May Column Of The Month - 'The Forzese View'
Submitted by Stanman on Tuesday, June 10, 2003 at 12:06 AM EST



NOTE: The following columnist won the LOP columns forum May Column Of The Month Contest. Each month, the contest winner gets a chance to have one of his columns posted on the main page. So without further delay, here is Jim Forzese and 'The Forzese View'. Send all comments and feedback to forzeseview@yahoo.com.


Un-Creative Dept.

What I will never be able to understand is when I hear that a wrestler has been fired from a company because the creative team has nothing creative for them to do. I find that to be an unforgivable excuse to use to a wrestler who has worked very hard to get to the big time. If there are other circumstances surrounding the termination such as you personally or someone in power personally does not like a particular wrestler then that is what should be used as the reasoning behind the firing. Saying you have nothing creative is a totally uncreative method of firing.

If someone within power wants someone fired for whatever reason he or she has then that is an acceptable excuse to use because in any work environment things of that nature does occur almost daily. If that is the reason fine but to blame the creative department for not being able to fit a wrestler into a wrestling program is totally unacceptable. All you are doing at that point is declaring to the fans that our creative department is inept and undeserving of their own employment. Why the hell did you hire the guy in the first place if you had no ideas on how to use him?

How does WWE or any wrestling company justify the rational that they currently use when cost cutting time comes around? What is it based on? Certainly it can't be based on payscale. I’m sure that some of the wrestlers that were cut this past year made less than some of the ones that are still there. It definitely can not be based on popularity because we know that if the fans voted for firings within WWE certain wrestlers would still be there while others that are still there would be long gone and I am not talking about HHH.

If you don’t have a blockbuster angle or gimmick for a certain wrestler at the moment but that wrestler is very skilled in the ring then send them to the b-level shows. If a wrestler is not going to hurt you in the ring wrestling wise then let him wrestle in meaningless feuds on Heat or Velocity while creative is trying to figure out his creative direction. The wrestler himself might just connect with the fans through his wrestling ability and catch fire so that creative does not even need to find him anything because he found it himself.

I fully understand that injuries and sudden departures happen all the time, which in turn puts a wrench in the creative gears, but there had to have been some form of structure that the angle was headed so that it could still be salvaged. If someone from a tag-team leaves unexpectedly leaving his partner in the cold then creative needs to take what it was that they were looking to accomplish and keep moving forward. The way that WWE just recently did this with Eddie, Chavo, and Tajiri is exactly what I am talking about. Obviuosly the plan was for Los Guerreros to beat Team Angle so when Chavo went down with an injury all Creative did was alter the plan a little not just scrap it altogether.

So is it that creative can find substitutes for the A-level talents but if you are an under card guy creative would rather just fire you as opposed to re-writing your program? There are of course situations like injuries that happen all the time but Kurt Angle had his and Edge has his return being highly anticipated from the creative team because WWE needs them badly on TV. There are no creative lapses in their careers while they recover from injury but when Jerry Lynn and Ron Killings went out on injury they both got fired for lack of creative angles for them to return to. Shouldn’t creative have taken that injury break to find them suitable angles upon their returns?

I know the workload is overwhelming for the creative department for any wrestling company and I know that it's hard enough to worry about the guys that you have on roster right now without worrying about the guys out injured but if creative can do it for some then they can do it for all. This however brings me back to the point that these firings occurred not because of creative but because someone in power must of not liked these certain wrestlers for some reason and therefore a better and more professional reason should have been used to terminate these wrestlers.

I just have a very hard time swallowing the fact that wrestlers like Bill DeMott or Funaki or Crash can be considered either "over" or having a good creative direction but WWE could not figure something out for Killings or Raven. I have said it before and I will say it again if WWE would bring back factions then wrestlers who were without purpose could hide within a faction and sometimes emerge as a superstar. Look at how this helped the New Age Outlaws and the APA.Two teams that were just starting out but broke out to become big time stars because they caught fire while in their factions. WWE can't water down a top faction with too many under card guys but a few with real wrestling talent can get the opportunity to showcase themselves in front of the fans in feuds that have a purpose.

If certain wrestlers get the chance to shine in semi-main events then fans might notice their in-ring abilities where otherwise they might go un-noticed by just wrestling on throw away shows. Certainly creative should be able to write an angle that creates a faction and reasons why certain wrestlers would want to join it right? If WWE hires someone then they had better have a damn good reason to hire him other than we did not want him to go to the competition. Most wrestlers have a family to support and they are looking for job stability and security. Wrestlers don’t need to be jerked around for the pleasure of someone settling a past score or giving themselves an ego stroke.

Bottom Line:

I personally feel if WWE goes out of their way to hire a certain performer then WWE is obligated to give him or her every opportunity to make it in this business. A certain gimmick or angle may not work the first time so try and try again. Look at Papa Shango who did not become a star until he went through that gimmick plus the Kama gimmick before striking gold with the Godfather. What is it about Charles Wright that was worth continually trying to get him over but other wrestlers get one chance to succeed or they’re fired?

What if WWE gave up on Rocky Mavia or the Ringmaster? WWE has made some mistakes in whom they have kept and whom they have fired recently for sure. Patience needs to be given to talent that in some cases are totally new to the fans. If creative takes these talents and tries to find out what they have for an interest outside of wrestling maybe they would have some form of creative direction to start with i.e.…John Cena.

If this is a wrestling program then creative need not look any further than two guys wrestling in a ring to start out with. Build the creative direction from there but if wrestlers are getting fired because of their look or their size then why in the HELL did you hire them for? Did they not look that way before you gave them the job? The job says creative department not creative whenever the hell I feel like it. Until next time that’s just my view.

Jim Forzese
forzeseview@yahoo.com










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