10 WWE Superstars Who Were The Best At Putting Over Young Talent
The circle of life only works if the older guys get out of the way.
The act of putting another wrestler over is about more than just letting them get a victory over you. It's about helping them put on a memorable match that makes them look like a million bucks in the process, whether or not they get a clean 1-2-3 at the end of it.
Some guys get that. Others wouldn't understand how to put another guy over if you repeatedly slapped them in the face with a How-To guide. And still others understand it perfectly well, but refuse to do it because of their own misguided and overinflated egos.
But if there's one lesson that should be taken away from the Monday Night Wars, it's that the wrestling industry can only survive if there's a constantly evolving talent pool. In order for the product to stay relevant, the younger guys need a chance to showcase themselves so they can eventually take the place of the older talent.
In Lion King terms, this is what's known as the 'Circle of Life' and while some might be sad to see Mufasa (Hulk Hogan) be killed off by Scar (Vince McMahon), know that there's always a Simba (CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, etc.) on the horizon.
And it's up to the top dogs to make sure we cynical wrestling fans are able to take the new guys seriously. The guys on this list excel at making that happen.
10. Shawn Michaels
While it's true that Shawn Michaels was well-known as an egotistical, self-promoting, exclusive dickwad at the height of his stardom, the post-2002 Michaels seemed to go out of his way to make up for all those years of self-serving behaviour.
In his second run with WWE, the born-again Christian version of HBK put younger talent over with the best of them, simply because he could sell the s**t out of everything so effectively (sometimes he overdid it, but that was reserved for the rare superstars that were even more egocentric than Michaels in his 90s heyday).
After re-establishing himself as a superstar in an epic feud with Triple H, Michaels took over where The Rock had left off with Chris Jericho, putting him over in an effort that culminated in one of the greatest WrestleMania undercard matches of all-time.
And since Michaels is Mr. WrestleMania, it only made sense for him to give another "bright young star" the big boost at the following year's WrestleMania XX, with Chris Benoit defeating him and Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship. And despite what I mentioned earlier about his over-selling against Hogan, he still did his part to position Hogan as the uber-babyface upon his return to the WWE in 2005.
Though there were occasional moments of self-indulgence during the DX reunion, he and Triple H still did a pretty solid job of putting over the heel team of Edge and Randy Orton and HBK continued to stare at the lights for up-and-comers without arguing.