HHH taking over from Vince on RAW

[Bix]

My brother put it on my Facebook. Maybe his source was erroneous.

Did he "share" a WWE post or just C&P something?

 

If the latter...seriously dude? WTF?

[flyonthewall2983]

He said it was up there one minute, down the next.

[Marty]

 

So will guys like Punk and Bryan be asked to grow their hair long now?

[jdw]

Vince vs Punk... so... uh...

[jdw]

Bumping... just because it seems relevant with Trip putting himself over Brock and yesterday again not really making much forward movement of the next generation of stars.

 

John

[El-P]

Hey, his first project Sin Cara was a tremendous succes. Wait...

[goodhelmet]

Karma and Sin Cara were both great pick-ups. The way it ended sucked but you absolutely cannot fault them for actually signing them. Same thing goes for Hero, Claudio, the Shield guys, etc. They are picking up the right people. I don't know if HHH is in charge of creative which is where the projects are getting lost. Karma is another story but that is not HHH's fault.

[Death From Above]

They are signing who is available but I still think the WWE has to do more long-term to try and produce more new talent through expanding in-house training and recruiting. Yes it will cut into your bottom line in general to operate a larger range on the b-promotion developmental side but if you find the next Steve Austin who becomes the new license to print money it pays off big time.

 

More maybe to the point of this thread, I don't get how Brock loses at Mania again and the plan was to then turn around next night and build to Brock/Rock. Is there anyone in the world that thinks Brock wins that match? There couldn't be less drama around that. That's nothing against either guy, but that's just how it seems. Announcing Mania's main event essentially a year in advance is really dumb too, but that's a separate issue.

[goc]

I think the idea that you can "find a Steve Austin" in developmental isn't really realistic. Austin had been wrestling since 1989 when he finally broke out as "Stone Cold" in 1996. The best thing they can get out of their developmental is a John Cena, Batista, or Lesnar. A young guy with a bunch of potential that they can bring along slowly (well not Lesnar) I know people seem to think guys should come out developmental ready to be main eventers but I don't think that is a realistic expectation.

[Death From Above]

Perhaps bad phrasing on my part, but my point being I think they need to widen their in-house options going forward. Scanning the indies for the next big thing is proving pretty hard to do these days. Which isn't so say there's nothing to be found out there, of course not, but why limit yourself more than necessary. They might as well take an approach of "if you want it done right do it yourself", even if it hurts the bottom line slightly.

 

Not even Austin walked in and went straight to the main event (I actually thought The Ringmaster was kind of a nothing program in the big picture, really), so I shouldn't imply it's as simple as (1) Train wrestler (2) ??? (3) Profit. Merely that the company needs to do what it can to not be put into the same box 10 years from now that they are in currently: where Wrestlemania has been built around nostalgia acts repeatedly.

 

It's done big business, hell they just drew one of the largest live gates ever for a wrestling card, but once The Rock burns out where do you go from there? You're out of nostalgia acts that mean anything, so they'll have to start shifting probably post Wrestlemania XXX one way or another. And all I'm saying is you might as well give yourself the best possible options going forward when that time comes.

[Robert S]

In-house training alone is not enough. If you take a talented guy and train him for five years in Florida he probably would not be good enough as someone who just spent the first and last year in Florida and the remaining time travels all around the world wrestling with different people doing different styles. To rephrase it: I don't think Bryan Danielson would be anything close what he is today if he spent 2001-2009 in OVW, Deep South and FCW.

[Death From Above]

I'm not saying it's enough on it's own. What I'm saying is neither is relying too much on the outside of a business that has become increasingly "WWE and those little people" either.

 

It's not an either/or choice. It's a choice about getting as much out of both that you can once you've run your nostalgia acts into the ground, which is coming sooner rather than later. I don't think increasing a commitment to in-house talent production has to correlate to a move away from continuing to search for the next Daniel Bryan or CM Punk. They will *always* have that option regardless of what else they do because they have all the money.

 

WWE has relied on poaching talent for the better part of what, 40 years? The problem is Vince won at wrestling. Which is great for Vince and the 200 people that work for him, but it's been bad for the other tiers of the business. They've had... gaps of finding new talent, but been able to gloss it over with older acts, but the problem will start to exacerbate itself over the next five years barring some large unforseen shift in the business.

 

Relevant to this thread, HHH will see himself as that nostalgia act, once Rock and Undertaker are done as a meaningful way of popping a buyrate. Won't that be swell.

[Al]

It's not like WWE struck out at developing talent over the years. But when a national promotion develops, it's awfully hard for that promotion to develop rookies as well. And the usual paths of wrestlers have tried up. Not only are the territories gone, but pro and amateur football has become lucrative to the point where it's not profitable for the washouts to pursue a pro wrestling career. I mean honesty, what is there to drive a promising athlete into wrestling? You have to either have an unhealthy obsession with wrestling or be completely unsuited to another pro sport.

[Ditch]

MMA isn't helping either. It hurt pro wrestling in Japan and I'd bet anything that a number of otherwise WWE superstars are in UFC.

[cm funk]

In-house training alone is not enough. If you take a talented guy and train him for five years in Florida he probably would not be good enough as someone who just spent the first and last year in Florida and the remaining time travels all around the world wrestling with different people doing different styles. To rephrase it: I don't think Bryan Danielson would be anything close what he is today if he spent 2001-2009 in OVW, Deep South and FCW.

The simple solution to this is farming out trainees. They sign an ex-wrestler/football player/powerlifter they view as a blue chip prospect, train him in Florida for a year or so, then send him to work in Japan or Mexico or around the indy circuit. Bring him back to FCW to polish him up for TV, then promote him. It's basically what they're doing now by scouring the indies for talent, but it gives them the added advantage of picking and choosing talent from the very beginning.

 

Of course it would require working relationships with promotions in Japan, Mexico and the indies, which is something they used to do and I never understood why they got away from it. I've read that one reason why Japanese promotions were bringing in less foreigners than they used to is with the business down over there they couldn't afford to. Why wouldn't a second tier Japanese promotion like NOAH or DDT jump at the opportunity to have guys that WWE is paying for come over and work for them? And quid pro quo have some of their young guys come over and get experience in the states? WWE certainly has the resources and connections to make something like this work.

 

I remember several years ago they had the plan to open worldwide developmental offices. One in Canada, on the UK, one in Europe, one in Mexico etc. I think they gave up on it when they realized just how much work logistically and how much investment it would take to get it off the ground, but to me it seems like a worthwhile investment for the longterm health of the company and the business. And I've always thought they needed a network of regional indy promotions serving as developmental stations, like they had for a brief time in the early 00's.

 

As far as MMA draining from the talent pool, I'm sure it does. But, I also don't think every young amateur wrestler necessarily wants to fight for a living when the odds of making big money in UFC are very slim. A lot of well established names in UFC live fight to fight and hustle for sponsorships just to pay for the expenses of living the life of a professional fighter. Guys fight hurt because they can't afford not to. Training camps are expensive. If WWE was more aggressive in recruiting by selling the potential upside of being a WWE superstar vs. an MMA fighter they might poach more guys who otherwise would enter MMA.

[Ditch]

UFC has made a lot of guys a lot of money. I don't think the odds are worse, especially if you're not a big personality.

[jdw]

Someone needs to hip Snowden to the "lots of guys a lot of money" comment.

 

John

[Ditch]

I know that UFC "actual" salaries are deliberately obscured. Back in the day, WCW/WWF/ECW salaries were somewhat common knowledge. How much do we know about current WWE salaries? I can't help but think we should know more considering WWE is public now. I actually have no clue how many are pulling down, say, 500k a year in WWE. Whereas I think back to the '90s and the likes of Stevie Ray got 750k a year, guys even below Stevie were making 400-500k. WWE doesn't stupidly throw money around like WCW did, but they're actually profitable and could afford to pay guys well, so I can see midcarders getting that kind of money. I can also see them in the 150-200k range because of WWE's monopoly and the disposability of so many midcarders. There are UFC guys making more than that range who aren't even top 50 on the roster (ie. Mike Pyle).

 

Reasonably high-end athlete (especially wrestlers) without a lot of charisma... MMA is more likely to get you a good living. Hell, look at how thin UFC is in terms of heavyweight talent. 6'3", 250-280 pounders are a dime a dozen in WWE. Seems like all you need to be a UFC heavyweight is a good punch and mediocre ground skill.

[jdw]

Snowden has done some pieces on how what a fighter "makes" isn't really what he makes. The costs / expenses eat a ton of it up.

 

John

[WingedEagle]

We can definitely get a good idea of what guys in UFC make short of precise headline bonuses, but can't begin to speculate on the costs associated with their training camps and related expenses.

[Ditch]

The bottom line is that for college wrestlers, who historically have been a HUGE part of wrestling's talent base, the ability to earn a living with MMA is a factor in terms of WWE's struggling developmental system. And MMA is more of a factor now that UFC salaries are much higher than they were ten years ago, whereas pro wrestling salaries have (probably? definitely?) not gone up in 15 years. Not to mention that kids in their early 20s are that much less likely to properly weigh gross vs net income and related financials (see: Diaz, Nick).

[evilclown]

The bottom line is that for college wrestlers, who historically have been a HUGE part of wrestling's talent base, the ability to earn a living with MMA is a factor in terms of WWE's struggling developmental system.

Have college wrestlers really been a HUGE part of wrestling's talent base? Researching the issue, I didn't find that to be true. In fact, I think it's notable how few collegiate stars made significant runs in the business.

[evilclown]

We can definitely get a good idea of what guys in UFC make short of precise headline bonuses, but can't begin to speculate on the costs associated with their training camps and related expenses.

Of course we can. I've talked in depth with fighters and their teams about training camps and associated costs. While it varies widely, the top of the heap fighters are spending five figures to prepare for a major bout. Much less than boxing, but much more than lower level UFC fighters. In some ways economic disparity can be a major factor in the outcome of a fight.

[Matt D]

Someone should totally do a Million Dollar Man gimmick.

[Ditch]

Have college wrestlers really been a HUGE part of wrestling's talent base? Researching the issue, I didn't find that to be true. In fact, I think it's notable how few collegiate stars made significant runs in the business.

Not as much as a grand total percentage of all wrestlers, but in terms of historical main eventers, yes. Less so in the modern era, but still 'a thing'. For instance, today Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle would have gone straight to MMA. Also there were various pro wrestlers who might have been more known for another sport but had wrestling in their background somewhere and thus were more open to it.