Define Mid-Carder

[Dylan Waco]

This is a phrase that gets thrown out a lot and I get the feeling it means radically different things to different people. To be fair I think it does mean different things (to some degree) in different eras, but I am really curious what the common perception is of the term or even if there is a shared view of what the term means.

 

To me a mid-carder is someone who is not put in a position to draw, but is not pure undercard fodder either. In the WWE today when I think mid-carder the sort of names that pop into my head are Kofi Kingston and Cody Rhodes. You aren't going to see either guy dropping falls to Heath Slater, but you aren't going to see them main eventing a ppv and it's unlikely they would be in a bout featured and heavily promoted for the shows.

 

I think some people consider anyone who doesn't work in the absolute main event night in and night out a mid-carder. In the modern context I sort of see the argument, but think it's excessive. In a discussion of territorial wrestling I think it is way off. There are lots of shows where Andre the Giant worked second or third from the top, seems insane to me to call him a mid-carder.

 

Maybe with some guys it's just how they "feel" in terms of presentation. That's another aspect that can be explored in the thread I suppose, though I don't know where to go with that.

 

Anyway I'm curious to hear how people define the term.

[Slasher]

Pretty much agreed with the definition here. A midcarder to me is a status thing, to describe someone who is either on the back burner in terms of pushes but kept in the public eye. Someone who has a semi-guaranteed role on the main shows but not in the main storylines. Someone who will win a fair share of their matches but not be put in position to win the main event titles. Someone who might job to the true main eventers but beat the lower midcarders. Kofi Kingston is probably a good example of a midcarder, but at the same time you have different tiers of midcarders. I suppose you can divide it up to upper midcard, midcard and lower midcard. The upper midcarders are mostly guys who are either on the rise or are essentially JTTS, used to give a main eventer a credible victory without wasting potential. Midcarders are guys who are just warm bodies on the shows but kept relatively strong in terms of push, and would be given wins 50% of the time. Lower midcarders are guys like Heath Slater.

[KrisZ]

Tito Santana was a perfect midcarder most of his career

[Ricky Jackson]

Yep, Tito was the first name that came to mind when I saw this thread. I think at some point in the Tito thread I even wrote he was the dictionary definition of a mid-card babyface.

[JerryvonKramer]

A mid-carder beats lower midcarders and jobbers but loses to main eventers and upper midcarders. Sometimes a midcarder has a feud with another midcarder who he may or may not beat.

 

There are in fact six ranks I reckon:

 

Maineventer (Hogan)

Upper midcarder (Mr. Perfect)

Midcarder (Tito)

Lower midcarder (Koko B. Ware, Hercules)

"Named jobber" (SD Jones, Iron Mike Sharpe, Barry Horrowitz, Brooklyn Brawler)

Pure jobber

 

Hogan vs. Perfect - win for Hogan

Perfect vs. Tito - win for Perfect

Tito vs. Koko B. Ware or Herc - win for Tito

Tito vs. named jobber or pure jobber - win for Tito

 

I was going to make a thread on how and why someone becomes a "named jobber". But I might as well ask it here. How does that happen? Were the likes of Jones and Sharpe on decent money?

[Mad Dog]

I look at the mid-carder as a three pronged position so to speak. I think you have high end mid-carders, mid-range mid-carder and a low end mid-carder. There's still upper mid-carders and lower mid-carders but I tend to think there's a high variation in the mid-card ranks.

 

Take the WWE as it currently stands. I would consider Cody Rhodes to be a high end mid-carder while someone like Heath Slater is a very low end mid-carder. Slater would beaten lower mid-carders like Alex Riley, Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd. Slater would even beat other mid-carders like Ted Dibiase or Sin Cara. Slater probably would never beat someone like Rhodes. I think someone like Zach Ryder would fall squarely in that middle of the pack mid-carder.

 

I feel to be a mid-carder, you're getting a push of some kind but you aren't put in a position to draw. To me, you're getting a push if you're beating wrestlers that aren't jobbers. You're not getting the strongest of pushes though. You might trade wins back and forth and not have any real momentum. A JTTS to me is someone that picks up wins on the B and C shows over jobbers and then shows up on the main shows and drops falls to mid-carders and up. An upper mid-carder to me is someone that might pick up a win over a main eventer and is in kind of a standby position for programs with main eventers as filler. Ryback would currently be an upper mid-carder. He's working with Punk as a filler feud and might not necessarily main event past that program.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think the nuanced distinctions Mad Dog draws here are true, but it just occurred to me that there's another distinction to draw:

 

mid-carder-WITH-feud/storyline

mid-carder-without-feud

 

The guy with the storyline is undoubtedly getting a stronger push than the guy who is just floating around picking up wins and losses in a vacuum. Tito again might be an illustrative example. So many times, Tito had no storyline to the extent that he was still clinging onto that feud with Ric Martel almost two years after the fact. When he was made "El Matador" he was given some stories: a feud against Repo Man and a semi-feud against DiBiase. So late 91 Tito -- while still firmly a midcarder -- is probably higher on the card than mid-1990 Tito, who as far as I can remember, isn't given any storylines at all, even if that feud was just a "filler feud".

[WingedEagle]

I think this fluctuating is part of the very definition of a mid-carder. Sometimes they're involved in a storyline and sometimes they're not. They're filling a necessary slot on the card and in some cases that sees them in a featured role either putting over an upper carder or advancing a storyline, while in others they may be in their own feuds/stories or simply rounding out the lineup.

[jdw]

I find the term to be rather useless to define a wrestlers *entire* career unless he was in the mid-cards his entire career.

 

Take Tito, for example. From 1984-88 he main evented hundreds of times. In fact, suspect he main evented a hundred times a year in 1984, 1985 and 1986 before having another run in Strike Force in late 1987 through Mania the next year.

 

If he was on the card with Hogan, of course Hogan was the main event. But Tito matches for the IC Title main events all around the circuit, in major arenas without Hogan to anchor it. There were times when you have the IC and the Tag Title on the same card, but I think it would be a stretch to say Bulldogs vs Dream Team / Hart Foundation was more of the main event than Tito vs Savage.

 

Does that make him a Main Event wrestler like Hogan or Flair?

 

No.

 

But it also drags him above defining him as a career mid carder. That's a national promotion during the course of its expansion that he often main evented.

 

 

Rusher Kimura spent a decade and a half as a mid-carder in All Japan and Noah. Even before that, he spent much of the 80s as a mid-carder after IWE closed shop. But it would be wildly inaccurate to define his career as a "midcarder".

 

It's far more useful to give a fuller explanation of a wrestler.

 

 

John

[Slasher]

I don't think anyone really refers to a career when referring to someone as a main eventer or midcarder or jobber... At least I don't think they should. However I don't see the harm in using these terms to describe the current placement of a particular wrestler or if speaking of a retired/deceased wrestler of the yesteryear, speaking in specific term of the placement in which the specific work is being done. Calling Tito a career midcarder would be wrong, agreed. But calling Kofi Kingston a midcarder isn't I think.

[Mad Dog]

It's a temporary statement of where someone currently is in the system.

 

Tito started out as an upper mid-carder in the WWF and slid down the card as he got older and probably finished his career as a low end mid-carder. Calling him a career mid-carder would be ignoring his early years in the WWF.

[JerryvonKramer]

Tito wasn't a career midcarder, far from it, he's just the most visible example to a certain generation of fans. Tito pretty much defined the midcard from after Strike Force split up to 92. He arguably slid to JTTS level by 93.

[Mad Dog]

He got the odd win over other mid-carders in 1993.

[jdw]

He actually started in 1979 as an undercard worker, curtain jerking in his 6/79 debut at MSG.

 

Mid-card two shows later against Iron Sheik (who wrestled for the Title against Bob on the show Tito debuted on).

 

Teamed with Andre on the next show against the tag champs on the next card, then won the tag titles on the card after that on the next card.

 

The tag titles weren't a massive thing at the time, but it was a quick push.

 

Dropped the tag titles early in the following year to the Samoans, who got the monster push to anchor the belts for a while. In a sense Tito was part of a transition champ team. Left quickly after that, losing twice to Hogan at MSG.

 

Farted around a bit in the undercards and midcards upon his return in late 1983, then in early 1984 zoomed up to get the IC Title from Muraco. Essentially the promotion went with a double babyface pairing with the singles titles: Hogan and Tito. That would be the case in 1984-85 except when Tito was chasing Greg.

 

I would call him in that stretch (and on into 1986) a non-Hogan show main eventer, and on shows with Hogan he would tend to be semi-final level as far as pushed matches. Might have another match as pushed or more pushed, but on average in those roles.

 

John

[jdw]

Tito wasn't a career midcarder, far from it, he's just the most visible example to a certain generation of fans. Tito pretty much defined the midcard from after Strike Force split up to 92. He arguably slid to JTTS level by 93.

Which is why I mentioned Rusher: to a generation of fans, he was one of those old guys in the comedy match.

 

Fans with some perspective knew that Rusher once anchored his own promotion for close to a decade, and then drew as a main eventer opposite Inoki.

 

John

[KrisZ]

I should've prefaced with the exception of his IC run but take that away he was the classic midcarder/gate keeper.

 

A JCP version is easily Jimmy Valiant from 1985-88.

[Ricky Jackson]

Tito was very over during the 84-86 years no doubt--more over than he is remembered today by many fans. At his very peak in the WWF he was probably at best the #4 babyface (depending on the year, with Hogan on top of course, he was behind Slaughter, Snuka, Andre when he was around, JYD, arguably Orndorff in 85, maybe some others I'm forgetting), which is still a significant achievement. He wasn't a career mid-carder, I'm not sure any wrestler ever really was, but he is still one of the best examples of a mid-carder IMO.

 

We could always transfer the Tito talk over here http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=15282 and breathe some new life into this thread if anybody feels like it.

[Mad Dog]

Bob Holly was probably a career mid-carder.

[Slasher]

Bob Holly was probably a career mid-carder.

He had a PPV main event against Brock Lesnar

[Timbo Slice]

Brad Armstrong is a better definition of a midcarder than someone like Tito.

[JerryvonKramer]

In my mind Brad Armstrong is the definition of a lower midcarder.

[jdw]

[Loss]

There are also midcarders who have blond hair, midcarders who wear singlets, midcarders who have had both face and heel runs, midcarders who have been in the company more than one year but less than three years, midcarders who like all meat pizza toppings, midcarders who find Hamlet's true mental state to debatable, midcarders who will give a woman until the third date to put out and midcarders who once saw a main eventer live as a child if we're doing pointless subcategories.

[JerryvonKramer]

Loss - "lower midcarder" is not a pointless subcategory though is it? I mean it's a pretty well established role.

 

I'm wondering what you're referring to in that post.

[Loss]

Midcarders with a storyline, midcarders without a storyline ... these are things just that happen to be the case, not really things that require distinguishing, right?