10 Ways WWE's Current Product Mirrors That Which Killed WCW

By John Harty /

2. All Hope Placed On One (Limited) New Star

Back when WWE began its fight back against WCW and started to pull ahead; one new star rose as the apparent savior of WCW. When the wheels really began to come off of the company; many executives in charge wanted to hitch the cart to this performer and build the company around him. He was anointed the man; his name was Bill Goldberg. Taking nothing away from Bill€™s popularity or achievements in professional wrestling; he was limited. The moment they stopped putting him in squash matches and gave him microphone time the cracks began to appear in his veneer; but he had been built in the right way over enough of a period of time that people still bought him as a true top star and he put butts in seats. Today; WWE is seemingly pitting its hopes on the next breakout star being Roman Reigns. The similarities to Bill Goldberg go beyond them sharing a finisher; but at least Goldberg had time to develop in the eyes of the fans as he rose up the card in a steady manner. Reigns, like Goldberg, is limited both in the ring and on the microphone; and, again like Goldberg, his best feature is his look. Reigns is being pushed into the top of the card far too soon; some of it smacks of desperation on WWE€™s part but the parallel is clear. Just like WCW with Goldberg; all of WWE€™s focus seems to be on pushing Reigns as opposed to pushing a number of talents at once. Ultimately Goldberg€™s push failed because they forgot to get fresh opponents to the top of the card at the same time as him and after he€™d blown through the established main event scene there was no one credible left to fight and the cycles of repetition and stagnation that were already driving off their fan-base sucked him up as well. Reigns currently faces the same problems in WWE; and he hasn€™t had the same amount of time as Bill Goldberg to develop.