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Greatest Push Enhancement of a Wrestler

Hey Scott,

I was looking at a WWE.com article discussing guys that weren't supposed to make it and they featured Mikey Whipwreck (he made it?) and their justification was, at one time, he beat Steve Austin. That took me back and it got me thinking to when I saw that match on DVD and how I thought to myself, "Wow, how far did Austin go in one year?"

This got me thinking, one of the necessary evils of wrestling is that you have guys who might start out on the job squad and, later in their career, are fighting main eventers. Daniel Bryan is a clear example of this where he started out jobing to everyone on NXT (back when they were being sold as green-as-grass rookies) and now beats Kane. HBK used to have trouble with Virgil (and would job constantly as a Rocker) and, later on, could polish off, well, everyone. In 1995, HHH used to get annihilated by the Undertaker (It was basically a joke to see the two of them in the ring), and in his last match, he all but beat him. This always struck me as destroying the credibility of the business 'cause as an outsider, this would make no sense. Wrestler A used to have trouble fighting Wrestler B. Now he's beating Wrestler C who used to (and possibly still does) squash Wrestler B. That never happens in fighting. Sure, in UFC, you have upsets but people basically know Kimbo Slice is losing to Rashad Evans. Once you've lost to someone, I know what your limits are as a fighter. That's life.

Like I said, it's a necessary evil because of the nature of wrestling and star-making, but I always found it funny that one guy could go from struggling against a 200-lb nobody to squashing someone that used to be a 400-lb super-monster and it's hardly remarked on.

So here is my question: Have you ever had this feeling? If so, in what match (or name a couple of examples) has this situation  been most apparent to you?

It doesn't bug me so much because a lot of times you can see guys growing as wrestlers and learning new things.  Wrestlers are essentially literary characters come to life, so if they were stuck in the same role for years on end without ever growing or learning, then they'd be static and/or John Cena.  Shawn Michaels used to get tuned in by Virgil as a tag wrestler, but he became a single and learned to how to beat big guys and also learned to be resilient.  

And I don't think your analogy works well for UFC, either.  Just because Dos Santos knocked out Velasquez in a minute the first time doesn't mean Cain isn't gonna knock his head off the second time.  People train and grow.  In a way it makes wrestling MORE realistic that someone like Daniel Bryan would become more confident and figure out how to beat Kane.  

Comments

  1. Not to mention that perseverance and upward mobility are two of the major linchpins of American culture. If everyone stayed at the same basic talent level at all times, it'd be too much like real life to be fun.

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  2. Completely agree with Scott. The transition from young up-and-comer, to mid-level talent, to eventual main eventer is a staple of good wrestling storytelling. In fact, it is one of the things missing in the WWE nowadays and probably hinders their ability to make new stars (think of all those that started off as tag team wrestlers, became IC champs and then transitioned to world champion while modifying their characters along the way. The idea of getting seasoning and learning new skills is part of the reason to invest emotionally in a character.


    It is the same in the UFC. Anderson Silva in 1999 was NOT the same Anderson Silva as today. Nick Diaz wasn't the same in 2004, Allistair Overeem went from mid-level Light Heavyweight to top-tier heavyweight, and GSP lost to Matt Hughes the first time around before wrecking him twice. Everyone improves. Sure, everyone has a ceiling (not everyone becomes a main eventer), but they all grow, learn and hone their craft over time.

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  3. Yeah, this question had an absurd premise and I also totally agree with Scott. Guys aren't supposed to get better? You're always supposed to be exactly as good as when you start?

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  4. Yeah, this email is really dumb. In competition, people improve over time.

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  5. I don't see how it's not perfect sense that guys won't get better kayfabe-wise. It happens all the time in sports: Wes Welker went from special teams specialist in Miami to one of the most dangerous WRs in the game, Jose Bautista went from a guy who couldn't hack it with the Pirates of all teams to a 40-HR guy with the Blue Jays. Even look at John Cena, who couldn't top Brock Lesnar in 2003, and nine years later, Cena's the guy Brock has to knock off, and couldn't. If these guys are professionals, they SHOULD be improving, even in kayfabe.

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  6. Minor nerdy basketball quibble: Bron has long had a really good post game. His efficiency numbers in the post were actually down this year. He did, however, use it a lot more this year.

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  7. How can you have a discussion about enhancement guys becoming huge without bringing up the greatest and most awesome rise in WWE history, Duane Gill? He went from the jobbiest jobber who ever jobbed, to longest reigning Light-heavyweight champion in history. He became so great that he had to travel the country and wrestle in barns to find suitable competition when the E became too small to contain him. He easily eclipsed the stellar career of Lords Of Pain partner Barry Hardy, whose passion and endurance was so respected that Matt and Jeff Krustofsky were honered to change their last name too honor him.

    Oh, wait, you mean that was a serious email? I've made a huge mistake.

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  8. I like to work Ken Patera into a discussion whenever possible, so here goes - during his last match in WWE, the announcers were discussing how he doesn't seem to have it anymore, age, injuries, etc caught up to him, he should retire. He lost and he was gone, "retired" in the WWE Universe. If that happens today, he pisses off Jack Tunney and ends up in a match that he has to win or else lose his job.

    Guys getting better, or worse, over time makes sense and it doesn't seem to happen amy more. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart weren't great singles wrestlers so they were in teams. Eventually felt they were ready to be singles. From singles they felt they were ready to go for the IC title. After that they were ready to go for the big title. It's an evolution (is a mystery). Now you'll have Dolph Ziggler do the same thing for a couple of years, then if they decide to push him next month he's a big deal next week just because.

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  9. Yeah, this question is ridiculous.


    On a related note, why does it bother people when Wrestler A beats Wrestler B, then Wrestler B beats Wrestler C, and then Wrestler C beats Wrestler A? Combat isn't a case of "One guy beats everybody" it's entirely possible that some styles of wrestling hard counter other peoples styles.

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  10. YankeesHoganTripleHFanOctober 20, 2012 at 3:14 PM

    Ken Patera??? Well done. But to be serious look at Ric Flair. A top guy for the 80's and first half of the nineties, then it makes sense as he got older he can't beat the top guys anymore. To make a comparison to recent events in real sports take Alex Rodriguez. He went from a 3 time mvp in the 90's to a .270 hitter with 20 home runs when he got older, (for the sake of argument I am choosing to ignore any "help" he may have gotten in his prime) Now look at it another way...Is 2005 Flair still good enough to win the IC title, and every now and then beat a top guy, (HHH at Taboo Tuesday)? Sure, the same way an older Raul Ibanez is still a valuable bench player, and can hit a huge home run every now and then.

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  11. People that think like this are the reason WWE booking is the way it is. If this were the early days of the British Empire, this guy would be loudly in favor of the caste system.

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  12. Silly.


    Guys practice, and train, and they get better. Other guys don't practice, and don't get better, or even get worse. And everyone slows down as they age, or after injury.

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  13. In the mid-1990s, the Hardy Boyz were actually used by the WWF as jobbers. One of the Hardyz faced Triple H on a Raw in 1995 and Matt was actually Austin's first WWF opponent. Today, Jeff Hardy is a 6-time World Champion. I don't think anybody else has really gone from being a literal jobber to being at the top of the wrestling business.

    I don't see any problem with this. The Hardyz were very young when they started out and weren't ready to compete at the same level as HHH or Austin. Around 3 or 4 years later, the Hardyz finally got their first push in 1999 and became one of the WWF's top tag teams along with the Dudleyz and E&C. By 2002, the Hardyz split up as a team, but weren't ready to compete against main eventers. Undertaker dominated Jeff Hardy in that ladder match and only JR's commentary made Hardy look like had a chance and really it should have been that way. Matt Hardy moved to Smackdown and proved unable to compete at a main event level. He was never good enough to be on the same level as Kane or to beat Edge when Edge was rising to main event. Jeff Hardy went to TNA in the meantime and couldn't beat Jarrett, as he wasn't at Jarrett's level yet. He went back to WWE and competed for 2 years before he rose to main event status in late 2008. Hardy won 3 World titles in WWE before leaving for TNA, where he faced Kurt Angle for the first time in 9 years. Instead of Angle squashing him, as would have happened in 2001, Hardy and Angle went to 2 very long draws in 2010 because neither man could beat the other. Hardy had learned resilience and become as good as Angle. A year and a half later, Hardy came back more focused than ever and won a feud with Angle. It is truly unbelievable that Jeff Hardy could have such a logical progression to the top when he has bounced back and forth between WWE and TNA. Hardy went from midcard to upper midcard in his first TNA run, from upper midcard to main event in his 2nd WWE run and has now become better (in kayfabe) in his 2nd TNA run now that he's presumably clean.

    The Japanese do this kind of logical progression better. Typically, wrestlers in New Japan start in the opening match as a "Young Lion" wrestler (basically a jobber). When they show growth, they are sent overseas to one of NJPW's affiliates and then they return and they suddenly have new gimmick and a new position on the card. Captain New Japan and Tetsuya Naito faced each other many times early in their careers and split the matches. Naito is now just below the main event level, while Captain New Japan (Hideo Saito in 2011) is at the bottom of the card most of the time. That's actually fitting because Naito is one of the top 10 workers in the world, while Captain New Japan is a bad worker by New Japan standards. Japanese matches are also known for building on past matches.

    Without that logical progression, wrestling would quickly become boring because every match would be predictable and basically the same as every other match. That's one of the most annoying things about Cena. Nothing that he does has any lasting impact on his character. Even his "must-win" match with The Rock that he lost had no lasting impact.

    The reason why UFC fighters don't seem to progress as drastically is because UFC books fights between fighters that are on the same level whenever they can. They don't stick Anderson Silva in the Octagon against some guy who is making his MMA debut. They also don't usually put prospects against the top guys in their division until they think their prospect is ready. Rory McDonald isn't fighting George St. Pierre yet, although they did put him up against Condit and he wasn't ready yet. Jon Jones is an exception, but he only got the shot because Rashad got hurt.

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  14. The 2011 Finals would disagree, since LeBron would post up JJ Barea and have no idea how to attack a guy 6 inches shorter and about 75 pounds less. Whatever it was before, it's night and day to his arsenal now, and if he adds a decent sky hook like he said he did this offseason, oh shit.

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  15. How many star players in college football have turned into busts in the NFL while other players you've never heard of became stars in the NFL? At the University of Pittsburgh, Tyler Palko was the starter and Joe Flacco was the backup who had to transfer to Delaware (a team in an inferior division) to get playing time. In the NFL, Flacco has started every game of his career and is entrenched as a starter. Palko made 4 career starts and is no longer in the league. If the NFL reflected the email's view of realism, Matt Leinart and Vince Young would be elite QBs, Ben Roethlisberger would be an NFL backup QB and Joe Flacco would be playing in the Arena League or the CFL.

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  16. I agree with you, for once. Commentators would often say how Wrestler X had been 'scouting his opponent' and 'had learned how the counter the dreaded Move Y'. People move up and down the ladder.

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  17. Can I be Serf Robert? I don't want to be a Count or anything, so lowest rung will be fine.

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  18. That Heath Slater finally figured out a way to beat Brodus Clay.

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  19. As in "whatever you are at first, that's forever what you will be, and nothing you do can change it". Seems to be the tone of the email.

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  20. I think a good real world example of how wrong this email is would be Mike Tyson.
    80s: Baddest man on the planet and knocked many people out in 1 round
    early 90s: lost to a person (Buster Douglas who had 4 losses) who had the heart and determination to beat Tyson especially when he wasn't having a great day; Tyson lost his aura about him and had a few close fights but he still won; then went to jail
    late 90s: still was a great fighter and won the title; had major problems with Holyfield (who had 3 losses already)
    early 00s: still can compete but lost to Lewis (who had lost 2x to people he should have beaten the first time) and then loses to a couple nobodies and retires

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  21. The only thing I don't like about the Japanese way of doing things is how "Mechanical" it all feels. It's like a guy trains and levels-up Dragon Ball Z/Naruto/Shonen Manga-style, moving up only incrementally, defeating higher and higher guys. It works well and is logical, but it's a bit boring. You can almost predict exactly where everybody will be with each year, and there are very few guys who make dramatic leaps or suddenly turn up better than ever.


    Of course, I haven't paid attention to Puroresu in 10 years, so they may have changed since then, but from what I recall of old New Japan stuff, that was always how it worked.

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  22. And yet Beth Phoenix still doesn't know how to counter the rollup.

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  23. Its changed a little. Okada returned at the Tokyo Dome, had an awful match with Yoshi-Hashi (another returning "young lion") and immediately challenged Tanahashi for the IWGP Title. He won the belt in February and then had a MOTY candidate with Naito out of nowhere a few weeks later. Generally though, they still push younger wrestlers slowly. Naito was in a tag team when I started watching New Japan, broke up with Yujiro Takahashi and feuded with him for a few months. Then, Naito was runner-up in last year's G-1 and suddenly wrestling near the top of the card, but so far they won't let him win the big one. Goto has been stuck on the cusp of the main event for years, winning a G-1 and a record 3 New Japan Cups, but losing every IWGP title shot.

    The good news for New Japan is that nobody in Japan saw Okada's TNA run because TNA isn't on TV anywhere in Japan. He was on the roster for 2 years and was used as an Xplosion jobber a few times. His most prominent appearance was as Samoa Joe's cameraman in a ridiculous costume ("Okato") that went around invading Pope's privacy. That was one of the absolute worst feuds TNA ever did and the end result was the complete burial of everybody involved. When Okada went back to NJPW, they ended their working relationship with TNA. TNA now has a working relationship with NOAH (Samoa Joe & Magnus won the GHC Tag Titles for a few months). WWE actually has a working relationship with All Japan now (because WWE was stupid enough to run house shows in Japan at the same time as the G-1 Climax and panicked over poor attendance). All Japan brought in Kevin Nash for a show as part of an nWo reunion with Muta.

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  24. That's because...


    Wrestler A (1W-1L)
    Wrestler B (1-1)
    Wrestler C (1-1)


    Fifty-fifty booking.

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  25. A classic example of this would be Ali, Foreman and Frazier in the 1970s. Frazier beat Ali. Foreman beat Frazier. Ali beat Foreman. Something similar happened in the Big 12 South division in 2008 between Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Oklahoma lost to Texas. Texas lost to Texas Tech. Texas Tech lost to Oklahoma. All 3 teams finished tied and for some arbitrary reason, Oklahoma got to go to the Big 12 Championship game and to lose the BCS to Tim Tebow, angering alot of people in Texas. The BCS is a stupid way to decide who gets to play for the championship.

    I don't have a problem with this kind of booking in wrestling, provided that it isn't midcarders trading 2 minute victories over each other because that helps nobody.

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  26. It's a tossup between him and JaMarcus Russell as to who's the biggest draft bust in NFL history.

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  27. flacco sucks


    *browns fan 4 LIFE*

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  28. Id like to add Tony Maravich to the discussion

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  29. Eh? It's better than trading wins IMO.

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  30. Mike Williams......supposed to have been what Megatron was in Detroit.....blew chunks

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  31. I'm more bothered by instances where the dynamic and control of a match completely shifts because of a heel/face switch. I understand WHY it's like that, but from a logical standpoint it irritates me. Like Austin vs. Angle. Before Austin turned heel, he'd constantly kick Angle's ass. Then Angle turned face and Austin turned heel, and suddenly Angle was dominating and making Austin tap clean. Then Angle turned heel and Austin turned face, and Austin was back to being an ass kicker and Angle was back to being a coward. And this was all within the same year!

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  32. JaMarcus has bigger tits, so yeah he has the bigger bust...but seriously


    JaMarcus' ceiling was never as high as Ryan Leaf's was, I mean didn't wasn't he considered to be just as good, if not better than Peyton freaking Manning?

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