The Forzese View - Creative Has Nothing For You
Submitted by Jim Forzese on Thursday, February 26, 2004 at 10:28 AM EST



Creative Has Nothing For You

You’ve heard those words resonate through the Internet all too many times in recent years by the WWE.The acknowledgment by WWE that there creative team is inept in it’s ability to find suitable programs for talent to remain employed. Creative could not do what their job entails and are vastly incompetent in doing what it is that Vince McMahon is paying them weekly to be able to achieve and that is to find use out of the greatest talent pool ever assembled. There is one thing apparent to me however and that is the notion that creative had nothing to do with any of it. Creative has nothing for someone that they are told to have nothing for.

Vince pays these men and women to write a wrestling program with the talent that Vince and company assemble for them to work with. I highly doubt that creative, besides the head writer can say that they don’t want a certain wrestler under contract and won’t write for them and or they just can’t fit them in a program because creative has no original ideas. The phrase “creative has nothing for you” to me is more of an insider term meaning that there was a reason you were fired but Vince will use the creative scapegoats to blame instead of giving the internet any fodder to write about.

I would like to revisit the names that were recently released and put the real reason next to why these certain wrestlers were released. I think most of us know for sure already but there is a point that I want to make here. First there was Goldust .A great character that was always over with the fans and proficient in the ring. Told creative had nothing for him but reality was that Goldust was too injury prone to keep investing time in anymore. Enter Rico who takes over as the master of histrionics. WWE now uses a homegrown talent like Rico and replaces Goldust, who had a homegrown character but was not a homegrown talent.

Next we have Ernest Miller. Miller was the James Brown of wrestling where as dancing to Ernest was more important than wrestling. Ernest might have starting to connect with the fans and I think would have made it as a character. The Cat then gets told creative had nothing for him but in reality it was that Ernest was terrible in the ring and showed no signs of improving. Vince then takes what he liked about Miller, namely his gimmick and can give it to either Orlando Jordan or Lamont. Again Vince improves on a homegrown talent and rids the company of a star that was created elsewhere. The star created elsewhere tag is the biggest sin a wrestler could carry with them nowadays.

Kanyon is a little tougher to understand because he had no gimmick that could be given to someone else. Kanyon could be replaced by anyone in OVW based upon what he was doing but he had nothing character wise to steal from. Kanyon was told that creative had nothing for him but in reality the problem was that Kanyon never was seen by WWE as anything more than someone from WCW that is now occupying a spot that could be given to a home grown talent from OVW.Kanyon falls prey to politics that come with being from WCW.

So this brings me to my point and that is how do we the fans affect wrestlers careers? How does WWE present wrestlers to us that get over or that conversely never get over no matter how hard creative tries? How are wrestlers categorized by both the WWE and by the fans and what effect then does that have on the wrestlers themselves? Think about that and let me give some examples of what I am talking about.

Stone Cold and The Rock are two men that are two of the largest draws in wrestling history. Both started very poorly in WWE but both turned their careers around in a big way. WWE saw something in the Ringmaster and Rocky Miavia that made WWE know they had something. The wrestlers made adjustments to their character and made themselves stand out from the pack. WWE knew all along that these wrestlers would be stars but never did they suspect the type of star they would become. Or did they? WWE has had the knack for knowing who will make it but maybe not in the form that they are in. How did WWE know to send Marty Jannetty through the Barbershop window and not HBK? Could anybody have played the role of Hulk Hogan? Randy Orton and John Cena fall into this category, as WWE knew that it may have taken time but both would break out at some point in their careers.

Wrestlers at times will show signs of greatness that may not be seen on the surface but when the right people are watching in WWE great things can happen. Conversly there are wrestlers that get pushed hard that never get over well with fans. The difference goes back to these wrestlers being homegrown, company men. Wrestlers like Holly, Gunn, A-Train, and Bradshaw are wrestlers who have fans but not enough to warrant the pushes that they continually receive. These wrestlers get the job done in the ring albeit just barely in some cases but are able to sustain long term employment where as Kanyon, who is superior in the ring gets released. Again the reason being that Kanyon made his mark in WCW during the heated Monday Night Wars and as evidenced by Raw, Vince is still fighting them.

When two wrestlers are roughly in the same position in the company and are fighting for air time on either Raw or Smackdown the wrestlers who were fighting along side Vince to save WWE will always win regardless of their in ring ability. WCW stars are fighting a losing battle for the most part in trying to survive and succeed in the WWE.The biggest question I have is does WWE’s creative team make the wrestler a megastar by the substantial push that the wrestler receives or does the wrestler force creative to use them because they themselves are what made them megastars? My point is that fans will complain that two of the most misused wrestlers in the WWE are Chris Jericho and RVD.What fans complain about is that with all the fan support they receive why doesn’t WWE use them better?

Again, some wrestlers who get terminated because creative had nothing for them will complain that they did not receive the proper opportunities to get over. So I thought about that and I think that wrestlers can get over without being pushed hard continuously like the case of both Y2J and RVD but the wrestler has to connect with the crowd. Whether or not WWE decided to get behind Eddie or Benoit is irrelevant to the fact that both will always be very over with the fans. So that comes back to the wrestlers themselves finding something different to their character then what they have been doing for too long in some cases. Wrestlers have to be able to break through any red tape and succeed if they can find something on their own to do with their character. A new look or the right catch phrase could work wonders for someone who is trying to get the fans to buy into their gimmick. When Flair first started to say WHOOO was that written by creative to guarantee Flair success?

Bottom Line:

Looking at OVW, I see that the creative team for WWE has some issues to deal with when they finally decide to call up more wrestlers. Take Nick Dinsmore for an example, he is not going to be “Mr. Wrestling” in WWE for obvious reasons so what will he be? Will WWE just put him out on TV without a gimmick and expect the fans to just care because he is on WWE TV? John Heindenreich, Orlando Jordan, Paul London, and Matt Morgan are all wrestlers on TV right now with little to no purpose whatsoever. Can these wrestlers be expected to succeed or will creative have nothing for them right from the beginning to the end? Like I said before though because they are homegrown WWE will be far more lenient with them getting over.

What about wrestlers that have good gimmicks or name value before they debut with WWE? Two examples are Nova and Aaron Stevens. Nova, who wrestled for ECW may not have a gimmick anymore, Hurricane uses the superhero gimmick he once used but still has name value that should be beneficial to the WWE creative team to use. Nova should be able to get over to a degree immediately because of what WWE hopes is an existing fan base that will grow with exposure. Aaron “the idol” Stevens has a gimmick that is already his from before his inception to OVW.The gimmick of a brash and cocky idol to all especially females may not be original but it still works well. If I had to describe Aaron it would be Edge to almost every degree (look, size, ability, promo skills etc.) I know this from seeing him locally and that is why I am using him as an example here.

This kid has a gimmick that if done properly could get over big time in WWE.The way to do that is through poignant vignettes that show the world what is about to be unleashed in WWE.Ask Val Venis how important it is to come out of the shoot real strong. Val is still over with the fans even when he is doing nothing on either Raw or Heat of any consequence whatsoever. Again my point that a wrestler can be over without a push so that it gives WWE reason to keep him employed at roster cut time. So does creative really have a lot to do with the success of a wrestler in the first place? Upon debut most definitely but then after that the wrestler has to have some accountability for his success and or failure. If a wrestler is over with the fans and stays that way through a de-push then it is that connection with the fans that make the wrestler a star more so than just wrestling work rate ever could. First impressions are vital to success because if WWE tells us that a wrestler is important then he will be perceived that way. If the WWE puts little effort into the wrestler upon debut then fans will not pay attention and feel that if WWE did not care then why should I?

Creative has nothing for you is a McMahonism meaning there really is a reason that you were fired but WWE is not telling the media. Being over with the fans is not the end all be all of what makes a star but it sure helps one stay employed. The best sports analogy to use is by taking a backup goalie and giving him enough games played to qualify for any season records. If the goalie is given enough games for the coach to decide he then has three avenues in which he can take. If the goalie does extremely well he may get more chances or even become the new lead goalie. If the goalie does reasonably well then the goalie will keep his job as backup but he won’t move up to the next level. If that goalie does poorly when given the same chance then why wouldn’t the team look for a cheaper alternative down in their minor league with perhaps more potential? Point is that some wrestlers can make the most out of small opportunities by showing WWE certain signs while some will fail because of those same small opportunities. Creative has nothing for you is Vince’s way of firing someone creatively. Until next time that’s just my view.

Jim Forzese
forzeseview@yahoo.com










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