WWE Needs To Break THIS Habit Of A Lifetime
“Methodically stalking his prey…”
This decade, pronounced by the drastic upheaval of WWE’s developmental system, marked something of a paradigm shift. Through Daniel Bryan’s organic and triumphant rise to the top of the card, the systemic failure of the bizarre, territorial-adjacent system and the wider trend of accelerated pro wrestling, WWE broke the lifetime habit of its pious recruitment model.
The great levelling made this so.
WWE failed to “make their own guys”, a mentality mocked by Bryan himself on the original NXT. In parallel, through untethered, unregulated creativity, the hardcore darlings of the Independent scene generated so much buzz that their like bled into the WWE system. They were celebrated for “dominating Japan”, and not buried, like Bryan was, for performing in “high school gyms”.
WWE has resisted—or failed to resist, more accurately. Baron Corbin, not Finn Bálor, has headlined four consecutive main roster pay-per-views in 2019. But this development invited widespread scorn, and drew drastically bad numbers. Humiliating numbers. The Corbin Vs. Seth Rollins programme effectively parodied WWE’s “way” of laying out matches, and building their “own” “stars”.
When Chris Benoit arrived in WWE, in 2000, Triple H infamously damned him with faint praise. “He’s not bad, he’s all right,’ Trips said of Benoit, after the Crippler’s first singles match. Chris Jericho relayed this story to Dave Meltzer on his podcast in 2017. In 1994, Benoit as Wild Pegasus won the NJPW Super J Cup, a tape-trader sensation acclaimed as the single greatest night for the in-ring art. In 1994, Triple H failed, hilariously, to adopt a French accent as a goose-sh*t green jobber in WCW. From risible flexing to welcoming hands, Triple H now enthuasitically greets performers of Benoit’s ilk as they enter the NXT system.
Paradigm: shifted.
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