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Protecting/making someone

Hi Scott,

Short & sweet: with Kevin Owens, and to an extent Neville, being protected on arrival to the main roster, how come people haven't been treated so in the past when new blood and stars needed to be made?

Other than The Shield (as a unit more so than individually), I can't think of anyone that has been protected so well on arrival like Owens has. It's great to see. Already Owens seems like he could genuinely be a top guy sooner rather than lately!

Why is this the first time in, what seems to, years that WWE have given thought and attention to giving someone actual protection?

​Yeah, aside from Great Khali, this is really the first time since the Hulkamania era that they've brought in someone and shot them to the top like this out of the gate.  I'm still amazed that Rock, for example, was so charismatic that he was able to thrive under a 50/50 booking scene like he was.  And ​Owens is completely against everything they look for in a guy, which makes their sudden confidence in him all the stranger.  And the thing is, when you shoot a guy to the top like this, you can actually do the 50/50 part later and it's fine.  Jump him to the top for three months against, say, Roman Reigns, take 5 or 6 months away from the feud once he's a top guy, and then come back to it and have him lose the big rematch to then make Reigns into a big star on his level too.  The territories used to book like that all the time and it almost always worked.  The key is that you need more than a week between matches, which has become the central problem with their writing.  


Comments

  1. "I'm still amazed that Rock, for example, was so charismatic that he was able to thrive under a 50/50 booking scene like he was."



    Rock was 50/50'd? He was always booked strongly. And there have been plenty of guys pushed harder than Owens out of the gate since Hulkamania. Brock immediately leaps to mind.

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  2. Mankind also.

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  3. Owen beat WWE's biggest star in his first PPV match. I'm sorry, even Brock had to go through Hardy Boys and jobbers like Test first.

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  4. Was just going to post this. Brock had the progression (which was perfect btw) of Hardys (fan favorite Midcard tag team), RVD (Fan favorite Upper Midcarder), Hogan (Fan favorite Legend), Rock (Fan favorite current Top Dog)

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  5. And immediately won KOTR(when it was still a big deal) and then basically squashed a top 5 biggest star in the history of pro wrestling at WWE's 2nd biggest PPV for the World title.


    Owens has already lost. He can't touch Brock's initial run.

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  6. The fact that they just couldn't help themselves on having him lose is the one blemish on it so far

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  7. And Ric Flair, Yokozuna, Undertaker, Shield, and probably a bunch of others.

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  8. I'm not even bothered by the loss, honestly. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, Cena's gotta get his heat "back." It's like being upset that water is wet. I dunno. Maybe they just broke me.

    What bothers me is that they announced the rematch before Cena even took a shower. Like, what possible grounds would Cena have to ask for a rematch and have it granted that quickly?

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  9. Kurt Angle had one of the best first years in history while being very protected.
    Within, 6 months, won the Eurocontinental title and lost both titles without ever being pinned/submitted.
    Won the biggest KOTR ever (32 men)
    Was facing the tippy top guys on PPV (Show who just mainevented WM, Taker)
    Main evented against rock and triple h at summerslam for the title and didn't get pinned
    Had one of the most memorable feuds ever with Triple H
    Won the title against the Rock.


    Then after that, he won a HIAC against Austin, Rock, Triple H, and Taker and won other Title matches by beating Taker and Triple H

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  10. I'm hesitant thinking Owens is really getting a big immediate push, or if they just needed a heel which they are really thin on (mostly their own doing).

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  11. I wish Scott could do some 'Scott Sez' with his replies. His answer was a bit of a head scratcher. Brock is the text book example of taking a rookie and shooting him to the top. Yeah he didnt debut and beat the rock instead he just demolished the undercard one by one until he got to the Rock, then demolished him I think thats better than winning the first match and losing the second to Rock.

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  12. That would suck if after the Cena program, Owens becomes 'just another guy',

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  13. Well the rumor mill did say they called him up because Rusev was injured.

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  14. What does BOConscience mean? Should you be BODConscience?

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  15. He also murderdeathkilled Hogan and literally left him laying in a poll of his own blood.

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  16. Announcing the next ppv's match in the middle of the ppv is really stupid and they keep doing it. Doesn't it make sense to put that shit on Raw?


    I mean, kayfabe that shit up and be all, "The championship committee will be meeting on Monday to determine blah blah blah."

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  17. He's too good on the mic for that to happen, I feel.

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  18. Brock was an actual rookie. Owens is a veteran in the business. He has the maturity to handle the push. Brock *is* the textbook example of a rookie that got pushed to the top, let it go to his head, and left the business after a short time. That's why they generally don't go that route as you never know if a rookie can withstand the pressure. It took Lesnar maturing elsewhere then coming back to continue his legacy.

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  19. Brock is actually a text book example of not letting the business go to your head.

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  20. Things are different now with NXT; Owens "debuted" on WWE already holding a WWE belt. Granted, his NXT run has been excellent and as strongly booked as can be, but I think a large part of the push in this instance is in response to Owens' work. He's the best promo guy they've had since Punk.


    I also think HHH feels proprietorial about these NXT guys. The booking they've already had in developmental gives them a big advantage over the previous crop who were on television before they were ready and had no readymade fan support.

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  21. Somebody below hit the nail right on the head about Owens. The problem isn't that he lost, the problem was that the rematch was announced immediately after the match. Undefeated streaks are a good way to get a guy over, but they tend to completely screw the guy up if the streak is broken because the character gets defined by not losing (Goldberg, Tatanka.) It's better to get that first loss out of the way so they can still be dominant but have other facets to their characters besides "never losing."


    It's why no one complains about Angle losing to Tazz.

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  22. It is because of Brock (and Lashley) that they've been unwilling to give young guys a sustained rocket push from the off.

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  23. You're right, but I was actually going for more of a kayfabe outlook.

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  24. The whole point of Cena taking the US Title from Rusev was to elevate the belt and an eventual conpetitor with the Open Challenge series (and theoretically elevate Rusev, though after beating him 3 times that clearly didn't happen). That feud had run its course, so the picking of Owens seems entirely unrelated to the Rusev injury. As always the key is what's in storm for Owens post-Cena. The way they've booked him away from his interraction with Cena is the best evidence of a legit push.

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  25. When Rock was the SmackDown headliner he seemed to lose all the time.

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  26. It was supposed to be that, but my 12 year old distracted me . I looked up and accidently pressed enter. Oh well.

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  27. So was Bray. They could always do the "forget it ever happened" like they did with him.

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  28. Perhaps, but I also doubt WWE is concerned Owens is gonna go nuts, marry a Diva, and quit to play for the Vikings.

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  29. All around Brock is pretty much his own book.

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  30. So what will happen with Rusev since his undefeated streak is now gone?

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  31. Dancing foreign stalker

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  32. I like "going nuts" means not wanting to spend 20 plus hours in an airplane.

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  33. Rusev's another huge example of this one. He'll probably end up completely directionless for another year or so just like the others. He might recover but who knows? He was defined almost entirely in the ring by not losing.

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  34. It's half laziness and half the way they lay out things so far in advance. For a company that claims they are "telling stories" they really don't anymore. They slap a couple guys together, make it clear they will face off at a PPV, then just kill time from week to week. There is no build to anything. Like with Owens/Cena we fans went from wondering if they'd actually let Owens win, to minutes later debating who would win their *third* match--all because they immediately announced the rematch and assured it was yet another formulaic scenario.

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  35. Frankly I'm still scratching my head on they way they have treated Owens since he came in (not complaining, mind you, just surprised). It's amazing how well they have put the guy over and stuck with it so far, especially considering, as Scott and others have mentioned, Owens is pretty much the exact opposite of what Vince looks for in a main event talent. Makes you wonder what Owens did/is that others didn't/aren't that caused his push so far.

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  36. Don't worry WWE universe, ziggler will roll up Kevin Owens on raw tomorrow after being distracted by john cenas music to win the rematch

    And next week, cena will call Owens 'fattie' and show loads of photos of fat people with Owens head on them. Before winning the third match clean.

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  37. But haven't there been other "HHH guys" that have been driven off the deep end? It seems like that alone isn't enough to explain the Owens push.

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  38. NXT guy doesn't automatically mean HHH guy. I think it is obvious from the start that HHH is a big fan and is pushing hard for him.

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  39. There's been a bunch of 'HHH guys' in the past, I don't know how far to go with that.


    I think at least some of this is that Owens was thrust immediately into a feud with Cena, and thus they've quickly had to make him look legit. And that's was with 2 weeks between his first 'PPV' matches.

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  40. Not really. I wouldn't call Ascension or Rose "HHH guys".

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  41. No one said they were.

    Sin Cars was an HHH guy--how'd that go?

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  42. It means he is conscious of body odor

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  43. Shows HHH has an eye for talent. I don't think anyone can claim that Sin Cara isn't extremely talented.

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  44. Oh yes I fucking can.

    Botch Cara is easily the most overhyped worker of the last decade

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  45. ... or be on the road 300 days a year. Crazy!

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  46. That's what happens when you look the part you're supposed to play and execute well right off the bat.

    Tensai got the rocket up his ass. He neither looked the part or played it well. The rocket wound up surgically removed quickly.

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  47. Not necessarily. I think HHH loves all his NXT wrestlers, but part of playing the game (no pun intended) is know which hills are worth dying on. He wasn't going to do that for the Ascension or Adam Rose, but if we're being totally honest, the Ascension and Adam Rose were never gonna make the company millions of dollars. Owens probably can if he's protected and handled properly. That's what makes him a fight worth winning.

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  48. Using a meme isn't really an argument. What about the hundreds of matches he had where he didn't botch? His run was a disaster for a bunch of different reasons, but not because he didn't have talent. Go watch his stuff from Mexico.

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  49. The problem with Sin Cara is that he's super talented at lucha libre. WWE is not lucha libre and he refused to go to NXT to learn the differences in the style, offense, selling, rings, etc.

    That his bones were made of styrofoam is a completely different problem.

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  50. I'd say Rusev was brought in and protected this way as well until the never ending Cena feud.

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  51. The Rock thrive under 50/50 booking because he never jobbed on the mic. He won before his matches started.

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  52. Rock was given a very protected mid card title run.

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  53. Yeah but a lot of the time he was booked as Rollins is now and people call Rollins a weak champion. Rock routinely had Dusty finishes or Corporation help.

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  54. Don't forget Michaels and HHH were a part of the inner circle at that time and really resented Johnson's push. They tried derailing it many many times. If it wasnt for Patterson (and top guys like Bret) pushing for Johnson to stay strong, there is no telling how far the clique would have gone keeping him.down.

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  55. What's the source of that info of HHH and HBK resenting Rock's push? (not saying it's untrue just curious)

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  56. As silly as it sounds, I actually think that them letting him powerbomb MGK on Monday meant something. They're REALLY careful with guys who physically interact with their 'celebrity' guests, and the fact that he got that spot is telling. They trusted him to powerbomb him off the stage safely and that he would be able to sell the segment in case something went wrong, as it can when there's physical interaction between a wrestler and a non-wrestler.

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  57. The fact he was the one beating up the celebrity and not the other way around (as is usually the case) is definitely a good thing

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  58. Not the least bit silly. It was absolutely a meaningful moment.

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  59. Nah, Owens is on another level altogether from Bray.

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  60. You could even argue that some of Sin Cara's injuries could have been avoided if he learned the WWE style. Sin Cara was his own worst enemy.

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  61. It's pretty well known that they didn't like him back then.

    http://www.examiner.com/article/the-truth-behind-the-rock-and-shawn-michaels-heat

    http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=133458293

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  62. It was written about and said by Rock many times but Bret confirmed it in his own book.

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  63. Absolutely not silly at all. That's a pretty big heat-building moment.

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  64. Joey Jo-Jo Junior ShabbadooJune 21, 2015 at 12:46 PM

    It would not surprise me if Vince made that call because he was afraid that all the little Cena Nationers would see their hero lose clean, lose heart and never watch WWE again, so he announced the rematch as quickly as possible to quell fears. Obviously, he wasn't going to have the announcers say "don't worry kids, Cena's gonna beat the mean man real soon!" but he might as well have.

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  65. To be fair, whatever you may think of Tensai as a performer, I don't think you can blame him for that horrendously lame gimmick not getting over.

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  66. Brock makes sense, but Lashley? Who ever have a shit about Lashley? Leaving the company opened the door for talented people.

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  67. Totally. Or at least spent some time getting used to the WWE rings before working in one, because I'll bet they feel a lot different than the ones he was used to.

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  68. Joey Jo-Jo Junior ShabbadooJune 21, 2015 at 1:08 PM

    Rock could cut a great promo afterwards and make you forget about the loss. Rollins has to stand around getting scolded by HHH and Steph even when he WINS.

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  69. I thought the rumor was that he got the spot because Zayn was injured.

    Or there are just two different rumors.

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  70. I'm with you on the loss - Owens fought tooth-and-nail and barely lost. I'm cool with him being booked as Cena's equal instead of his superior.

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  71. Rusev was definitely protected but he worked his way up through the midcard. Owens has been thrust into a feud w thr biggest star of the generation from day 1.

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  72. Beating Cena in his first WWE match is a bigger deal than Brock tearing through the midcard.

    I don't think the loss is that big of a deal. Commentary sold i as a moral victory and Cena was raising he guys hand after the match.

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  73. He's a good worker and a great actor, he really got hurt at the wrong time.

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  74. Vince sacrificed the entire ECW brand to push Lashley. He also gave him the slot with Trump in the hair match. I believe that is the biggest WM ever.

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  75. You know, at the time the anti-smark trolls were trying to argue that Tensai was never supposed to be pushed to the main event and it was just Vince cutting Matt Bloom a break. Because you know, Cena always does jobs for Vince pity cases.

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  76. Flair was jobbing to Hogan and Piper on house shows before he won the Rumble. UTspent a year working before he got the title from Hogan. Yokozuna did gret a pretty fast push, but it still was a build. Squash matches, move up to beating Duggan, Rumble win, build some more for a couple months, then beat Bret....oh wait, then he lost to Hogan on the spot. Shield? feuding with the Wyatt family is hardly the same as coming right in and beating Cena.


    There have been lots of guys who were protected from the get go and moved up. Savage, Mr. Perfect, Tatanka, Angle, Lesnar, and many more. The difference with Owens (at this point) is that he debuted against a big name and beat him right off. Not since Hogan beating Iron Sheik has anything been like that, and people forget that Hogan worked a tag match against the Samoans on Championship Wrestling to introduce him to the crowd before the MSG title win against Iron Sheik.

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  77. Owens powerbombing that guy means more to me than anything he's done with Cena so far. They got plans for him, at least.

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  78. Rock was 50/50 booked?

    Brock got an astonishing rocket push, as did Lashley to a lesser extent.

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  79. They tell stories in the same way that 1001 Arabian nights did. There's never an ending. There's usually a beginning, maybe some middle ground. Then re booking on the fly to start a new beginning before the first story actually ends

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  80. Yeah a bit of a bummer a couple of months ago when I noticed that.

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  81. I remember that one too. Im so into wrestling rumors that I wish someone who did this (ryder, meltzer, that dude that loves dogs) could write articles with a pseudonym of course and delve deeper on where they get all this. Or is it just as simple as 'making shit up'. Probably the latter.

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  82. I was gonna say, 50/50 booking is within the last little bit, and certainly wasn't a style used when Rock was starting out.

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  83. Also b/c 50/50 booking wasn't a thing at that point

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  84. In all seriousness, since Raw ive asked about 20 people if they knew him, and no one did. Ill get one eventually he cant be that obscure, maybe I just hang out with a different crowd that doesnt listen to his music. They all think hes a gangster. Like.... a real one, not a rapper.

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  85. No one is too good for that to happen as long as VKM is breathing. . .

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  86. Lol that is amazing. I can't believe the logic behind that argument...I mean Tensai was getting vignettes - *vignettes* - for two or three weeks before showing up, in an era where *no one* got that kind of packaging!! How could they not think they were going to rocket push the dude?

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  87. From the rumours I have read, many people up in WWE thought Owens would fail right out of the gate. When he didn't they took notice and started to move things around him...that combined w the Rusev injury basically.

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  88. Vince did....that's the prob.

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  89. Cena AND Punk......and no one bought it.

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  90. Punk was pretty well-protected upon arrival.


    He went through just about everyone on ECW before getting the belt and trading wins with Morrison, teamed with DX at Survivor Series (didn't get eliminated), won MITB, and cashed in successfully on Edge.


    He was a lame duck champion and they brought him back down to earth after that, but it was still a rocket push by the usual standards.

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  91. Moved a bunch of T-shirts upon his debut. Sometimes it's that simple.

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  92. Charismatic eNegro Jef VinsonJune 22, 2015 at 6:31 AM

    Probably because he's HHH's boy and Cena was big on him.

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  93. Charismatic eNegro Jef VinsonJune 22, 2015 at 6:31 AM

    They know his girl more than they know him.

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  94. Fat, Ugly Inner-City SweathogJune 22, 2015 at 7:25 AM

    First time since Hulkamania era? How about Brock Lesnar

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  95. Fat, Ugly Inner-City SweathogJune 22, 2015 at 7:43 AM

    The first six months of Kane

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  96. When Rock started out, you were either winning or losing.

    But if they deemed you important, it didn't really matter. If you go back and look at Austin's win/loss record, he was pretty much always losing the big matches after they established his character.

    Mind you, he was beating other guys. But the big win's eluded him until they put him on a roll leading up to Mania 14.

    The 50/50 booking means no one get's any traction, but everyone still loses.

    Lucha Underground deals out their jobs pretty well. A guy will job a lot for a while, trade wins briefly and then start winning regularly while someone else takes the job spot.

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  97. Whereas Owens was pushed as a main eventer from day one. He didn't have to prove shit for six months first.

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