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Submitted by Xan on Friday, May 12, 2006 at 4:53 PM EST
 "Even a family tree has to have some sap."--Los Angeles Times Syndicate There's a short list of names that people are going to give you if you ask them who the greatest professional wrestler to never be World Heavyweight Champion is. Some will tell you it's "The Enforcer"--Double A--Arn Anderson, others will tell you it's got to be Ted Dibiase. Another common answer would be the late Owen Hart, and until recent years there would have been a long contingent of fans who would have said Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, or Rey Mysterio. Recent fans to the business would probably throw out the name of Rob Van Dam. But, when the Internet Wrestling Community consisted solely of the newsgroup alt.rec.sport.pro-wrestling, the general consensus among wrestling fans was that the greatest wrestler never to hold a world title was Cowboy Bob Orton, who's clearly not a bad choice. Orton the Elder is probably most famous for two things: 1) Wearing a cast on his never-healing wrist for years and 2) Inventing the superplex, but those of us who were around in the early days of the World Wrestling Federation know that he was so much more than that. This incredible worker was a technical marvel and could work the mic nearly as well as his running buddy, Rowdy Roddy Piper. He just happened to hit his prime around the same time that Vince McMahon took the WWF national by having a bleached blond musclehead as a great American Hero. Cowboy Bob never had a real chance to get that big gold strap, but he did co-produce someone who would. Multiple generation wrestlers have always been kind of hit and miss. My brother's friend claims Bobby Roode is the son of Ravishing Rick Rude (who's name, before he had it legally changed, was Richard Roode), but I think he's an idiot and full of shit. Actually, I know he's an idiot, and I'm fairly certain he's full of shit, but either way, the most recent second-generation wrestler we've seen come down the pike is Carlito Caribbean Cool--also known as Carly Colon. Now, I've never seen Carlos Colon wrestle, but considering that he's a Mexican wrestling *legend* and his boy can barely do more than punch and kick from what I've seen, I'd have to say that the apple has fallen incredibly far from the tree. Wow, talk about an unintentional pun, huh? Anyways...I remember when those vignettes of the "cool" one started showing up on Smackdown and I kind of liked the guy. He had a cool look, the kind of arrogant attitude that I generally like, a nice catch phrase, and, let's face it, that cool apple spitting gimmick. Around the IWC folks(I think Zuma coined it) started calling him Johnny Appleseed, but I still thought the gimmick was cool and that he was going to be a star. Well, a year and a half later, it's obvious that the wrestler he has the most in common with is "The Legend Killer" Randy Orton, and for those of you who are virgins to my views on Orton the Younger, that's not quite a good thing. Some of you may not remember that when Orton first started out he, like Rocky Maivia before him, started out as a generic babyface. While I never liked Dwayne Johnson until he returned from his injury to join the Nation of Domination and became The Rock, I really enjoyed Orton as a babyface. He was clearly not a complete package in the ring, but he seemed well on his way to being one and displayed some nice technical skills along with his "O-zone" finisher and a very good top-rope cross body block. However, he hurt his arm shortly after his trade from Smackdown to RAW and we were soon treated to "RNN" reports on his status and a new cocky persona from Orton, along with speculation that he and Batista would soon be joining Ric Flair and Triple H in a new version of the Four Horsemen. This sort of happened when the four formed a new stable called Evolution, with the idea being that Ric Flair was the past of the business, Triple H the present, and the two youngsters the future. It was a nice idea, and caught on pretty well...until Randy Orton evolved too quickly and won the World Heavyweight Title from Chris Benoit at SummerSlam 2004. Unlike some, I never got into Randy Orton once he returned from his injury. I liked the RNN segments, but once he actually returned to the ring, I never saw the big deal with him. He was basically a brawler in a wrestler's body. Where once I saw growing technical prowess, all that remained was punches, kicks, and the RKO, with a chinlock or ten thrown in for (good?) measure. "Unless a man has been kicked around a little, you can't really depend upon him to amount to anything."--William Feather Of course, this is what's expected if you're "destined" to be a main eventer in the World Wrestling Federation, because you must adapt to their wonderful style that emphasizes brawling above all else, because what all of us wrestling fans want to see is two guys punching the shit out of each other. Oh wait...no we don't, if we wanted to see that we'd watch boxing--RIP Floyd Patterson, you were one of the true greats--which we don't do, because we are fans of wrestling. However, it's clear from the way the WWF handles things that Orton's natural progression (or evolution, if you will) from a curtain jerker to a main eventer was going to involve a certain level of regression when it came to his actual wrestling skills. Unfortunately, that comes with the territory when you're a viewer of the organization, because you know that you're rarely going to see main events that are hold for hold masterpieces. Though they aren't completely absent, technical showcases are far from the norm when it comes to championship matches in the McMahon organization, because charisma and the ability to work the microphone (which are not interchangeable, despite public perception) mean so much more there than the ability to work a match. This explains why Orton quickly shot up through the ranks of the organization--and why Carlito appears to be on his way, as well--despite the fact that what he shows in the ring is seriously lacking of a real wrestling ability. As I mentioned, this doesn't matter at all if you're going to be a main eventer in the World Wrestling Federation, and ever since Orton returned from his early injury, that's exactly what the WWF projected him as. In fact, it was pretty clear from the way they used him, and several wrestlers that are quite more skilled than he, that they felt Orton was going to not only become a main eventer for them, but was also viewed as the future of the company, and in fact, would be someone who would be used as a cornerstone of the organization for years to come. It certainly seems from the way they've used Carlito (and the much better Chris Masters, for that matter), that they're expecting the same things from him that they were expecting from the young Orton, and I think this thought pattern on both young men is quite ridiculous. Not just because it's these two fellows in particular, but because it's a mistake in general to thrust even the expectation of greatness upon someone who isn't ready for it. Orton clearly wasn't ready for it then, with all the trouble he's been in since--who knows if he'll ever even return to the organization. Brock Lesnar clearly wasn't ready to be made the entire show when he was on Smackdown, either. He was rushed to greatness so fast that he never got a chance to learn to love the business and developed a head pretty much as big as Hulk Hogan's or Vince McMahon's without ever really doing anything to earn it. Now they want to send Carlito and Masters along this same path. Obviously, Vince and his bookers have not learned from their mistakes, because they continue to repeat them. When I first became a wrestling fan, Hulk Hogan and whoever he happened to be feuding with at the time *were* the main event; there was no one else. Also, it was pretty common to become a main eventer in the organization without ever going through the midcard. Hulk Hogan himself was probably the first example of this, as he practically jumped right from the AWA to being WWF Champion, but those that challenged him followed in his example. Roddy Piper, Paul Orndorff, King Kong Bundy, Earthquake, and Andre the Giant were top contenders upon joining the WWF and the Big Boss Man basically went from being a tag team wrestler to Hogan's #1 challenger. However, none of this really mattered because even though Hulk Hogan and the power of Hulkamania were what drew fans to the WWF and made it a national phenomenon, it was really the midcard that kept people as fans. A midcard that featured the Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs, Killer Bees, Rougeau Brothers, and others in the tag division and Tito Santana, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, Junk Yard Dog, the Honky Tonk Man, Butch Reed, and Jake Roberts in the singles division. Hulk Hogan was the main event and took up his designated amount of time, while everybody else made the show what it was. The same thing pretty much happened when Steve Austin and The Rock were on top of the WWF and the Horsemen and NWO were at the peak of WCW. So, when exactly did "midcard" become a dirty word? "All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward."--Ellen Glashow It can't have been during the years of Austin or the Rock because that's when Degeneration X took the world by storm. It can't have been during the same time period in WCW, because the cruiserweight division, Eddie Guerrero, and the Revolution were largely credited with keeping WCW going during that time, and they were secondary to the multiple times the NWO was running rampant in the company. My guess is that it happened with this new generation of fans that came on during the Attitude Era when everyone was a star, no matter how low in the promotion they were. Or maybe it's because the business is in such a downturn and the McMahons are in such desperate need of a huge crossover star that they aren't interested in giving their talent time to develop. Either of these are real possibilities, but here's one that I think is the true culprit, and Joey Styles addressed it a couple of weeks ago on RAW, but it's something that I have been thinking about for quite a while. How many true superstars are there in the World Wrestling Federation? I count them as few, the WWF as legion. Triple H, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, The Undertaker, The Big Show, and Kurt Angle are probably the guys in the WWF that are actual superstars. You could possibly remove John Cena(I wouldn't because he's been the champ for over a year and is also a solo musical artist) and add in Rey Mysterio and/or Batista, and maybe even JBL. Aside from these select few, the members of the organization are television stars who also travel to arenas around the country to perform live. They are wrestling television stars, not superstars. The reasoning behind choosing to call them superstars is pretty clear. The organization doesn't bill itself as being a wrestling promotion, and thus can't call its wrestlers by that title. Instead, they had to think up something that would fall in line with the phrase "sports entertainment." Well, who can entertain you better than a superstar? No one, of course, and that's why they are superstars or in the current lingo, "A List celebrities." The problem with this line of thinking is that what are professional athletes if not entertainers? They are paid to play a game for the amusement of others. What other word suitably fits them? They are athletes and entertainers at the same time, and Lebron James is one of the best at all facets of his job, so couldn't King James be accurately referred to as both a superstar and a sports entertainer? Of course he could, which is why all the supposed WWF superstars are wrestlers, but not all wrestlers are superstars, and this is far from a bad thing. Vince McMahon can call his workers whatever he wants, I suppose, but the simple fact of the matter is that if everyone's a superstar, no one is a superstar. In an ETA last summer, I stated that Randy Orton should have been cut ahead of several of the wrestlers that were, and Random replied by saying that I was an idiot. I now realize that he was right. Not because of the reasons he stated, which was more of the same crap I mentioned earlier about Orton being the supposed future of the company, but because he makes a perfectly acceptable midcarder. It very well might be that some day Chris Masters, Carlito Carribean Cool, and Randy Orton will be ready to be main eventers in the World Wrestling Federation, but that time is NOT now. These three men and their midcard brethren are not superstars. Even great ones, like Shelton Benjamin, Rob Van Dam, and Chris Benoit are not superstars, but that doesn't mean they aren't important to their organization. Any structure is only as strong as its weakest part, so it only makes sense for the WWF to re-think their current one and make their tag, Intercontinental, and United States title divisions just as important as the main event; and just as important as they once were. Not only is this good for variety within the organization and finding a proper fit for their personnel, but it creates an actual structure and learning ground for those coming up to and in the company. Doing this will ensure that wrestlers are not pushed before they are ready, which means they won't be able to fail before they even have a chance to succeed. And maybe these young men, multi-generation wrestlers or not, the WWF have taken it upon themselves to develop will become superstars in the truest sense of the word instead of being handed the world without being able to live in it. Long days, pleasant nights
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