With wrestlers basically coming into the company, usually getting start and stop pushes, until someone catches fire and people really only staying on TV if they're marketable, does "Pay Your Dues" have any meaning?
It used to mean something like, "You gotta work your way to the top" or something but it's been used vaguely to answer questions like, "Why is Wrestler X not getting pushed" to "Why is Batista carrying D-Von's bag?"
Nowadays, they just throw a guy out there, have him win about 3-5 matches and if Vince thinks he's marketable, he'll stay at some position Vince thinks fits. Otherwise, he's DOA or left to play the Midcard Shuffle. Where does "Pay Your Dues" fit in?
I think it's actually the stop-and-start push now that has replaced "paying your dues." The idea now is that you get pushed to a certain level, and then they make you lose all the time to see how you react. If you survive without throwing hissy fits or retiring from the business in frustration, you get re-pushed, ostensibly for real this time. Kind of like Daniel Bryan, although Shawn Michaels did an interview recently where he not-very-cryptically talked about meeting with Vince and learning that Vince doesn't particularly think that Mr. Bryan can draw money. Could be part of the storyline, I dunno, but RAW kind of bombed on Monday and it doesn't portend well for all involved. Personally I think the short-term losses are worth the long-term benefits of putting the belt on him and making a bigger star in the process, but they are running a business and I get why this sort of thing might make people gun-shy.
I believe Shawn later clarified he wasn't talking about Bryan
ReplyDeleteJack Swagger got a world title shot at WrestleMania despite being a heatless bum.
ReplyDeleteI have no faith and no idea in what they decide to do any more.
But he refuses to reveal who he was talking about. Although he did say something to the effect of the guy Vince was talking about is roughly 6'3, 250. Perhaps he's talking about Curtis Axel?
ReplyDeleteI like everyone in the midcard trading wins, chasing the same titles, and facing the same opponent every week over a stretch of several months if only because it reminds me of the epic season-long feud between Dean Malenko and Scotty 2 Hotty for the Light Heavyweight Championship in "SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role"
ReplyDeleteSandow?
ReplyDeleteDoes HBK even watch the product? He could be talking about virtually anyone. It could be someone who was prominent the last time he was working full-time, but is on the shit list now.
ReplyDelete"Hey Vince, whatareyadoing? Evan Bourne's a great talent and I don't even see him backstage! You gotta push that guy!"
"He severed his foot in a motorcycle accident and got caught taking bath salts!"
"oh."
I can just picture HBk adding ''Is Jericho still Doink?'' after that interview.
ReplyDelete"Vince, look, Chris Benoit's one of the greatest wrestlers I've been in the ring with. I know he's getting up there but -- hello? Vince?"
ReplyDeleteI'm at least glad to see that they are pulling their talent from the indies these days (by which I mean indies people actually watch, oh ye inevitable people who will say that Cena and Kofi technically came from indies) instead of taking guys from basicaly nothing and building them up. It brings back the idea of working your way up through the indies as paying your dues, and it allows for a broader style of worker to come through.
ReplyDeleteCesaro.
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty clear that paying dues definitely used to mean something. If you look at the old NWA champions, how often were they in their 20s? Ric Flair used to drive Andre, Harley, and Johnny Valentine around when he first moved to Mid Atlantic. And he considered himself lucky to do it; he could pick their brains about the business while showing that he was willing to put up with the shit jobs to get a chance.
ReplyDeleteI like the Japanese way of doing it. The young boys go through their brutal training camps, and then get treated like total jobbers to test their desire to stay in the business. If hey last that long, they are then sent away. When they come back, it's with their wrestling character, and they can start their careers having paid their dues.
Bryan does not get the title anytime soon. The Heel turn should come in the next couple of weeks, probably after Sheamus , who is pinned less often than Cena, wins MITB. The you will get a couple of month long program with Bryan playing the COWARDLY HEEL, plenty of piped in chants and planted signs to be sure that the crowd is behaving properly, only to have Cena RISE ABOVE THE GOAT. Cena will not drop the title for at least another full year. Or whenever 436 days is over....
ReplyDeleteMy friend had a theory that they do it to see who rises back to the top. Some guys will lose their heat and go away; others the crowd will keep cheering for no matter how hard you try to bury them.
ReplyDeleteCaitlin?
ReplyDeleteI agree, although in Japan they have to eat Ritz crackers with their own jizz on it. It's like a goddamn fraternity over there.
ReplyDeleteDidn't know that. Although, beginning wrestlers are so poor, maybe that's the only way they can get quality protein.
ReplyDeleteDiva Burn.
ReplyDeleteThat seems the case with Bryan. He was ready for a super push at last year's Mania, yet they waited a year plus and saw he was still super over, and now it looks like they're going for it. Emphasis on 'looks like'.
ReplyDeletePaying your dues are meant as a bs excuse for why they have to do something. Diesel went from nobody to triple crown winner in one year. Undertaker went from nobody to beating hogan in 1 year. Yokozuna went from nobody to royal rumble winner and 2x champ in 9 months. None of them paid their dues and were always meant to look strong.
ReplyDeleteHow much cooler would it have been if Hacksaw had been Swaggers manager, but he was still heel? You could just have them come out before every Del Rio match and beat him with 2x4's and lead a "U.Sth.A!" chant for about a month. It would also help with Swaggers marijauna DUI angle since Hacksaw did the same thing.
ReplyDeleteOh that wasn't an angle. My bad.
Last year after wrestlemania, he had a strong rematch with Seamus and then 2 wwe title matches. After that, he had a 8 month run as tag champs and was in a constant program with the shield. Not everyone can be champ all the time. Was he going to displace punk or Sheamus or big show?
ReplyDeleteFinally someone with some logic
ReplyDeleteI think the traditional way we think of "paying your dues" died in the 80's with national expansion. The old school ways were dying and there became such a need for expanded and deeper rosters that people in power didn't have the ability to wait for wrestlers to pay their dues because they needed stars to stay afloat.
ReplyDeleteI think Scott's right about today though with how the push, de-push and then eventual re-push is the modern form of "paying your dues".
Yep. I've been saying the exact same thing for awhile.
ReplyDeletebut then they are forced through (then ovw) and fcw to learn the wwe style, basically castrating them in the process.
ReplyDeletelook what happens when you dont go through the system.
mistico is basically mexico's #1 draw and now reduced to nothing because they brought him up without going thru fcw, as opposed to dos caras, who did go thru, and is boring us to tears as ADR.
Sin Cara is injury prone, who got no heat (partially because he can't talk), and a highlight reel for botchamania.
ReplyDeleteIf the push/de-push method is now our version of paying dues, I imagine Kofi and Wade Barrett have a good couple years' worth of world/wwe championship reigns ahead of them. They have paid the dues for the rest of the roster and for the next decade's worth of superstars.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to restate what Olejko said so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle, but yes, HBK came out and specifically said he wasn't talking about Bryan. He even acted a little indignant that fans would even think it was Bryan because of Bryan's popularity and career arc (the implied meaning would be "of course, Vince sees money in him"). You hear these stories about Shawn sticking up for Punk, Bryan, and this mystery man (we gotta be thinking Cesaro, Sandow, or Axel) directly to Vince, and you have to believe that: 1. Shawn's a good evaluator of talent. 2. He just might be a good guy after all (there's still a lot of haters out there)
It also allows for workers that can handle different crowds. Orton vs Sheamus after WM was one of the greatest matches ever from a crowd standpoint. These 2 have never faced a hostile crowd, can only do their regular moves and can't improvise. Punk & Jericho know how to change their moveset because they have been all over the world. Even Cena can change his style to handle a hostile crowd (ex: his match vs RVD or Punk at MITB); even during promos, he can change his style (like after WM this year, he had the crowd loving him after the tapings) and add little in-jokes to handle him (like his heel turn joke or his sexual chocolate joke at raw after WM).
ReplyDeleteBut why do you have to be Doink??
ReplyDeleteIf Kofi Kingston ever wins the WWE Championship, I'm done.
ReplyDeleteCan we start a boring chant to shut you up?
ReplyDeleteif he is wrestling at lucha-speed and his opponents have been wrestling at wwe-speed (slow as fuck) he is gonna have injuries.
ReplyDeletethis is why he should have been put through the fcw system instead of immediately called up, figuring that he'd have a rey misterio type impact. he would have learned the style and Sllllllooooowwww down his work.
now he has to learn on the job. there will be injuries. unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on POV) its mostly been on him.
plus bringing him up cold did him no real favors and rey never talked in wcw... he got over off work alone, but the difference is rey (who is/was/always will be injury prone) is cuz was brought in with guys who could work his style. psychosis, juvi, dean, eddie etc etc....
sin cara was paired with eddie colon, who works puerto rico... that aint lucha. theres some lucha qualities but Carlos Colon was never a traditional lucha. the only one close to being a lucha was Carly. Eddie and the other one arent lucha style wrestlers.
Hacksaw's a better wrestler than Swagger; the flaw in your idea is Hacksaw would be more over than either wrestler in the ring.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the stuff that goes on in the showers. Things I've read about the "Young Boy" system would make Bradshaw blush.
ReplyDeleteJamaican me crazy with comments like that! Ah well, what'ya Ghana do? /Adamle
ReplyDeleteThreadjack: Cowboys center Phil Costa gets engaged to Hulk Hogan’s daughter Brooke
ReplyDeletehttp://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/cowboys-center-phil-costa-gets-engaged-hulk-hogan-140547990.html
[sarcasm] I wonder what Aces and Eights are gonna do? TUNE into Impact to find OUT!!! [/sarcasm]
At least with Undertaker and Nash, they were on the road for a few years and doing spot shows before catching a break.
ReplyDeleteI hope John Cena never loses the title. He is the best!
ReplyDeleteKofi apparently doesn't want to go any further, because he just likes doing what he's doing and playing video games and reading comics without dealing with the bullshit. And frankly, I don't blame him, so I'm glad it makes him happy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, good point
ReplyDeleteStrange. I always thought people were being sarcastic when they said that about Kofi. Even stranger, in the two feuds they asked him to step up (against Orton in 09 and against Miz last year), he stepped up big time through his work and promos. There were times when I thought he was going to be this generation's Steamboat. But if he's happy, then I can't fault him
ReplyDeleteME, TOO!
ReplyDeleteBoD CENATION REPRESENT!
ReplyDeleteYeah Benoit was known to be a vicious bully over there while touring.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a problem with the theory of "paying your dues", just with the inconsistent application of the principle. Basically, when Vince wants to push someone, they get pushed whether or not "dues" have been paid. And yet, when it's someone the company is iffy on or has a rep that wasn't created by WWE, that's the standard excuse for why the person isn't featured more prominently. Ideally, you should weed out the duds, deadheads, troublemakers and malcontents long before they ever appear on any of your television programs (including FCW), but the rules have changed and there are likely people getting opportunities they don't really deserve based on their talent level and temperament.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear it if this is the case...I was always pissed that his push got cut off after the whole Orton thing, because I thought he nailed it and was getting way over with the crowd.
ReplyDeleteGiven that he's buddy buddy with Punk, I think if he wanted a bigger role, Punk would be lobbying on his behalf backstage. The fact that he hasn't gotten one makes me think he doesn't want one.
You do have to wonder if that attitude can backfire on you in the current WWE environment, though. Because (in theory) everyone should be giving their all every night and striving to reach the top of the heap, even if in reality only a precious few actually make it there.
ReplyDeleteRemember the words of Stone Cold: if you're not here to become the WW(E) Champion, you've got no business being here.
IIRC I actually thought Shawn said something like, "Of course Vince is big on him" (as if for some reason it would be obvious).
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it was Sheamus Vince was talking about. If you believe the dirt sheets he's had a couple of big pushes cancelled lately (the mythical post-heel-turn Orton feud as a big part of Summerslam, being dropped as the headliner of the B house shows in favor of Punk), he's been taking a lot of criticism for his stagnancy from the IWC lately (which was another clue Shawn dropped about the mystery guy's identity), and he's right in the height/weight ballpark. Sure, he's HHH's workout buddy, but that doesn't mean Vince & HHH see eye-to-eye on everything.
ReplyDelete*passes out on Vince McMahon's couch*
ReplyDeleteYeah, ts a fair point, but that's coming from a guy who was the biggest star in the business. He earned every bit of it, but its kinda easy for him to say something like that after the fact. Its a nice idea to "show up to play 110%" every night, but its also a worked result where Kofi can't exactly just decide to go 45 minutes on a whim.
ReplyDeleteThe Miz and Jack Swagger have won....and you're still here.
ReplyDeleteYou can still give it your all every night without striving to be the WWE champ. So long as you do everything you can to put on an entertaining product and give the fans their money's worth, you've done your job.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, you always see the guys who have some background outside the system shine when they need to mix things up. I think moreso than anything the training at FCW just sucks, because you had that whole crop of guys who could go through the motions of a WWE match but didn't know how to do any goddamn moves. And you ended up with like 8 people at one time doing a Flatliner and another 6 or so doing a uranage, because they didn't have anything else. But as Jericho said in his second book, even great wrestlers gotta learn WWE style.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy their work better, if only by default. Kofi wrestles like he's being controlled by a video game controller.
ReplyDeleteThat would've gotten Swagger over as a huge babyface in much of the US.
ReplyDeleteLance Storm says a lot of that is unsubstantiated stuff and rumors passed off as reality, though of course he was never in New Japan that I can remember.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a bad comparison.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the Orton feud a couple of years back, but otherwise Kofi has never done much for me. I don't like his ring style at all.
It was different then, Undertaker and Diesel paid their dues before they ever arrived in WWE.
ReplyDeleteBryan has been one of their most high profile guys for a very long time now. He's clearly thought well of.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how anyone could argue that.
...is what you get from hooking up with Tammy Sytch... but they have a cream you can buy for it///
ReplyDeleteHe was also known as such in his own home... too soon?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds about right. I remember being fine with him when he first debuted and had the accent but as time has gone on, I've just grown to hate the way he wrestles. I almost feel like a bitter DVDVR poster for not liking that he just does move sequences with no rhyme of reason... and I guess that'd make sense.
ReplyDelete