat Hogan in a fair fight. The same thing is true of instances like jobbers pinning big names, such as Brooklyn Brawler pinning HHH in the year 2000. Rock had a bit of a hand in that loss, but HHH still gets made fun of for it on occasion. Again, I think you get the idea.

So anyway, in short there are good ways and bad ways of passing the torch, and hopefully Rock does it with Cena at Wrestlemania. Rock is a guy who a victory over would still mean a lot and I just hope they don’t screw it up somehow. Rubs and passing the torch are very important things in wrestling, and if you don’t do them right they can turn out very badly indeed.