Val Venis: The Next Big Thing?
By Scott Keith on 6 November 2023
Hiya Scott- I was mentioning Val Venis being a highly-thought-of guy to a friend yesterday and he plotzed, because it's generally accepted that Val was weaksauce. But I vaguely remember people assuming that he'd be a bigger star, and you've mentioned in Rants
before that the WWF was hoping he'd be this big star eventually. A few others on the BOD were discussing the Radicalz arrival killing guys like him, because they were clearly superior when Val was just “kinda good” and was thus badly exposed when someone like
Benoit or Eddie shows up.
So my question is- were people REALLY thinking Val was going to be a huge star? Was in inside or outside the business? Because it seems plain to me that he's a Generic McWrestler 5/10 dude with basic everything, no promo skills without Russo writing limericks
for him, and a couple moves lifted from Japan. The IC Title really feels like overshooting what should have been his expectations given what became of him. And that's not just because the actual dude is such a dumb POS.
Yes. They really did think he would be a big star, a great big shining star. Him and Edge were supposed to be the long term projects for the future, and Val unfortunately hit the ceiling really prematurely and then withered away.