Homegrown Talent
By Scott Keith on 10th September 2021
What a week to be a wrestling fan. Who had Brian Cage's wife as the first person to complain about usage in AEW on their 2021 bingo card. That guy lost his title to a girl and didn't even make this much noise about it. I got two questions for you:
1) Don't you think WWE going away from indy wrestlers makes most sense? Looking at their history they've had alot better success making superstars by molding guys who were great athletes as opposed to guys who made a name for themselves before going to WWE. Guys like Orton, Brock, Cena, Bobby, Batista, and Roman either hadn't wrestled before or had only a cup of coffee on the indies. The only real indy wrestlers I think they really had luck was Ambrose, Seth, Punk, Db, and I would put AJ and Drew in there too. Am I missing anyone? Honorable mentions I guess for KO, Joe, Sammi, and Cesaro but none of those are really superstars like the other guys I mentioned regardless of what the IWC thinks they could be in AEW. Seems like this is probably the smartest thing they done in years. Shoot if Gable, Rick Steiner's kid, and Parker look anywhere as good as the Creed Brothers did the other night the future is looking bright.
2) I am also curious who you think WWE has let go that became a bigger star than what they were at their height in WWE fame? I assume people would say Cody and I just don't see it. Yes AEW doesn't happen without him but really they needed Jericho and Mox to get it off the ground. He hasn't proven to be a mega draw either. He did some pretty big stuff in WWE as well, including big IC title reigns which is basically TNT title and other big angles. I still don't think he is more over than his mustache was. As great as Miro is now he was an unbeatable monster for a year when he first got called up until super Cena too him down at Mania. Plus he had sex in a freaking tank. Maybe you could say Christian in TNA, although I don't think he was as close to as popular as when he was doing the TLC matches and 5 second poses. Obviously you could look at guys they let go from developmental like Kenny and that might be a different story. But even then it's not like they have missed out on a gigantic superstar. Yes Kenny is a great wrestler and #1 in the hearts of PWI and Uncle Dave. But he is the drizzling shits on the mic and hasn't been lighting the world on fire ratings wise. Even after the initial Punk rating pop they quickly went back under a million viewers and had to bump up the debut of DB. I blame that on Kenny's lack of star power. I mean besides one big buy rate for Impact he did nothing to help them either. The least they could of done for making us sit thru this boring title reign was deliver on the year and half build of Hangman Page finally becoming a megastar but they prob missed the boat on that.
tl;dr. Always good to get your weekly word salad.