This week I’ll be discussing the concept of professional wrestler’s debuts in World Wrestling Entertainment.
Without further ado…
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Countless professional wrestlers have come and gone, arrived and left, made their grand entrances and eventually departed from the face of mainstream sports entertainment. Occasionally, some superstars were introduced to us through promotional vignettes in what the IWC many times has deemed as “death sentences”. Others made their debuts with little to no commotion or fuss, and had to start at rock bottom while trying to ascend to the top of the ladder. “The Masterpiece” Chris Masters’ WWE debut was heavily hyped through said vignettes, featuring on screen classic music references to promote the “masterpiece” theme. After countless people dubbing him a significant part of the future of the company, Chris Masters is no longer employed by Vince McMahon. A large number of people expressed that they thought he had potential to cut it as a full time main eventer someday, but sadly, we are never really going to know for sure.
Mick Foley, on the other hand, was heavily hyped with a similar format before he entered World Wrestling Entertainment, and found success. After seeing him give demented interviews from the boiler room, Mankind made his way into WWE, and built a great reputation for himself through the beginning, middle, and end (and even after the end) of his WWE career. Without a doubt, he established himself as a long lasting asset to the product, and his name will be remembered by wrestling fans for years to come, unlike Masters, whose name will now be synonymous for having the same importance as Ludvig Borga, Damien Demento, and other wrestlers you’ve probably forgotten ever existed. Or arguably worse, an over-hyped superstar whose failures, in light of the expectations placed upon him, distinguished him as nothing short of a bust.
The promotional vignette is something that is pretty much considered a staple of the World Wrestling Entertainment product. On countless occasions, right after coming back from a commercial break, we’ll see a brief clip of WWE’s newest superstar telling everyone something along the lines of “You better watch out, because “(name)” is coming.” Scott Hall, one of the biggest names in the history of the business, was ushered into WWE in this same fashion. After weeks of being shown in Miami, we saw that “The Bad Guy” truly liked to live the high life. Decked out in an expensive, flashy, white suit bright gold jewelry around his neck, and cruising around in his lavish convertible that was “…made custom for Razor.”, his impending debut was heavily hyped, to say the least.
And as history will tell us, Razor Ramon had nothing short of a successful WWE career for himself. He was never a World Champion, nor did he live up to the potential that many people thought he had. However, if you go to a local independent show, you’ll probably see a handful of wrestlers struggling to make it, who would love to have had the WWE career that Scott Hall had. While some will view that the promotional vignette is something that will doom you from the beginning, the aforementioned footage used to hype Razor certainly did not prevent him from finding success.
Many would say that “The Boogey Man” however, did not see this type of success. The phrase “I’m The Boogey Man, and I’m coming to getcha’!” was eachoed from the depths of unknown places where the abnormal human being was being filmed at to hype his arrival. And in his first few months, it really can be said that he saw success. He managed to score some big pay per view wins over John Bradshaw Layfield and King Booker at the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania in 2006, respectively, and whether anyone loved him or hated him, it can’t be denied that he was true attraction for WWE for that short period of time. However, he failed to make it as a solid, long lasting part of the WWE main event roster. The Boogey Man’s character, while it may have been appealing to a decent percentage of people outside the Internet Wrestling Community, really just had very little depth to it. He was shown as a man who stealth fully crawled around, wearing tons of face paint, and sucking down earth worms like twizzlers. (Which to this day, I find disgusting.)
We can’t say we really never knew that much about him. Barely anything, really. The sense of mystery was an intentional part of his character, however, we failed to make any type of emotional connection with who his character was: only his actions. Razor Ramon, for all of his extravagances, always managed to keep his persona in central focus. His smug arrogance and the brash mannerisms with which he carried himself went hand in hand, and his gimmicky aspects successfully helped him, instead of hindering him by overshadowing his persona. His hatred for the backstabbing 1-2-3 Kid was on the backburner in light of how he maliciously threw his toothpick into his opponents faces.
At Survivor Series in 1990, “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase introduced us all to a newcomer in the then World Wrestling Federation. He stood a towering six feet, ten inches in height, and incredibly tipped the scales at over three hundred pounds. His name? “Kane The Undertaker”, as Howard Finkel introduced him to us that night. As we know, the massive, towering near seven foot monster would later have his name changed to simply to “The Undertaker.” The Dead Man went on his way to becoming a multi time World Champion, and a main eventer from his debut until this very day, nearly eighteen years later. In this instance, The Undertaker was introduced virtually out of nowhere. No one knew who he was, and his only known characteristic was that he had the backing of Ted Dibiase, someone who was a long time heel and main eventer.
Tiger Woods, arguably the greatest golfer of all time, has gone on record as saying that part of his philosophy towards golf tournaments is that “…you can’t win them early, but you can lose them early.” In basic terms, Tiger is saying that regardless of how well you perform in the early stages of a golf tournament, you will still have your work cut out for you, as it is far, far from over. There are many more holes to play, and gaining an early lead will not necessarily mean that much in the long run. You have to keep continuously proving yourself.
While this is also a valuable way of looking at how to play a poker tournament, it is my belief that this is also how a WWE wrestler’s career plays out. Chris Jericho made his now infamous WWE debut in the summer of 1999. With an unexplained countdown that started weeks in advance being displayed on television on consecutive editions of Raw, everyone anticipated the debut of this mysterious new superstar. Not many people knew for sure who it was that was going to arrive, and when the newest hot commodity from WCW revealed that he had jumped ship, practically every wrestling fan was elated with excitement. The Rock, who at this point in time really had surpassed Steve Austin in terms of popularity (even if only temporarily), exchanged words with “Y2J”, and Jericho’s first WWE run initially began with about as much momentum as anyone could reasonably ask for.
Jericho, however, still had a long way to go. He constantly proved himself in feuds with Chyna and Chris Benoit, and as time went on, he climbed up the ladder all the way to being the first Undisputed Champion and even main evented Wrestlemania 18 with Triple H. Jericho kicked off his WWE run in 1999 to a great start. However, just as Tiger Woods competes in the beginning stages of a professional golf tournament, Jericho wasn’t guaranteed success right out of the gate, no matter how fast of a running start he got. He had an early lead, but he had to have the talent and the heart to make it through every step of the way. His early momentum simply wasn’t going to be enough. The Big Boss Man made his return to WWE in 1998 after taking off his ski mask to unveil that he was Mr. McMahon’s newest henchman. He came back as a leaner, faster, stronger, tougher, meaner version of the chubby man we saw taking on Mr. Perfect at Wrestlemania 7.
He was seen as having the credibility of an upper mid carder, and being a reasonable and respectable choice to compete against the likes of Steve Austin and The Rock. Through out all of the chaotic, turbulent events going in in the WWE main event scene and upper mid card from late 1998 through early 1999, Ray Traylor’s abilities never really got tested under a bright, shining, big time spotlight.
Then at Wrestlemania 15 in 1999, Big Boss Man got the chance to take on the phenom, the man himself, The Undertaker, and took part in what many consider a train wreck of a Hell In A Cell Match. Thousands of rabid Philadelphia fans booed and jeered the two competitors in what was one of the biggest letdowns of the evening, and despite being respectable, though not important figure of the Corporation, his stock really did plummet after this match, and went on to be involved in the goofy, off the wall shenanigans that went on with WWE’s midcarders during the Attitude Era.
Of course, many have risen from the bottom up to make it as big stars. Rocky Maivia, while respectable, wasn’t climbing up the ladder very fast. As time went on, The Rock skyrocketed to the top of WWE. If he had been hyped in promotional vignettes as “The Rock Solid Samoan Rocker”, would he have “lost” it early, and one of wrestling’s biggest stars would have fallen off the face of wrestling’s mainstream? Could the same have happened to The Ringmaster if he had come to the ring with a stool and a bull whip? How close was Deacon Batista to falling through the cracks and having his release announced on WWE’s website? Who would have main evented Wrestlemania 21 with Triple H?
The first impression of someone can, on some occasions, have a crippling effect towards a relationship, in that it can prevent it from ever happening. However, most people will agree that a good first impression is not going guarantee you anything as time goes on. Just as in a marathon, getting off to an early lead can only do so much for you. You have to have the guts, determination, and the stamina to make it through over twenty miles of arduous running, jogging, and sprinting, all while losing pounds of water weight and expending more energy than you can fathom. Just as many wrestlers have come in with a good amount of well done hype, such as Mick Foley, Scott Hall, Chris Masters, and The Boogey Man, true talent and character will be brought to light after time. Foley and Hall made it because they were both very good at what they did. The Boogey Man, while some say he had little potential as a sports entertainer, was simply crippled by how his antics and gimmick overshadowed his character’s persona. When you arrive unexpectedly, and with little fan fare like Bobby Lashley, rip off a cage door like Paul Wight did in his WWE debut, or have everyone waiting on the edge of their seat to see your debut match against Jamie Noble, the fact is that when push comes to shove, everyone will see just how strong you are. You can enter through stage right, and if you don’t trip through your entrance, you still have go out and show the audience what your true colors.
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