Part-timers revisited

Hi Scott,


Your response to the question about part timers this morning seems to simplify the issue to an irresponsible extent to me.

I get what you mean about Rock making money for everybody, and Punk being hypocritical (though I’d argue the lack of guys doing TV twice a week and house shows 5 times a week makes your UFC comparison unfair) or at least bitchy, but doesn’t ending the conversation there ignore the fact that WWE has so routinely subjugated its full time workers to less than the part time legends and effected business in a tremendously negative way?

I mean, just looking back at Punk’s podcast with Cabana, his gripe wasn’t simply "I work hard, gimme the main event"- he’s repeatedly saying things like "if you keep jobbing me out to the part-timers my stock plummets in the eyes of the casual viewer, who you’re obsessed with attracting, so when I come in on Monday and (insert part-timer here) doesn’t, these people are less likely to tune in" and "I need to be given the bigger spotlight so I can get better, and so I can be more of a draw for the company." These are very specific and I think objectively logical criticisms to be making of the current direction of WrestleMania, which is to largely ignore the characters and storytelling that have been the focus of the past year in favor of shoe-horning in older, more famous dudes.

This is a plainly unsustainable business model. We’re now getting close to the point that an entire generation of wrestlers has missed their window to become stars. Put another way, over the past 5 years, WWE has basically abandoned it’s traditional (and traditionally successful) business model of using the biggest show of the year, the biggest spotlight in the business, to turn a performer into a star who can draw money for the company. They were basically forced into trying with Daniel Bryan and promptly gave him the Benoit-treatment of feuding him with fucking Kane immediately thereafter, then they half-assed it with Roman Reigns last year, completely neglecting to craft him a compelling angle (really any angle) and just throwing him out into the Rumble, and then Brock’s general vicinity, to die.

What happens when Undertaker can’t go anymore? And Rock, and Brock, and Triple H? And the window has closed on getting Shawn back in, and Austin (who probably isn’t a real option anyway)? All of these people have either already suffered injuries that could make returning to the ring seem undesirable, or otherwise prefer shooting stuff in the woods in Saskatchewan to wrestling anyway. They’ll get a couple years out of part-timer Cena, but otherwise no one is going to pay for the once-yearly returns of Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus.

At what point do you have to say, okay, we’ll run Brock vs. Rock this year to get as many eyes as possible but put them in the number two match on a card full of full-timers because the spotlight has to be on guys who can actually support the business for the rest of the year? To Punk’s point about he and Taker going on last when everyone knew they were going to have the best match- nobody who already bought the show and watched for 3 hours is going to bother turning it off just because Cena/Rock 2 didn’t go on last. Pay all four guys as main eventers and take the hit, because it’s helpful to the business to give the impression that this full time guy is a big fucking deal.

Best
Casey

​So you’re saying they need to make new stars? Well there’s a hot take.​