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Old 07-12-2017, 01:02 AM   #30
Tom Guycott
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... talented mid-carders who get treated like marginal opening acts.

Not discounting the possibility of Aries' ego having things to do with the matter, the fact is if his run were to have happened before the tournament and re-introduction of a Cruiserweight division, there may have been a better career trajectory for him. But being stuck with the purple rope brigade only limited him to two things: title shots against Neville or squandered in a throwaway match on a show either nobody watches or *maybe* a monthly rotation on a random RAW segment in what has become the new piss break. There is little to no shot at moving up the card once you get that aura of "205 human pinball"- it's a rough pigeonhole.

And while I agree guys like Tyler Black, Prince Devitt, and Kevin Steen have "teh movez" in their arsenal, they haven't been framed as lesser stars for it. All three of those guys have (technically) been world champions of the largest organization of their profession. But think about if Finn was brought in later, and was part of the Cruiserweight Classic. I don't believe they would have bothered to give him the rockstar push they did in NXT and pre-injury on RAW. I feel he most likely would have been part of the "this is all you are" crowd with Rich Swann and Noam Dar. The only way most of the guys there are going to break away from that is if they either disappear to juice up then come back built like Apollo Crewes for a second look at a main-roster spot, or form a tag team.

As far as snatching up talent and being light on stars, that's kind of their own fault on both counts. Again, I champion NXT for doing their presentation right, but it also has the side effect of showing how far divorced WWE is from what made them successful in the first place. There is THREE HOURS of show on Monday night, and they manage to fit in about as much wrestling as there used to be way back when RAW was only an hour with a possible slight overrun to pre-empt Silk Stalkings. They have way more talent on the roster than back then, but still seem to only find a way to highlight the same 8 talents they can manage to barely concentrate on at a time.

Of course they hope something "catches fire" so they can make money off the back of it, but they themselves don't make it easy for most of the people they hire anymore. They don't analyze the "why" something is or isn't working and plan accordingly, they just try to either mass produce it, or squash it if it is contrary to other plans or Vince decides he's bored with it. I think a couple of analogies: one, of Steve Austin and Zack Ryder: The Ryder Revolution is what Austin 3:16 would have been if Vince decided to ignore all the signs showing up and still just saw Steve as marginal. No shirts, no pop culture phenomenon, just some random guy that goes against his idea of finding another Hogan. Two, in trying to find that next Hogan, they've usually bypassed all the Rick Rudes, Jake Roberts', Mr. Perfects, and Roddy Pipers. They have a lot of underutilized, untapped talent right now, but there is so much focus on getting Roman to where they think he should be or making sure Cena is around, there's little effort on improving the overall landscape so that those two things won't be a necessity.

Again, I don't believe that Austin Aries would have been a banner-waving WWE guy who was given multiple world title runs and been a company figurehead and ambassador, but at the same time I also think he could have been positioned a whole lot better than to be seen as nothing but a occasionally utilized spot monkey. He had the tools, if given a proper opportunity, to EVENTUALLY be a star power money draw, or "the greatest Intercontinental Champion who ever lived". But it wasn't going to happen overnight, and it sure as hell wasn't going to happen on 205 Live. That roster is essentially the new Heat/Jakked/Metal/Velocity/Superstars. The writing is pretty much on the wall for those guys, and it seems like A Double saw that as well.
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