26.12.2016, 10:44
Zitat:(1) DIVISIONS NEED STARS
The cruiserweight division has been a flop for many reasons. Too many even to cover in this piece. But one of the most significant reasons is because there’s no stars in the division. Wrestling is, was, and forever will be a star-driven business and will always be at its hottest when it’s being sold on star power rather than “a really good wrestling show.”
In order to see where the division failed, we need to take a step back and look at the division from the perspective of a viewer unfamiliar with all these debuting acts. Not the type of viewer reading this article who already knew that a Tony Nese was a wrestler and not part of a tool kit, but the type of viewer whose wrestling intake is exclusively Raw and Smackdown. The only name that they may be even vaguely familiar with is Brian Kendrick and, if they do, they’re familiar with him as an act from a previous era in WWE that never amounted to much of anything.
So you’re seeing all these acts for the first time. Where’s the wow factor? The division is full of supporting acts with no leading acts. Kota Ibushi. He would have been a leading act to headline the division and generate a buzz. Yes, he wouldn’t commit to signing a full time contract, but they could still find a way to bring him in twice a month as the champion that comes in to defend his crown and put the division on the map while you spend the in-between shows building up challengers to him. Other, probably more feasible, options include Neville or Kalisto or even waiting to debut the division for Gran Metalik’s arrival from Mexico.
Instead, the division has been headlined by Brian Kendrick, T.J. Perkins, Rich Swann, and Cedric Alexander – all great talents in their own right, but none of them are stars who grab your immediate attention and generate an instant buzz. And that leads into the next lesson…
(2) FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING
The first impression of the division was absolutely lousy and, within at most a few shows, it already had the stigma of a failed uninspired project. That perspective coming out of the Cruiserweight Classic when the same viewers were just beaming about the quality of the show and the prospect for a Cruiserweight Division on the main roster was a quite remarkable turnaround on WWE’s part.
The lesson from that is don’t rush into things. They decided to debut the cruiserweights the first possible chance they had after the Cruiserweight Classic to cash in on the buzz it had generated, a smart move on paper, but one completely negated by the fact the infrastructure wasn’t in place for the division to succeed. Instead, they debuted with no star power and a lack of memorable matches/promos/rivalries/anything.
The template for all of this should have been Ring of Honor’s first Supercard of Honor in 2006. At the time Dragon Gate was a niche of an already nice puroresu product to North American wrestling fans. Gabe Sapolsky brought them into ROH for the first time as relative unknowns during 2006’s trio of WrestleMania weekend shows, another lasting legacy that this famous weekend had on the independent scene. Yet by the end of that weekend they were as over as any act on ROH’s trio of shows that weekend. The trios match on the Supercard of Honor show wasn’t the only match that weekend involving Dragon Gate talent, but it was the statement-maker that cemented the reputation of any Dragon Gate talent to come over stateside that still stands a decade later. It was a match which, in 20 minutes without prior introduction of the characters or the stories involved, gave the Dragon Gate trios match an air of MOTY expectancy every year.
WWE would have been wise to learn from that match. Choose some of the best cruiserweight wrestlers you have available and just let them go out in their debut showing. Tell them the shackles are off and do whatever you need to have the most incredible spectacle possible. If that means using Kota Ibushi, who may only be used a special attraction talent in the division, then so be it. Send him out there with Gran Metalik, make Metalik in an instant superstar, and let them have a match that will give the division a reputation to live off for years to come.
When the division debuted, it should have made a big impact. Shout out a message to a new audience that the cruiserweights are something you won’t see anywhere else on the card and are must see. What we got instead was a division full of midcarders for life having tepid matches as part of uninspired storylines.
Weiter geht es hier:
http://www.pwtorch.com/site/2016/12/21/f...-division/