10 WWE Legends That Require A Career Reevaluation
Are Kane & The Undertaker REALLY Showstoppers, Icons and Main Eventers?
Received wisdom is a rather gross reality of professional wrestling analysis.
Fans form opinions based on all sorts; the time they got into watching, recency bias and favouritism to performers based on deep-rooted emotional connections often beyond explanation. When shared - particularly by enough loud voices on the internet - these connections become an accepted truth instead of a reasoned view alone.
It's why Dave Meltzer gets grief more for how he rates New Japan Pro Wrestling matches than how he rants on subjects he's not qualified to speak on. People that don't even watch the product nor read his output make assumptions that he's biased because of other things they've read. One ill-informed take reflects the other and the circle of confusion continues in earnest.
The floodgates of public opinion flew open as social media took over the old methods of internet reporting - fans are no longer "internet fans in their Mom's basement" so much as the are plugged-in and engaged influencers on a constantly evolving product.
More than any other crew, the current crop of performers are held to entirely different standards than wrestlers from years gone by. Those stars - for better and worse - may warrant a rethink...
10. Jeff Jarrett
What is it about wrestling fans that make them favour the bosses, rather than the workers?
The infamous "Jeff Jarrett held WWE up in 1999" story has for years painted 'Double J' as the robbing swine gleefully swindling a small fortune out of innocent po-faced promoter Vince McMahon on his last night. Laying down for Chyna before escaping out the side door to Nitro, swag-bag and Lone Ranger mask in-tow.
The reality was far less dramatic - Jarrett had roughly calculated what he was owed as part of WWE's complex delayed pay system for the pay-per-views and live events he'd already worked. Furthermore, he took advantage of a contractual oversight on the company's part, not his own.
Jarrett was an at-times fabulous pro wrestler but an even better worker. He worked his way into an outstanding WCW deal after taking a small fortune from McMahon, then kickstarted his own promotion when he knew full well there was no chance of a job with the company following his misdemeanour.
The master of making a little bit more than he started with, Jarrett's one of the last of a breed of performers that knew the realities of the business they were in and exploited it as well as they possibly could.