That's exactly it, Cena like him or hate him loves the wrestling business and is willing to do his part to keep things running. Brock Lesner and Goldberg don't care about the business at all, they only care about collecting a paycheck and serving their own needs. The bigger problem with Lesner and Goldberg is they both put in their time to the business and both built themselves up as unstoppable monsters. It really is a catch 22 for the WWE when they bring those two back, they have more or less earned the right to be at the top card and be booked as a dominating force yet neither of them have the respect to put the newer talent over. It wasn't too long ago that AEW fans were frothing at the mouth with rumors that Tony Khan could potentially grab Lesner and bring him over to AEW. He would not work in that environment, period. There is absolutely no talent there that realistically could take Lesner on and he is smart enough to know that his bread is getting buttered by sticking with WWE.
Oh god, I hope The Rock stays far away from the business at this point. He embarrassed himself with the John Cena feuds and I would imagine he would do no better with his physical condition. In fact, you could tie this along with the situation Jericho is in. Jericho is even older than Dwayne and they just don't have the stamina nor the proper physical condition to be in the ring anymore. Both would need to lean themselves out if they want to have a reasonable match at this point.
Oh the Rock is coming sooner or later …you can book it. Guaranteed he’s going to come out to remind Roman exactly who is the head of the (Samoan) table. Pardon the pun but the table is set for that eventuality..
whats funny is RVD, jericho and christopher daniels are all the same age. think about which one is still the best in the ring
Lesner has fought legit matches in the UFC and was the Heavyweight Champion there. He is a freak of nature and has been booked as an unstoppable force for practically his whole wrestling career. They literally just booked the guy to manhandle John Cena (again) who has been Superman for over a decade in the WWE. I think it would be a pretty tricky conversation for someone like Tony Khan to lure Lesner over to AEW have him put over someone like Kenny Omega. Lesner's ego would prevent that from happening for one, and I can't think of anyone in the AEW roster that has legit fighting credentials to try taking someone like Lesner on. Bottom line, Lesner is not a good fit with AEW and it's for the best he stays with the WWE.
They used to, remember the classifications like Cruiserweight and Intercontinental? Again, those days are long gone and I would argue it's one of the problems with modern wrestling. Maybe one of the wrestling organizations would benefit from bringing in a weight class system into the fold as it could bring some believability back to the business. The wrestling business lost a lot of fans to products like the UFC and they seem to be doing quite well with a weight class system, I argue that wrestling could benefit taking a similar approach.
is this the ultimate warrior now where you can only book guys who could win in real life? go look who lesnar fought in new japan. he has some familiarity with a few of these guys. i don't want him in AEW but he could easily be booked to fight miro brian cage hobbs lance archer jake hager wardlow malakai black i'd even throw on karl anderson, doc gallows and eddie kingston and moxley who i think he fought 1 or 2 of them already 15 years ago
the ultimate warrior does. thats why he really only wanted to face hogan, macho man, andre and rick rude because everyone else was too small in his opinion. he eventually enjoyed working with sgt slaughter and ted dibiase too but i think that was pretty much anyone he himself cared to work with
You can argue that Lesner's ego has inflated to the level of Warriors. Brock and Warrior have a lot of similarities, the main ones being that they don't care about the wrestling business and both want to be booked as unstoppable forces. It certainly isn't hurting Brock to stick with the WWE, they are literally spoon-feeding him everything he wants. He's getting the money, the monster booking, complete creative control and a limited work time catering to his schedule. The WWE environment is treating him well and he would be stupid to move elsewhere. And then you get Danielson who was looking for very similar perks that Lesner demanded (more money, less travel and matches, more creative control of his character) but WWE were unwilling to budge on it. No disrespect to Danielson, the writing was on the wall and he walked away from the WWE and got everything he wanted from AEW. For him that's fantastic, I don't blame him one bit especially if the environment is easier and healthier for him in the long run. Danielson loves the business, he will most likely do the right thing and put people over. Lesner only cares about himself and WWE are stuck with him for better or worse.
It's not as much that he's smart enough to know where his bread is getting buttered is that he's smart enough to play Tony Khan's endless checkbook against Vince to up his price. If Lesnar was willing to play ball, he could have big time matches with Omega and Moxley. He wouldn't be willing to do those jobs, but if he were then he'd fit in perfectly for the role they would need him. We all know he wouldnj't do that. Lesnar knows the game. He spent a decade playing Vince against the UFC to get crazy money and I'm sure he talked to Tony Khan just to get Vince to pay him more this time around as well. Lesnar is the smartest guy in the history of the business. He's made more money for less work than anyone.
You're leaning in too hard on believability. That was gone decades before 2021. (Also, the Intercontinental title had zero to do with size.) Name one time in the US where a company with a smaller weight class champion booked the lower weight class as equal to the heavyweights? It's never happened since Danny Hodge and likely because there is a reason for that. Wrestling rarely works that way because unlike real sports, there is no competitive advantage to size in a worked match. There are already too many championships in wrestling to add an extra weight class or two. Even when WCW had a ton of talent in their cruiserweight matches then never got treated as main eventers until people like Jericho, Guerrero, Benoit & Mysterio all eventually got put in the mix with bigger guys. Wrestling thrives when they have big stars, it has nothing to do with the quality of matches. Star power has always been the thing. Wrestling stopped creating the big stars. Once WWE had no competition they wanted the brand to be the star and stopped allowing their talent work their own gimmick and handcuffed them. That changed the course of wrestling. They stumbled on Cena as he was about to be cut when he was doing a rap backstage and Stephanie heard it and they had him do it on the air. Had that not happened he would have been cut and would have cost them millions. They stumbled into Punk and Danielson (and even Cesaro) getting over with the crowd and it wasn't the look or the guys they wanted and they tried hard to make it not happen. Punk and Danielson overcame it to an extent and Cesaro didn't, but you shouldn't have to fight your audience for what they want. That's one big reason long time fans disappeared is the monopoly took what they wanted and tried to crush it every time. It's not believability that is needed, it's getting a person over that the crowd accepts as their own and making a star...and once that happens finding a way to deliver on what the fans want even if it might not be what the promotion wants. You have to build to something and deliver, and WWE spent a decade trying to get Reigns over when the crowd didn't want it when they had money making potential in others who could have helped them then while working on Reigns. Reigns got over organically as a heel but Paul Heyman has a lot to do with that.
They could have him replace his former follower Brodie Lee as the leader of the Dark Order, but that would require him to have a more human character...which I am all for. Also the Dark Order being so over as babyfaces, I'm not sure I would mess with that either.
Maybe. I'd probably like that more personally but I could also see him in a weirdo group with Malachi Black.
Didn't Rey Mysterio have this happen a few times? I remember him holding the WCW Cruiserweight Championship and challenge for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship while holding the cruiserweight belt. He has been booked as a giant killer many times in his career and is one of the reasons why I tuned out of wrestling, it was just not believable for him to face giants without getting absolutely destroyed. There has to be some believability to keep the crowds hooked in, like you mentioned that has been gone for decades and the fans started following suit. Can't disagree with your assessment of WWE and how they have handled talent over the years. One thing that is desperately needed and I think we are in the infant stages of seeing it is some healthy competition coming back to the spectrum. AEW might not be big enough yet to start a new war with the WWE but they are certainly on the right track to potentially getting there, especially if WWE doesn't get with the times and admit they have a whole lot of issues in their environment to deal with. I think Cornette recently discussed that this was also a very healthy way of turning the business around, those that don't like where they are at pack up their stuff and move on to the next territory or big business player. Sometimes it's best for a talent to move on and become missed, then maybe they return and rejuvenate their own career and make more money for themselves and the company they go back to. We are definitely seeing it right now with the WWE purge and most of the talent going to AEW. Sure many of them will stay there, but you also can't rule out that some may go back to WWE or other ventures altogether.
I suspect Punk and Bryan will work similar to how Shawn Michaels did in his last few years as a regular worker, meaning that they will work to put the younger talent over, while still winning enough to make it's not like they are jobbing left and right to all of the younger guys. You can't have those guys come in and lose big matches right away, though, so I suspect they will win early and often, but still put their opponents over. Remember, you do not have to lose the match, which is fairly incidental in pro wrestling, to put someone over. Towards that last point, while Lesnar obviously has had no interest in working full time in forever, he has put guys over, both in losses and wins. Heck, he agree to lose to Seth freaking Rollins, and while he won the match against Punk at SummerSlam '13 (thanks to constant interference by Heyman), Punk looked all-world in that match. Destroying Cena at SummerSlam '14 made total since, as Lesnar had just ended the streak at WM that year, so they had to keep the "unstoppable beast" streak going. On the flip side, I was never a fan of Goldberg, and have little regard for him to this day.
