Building a new star in WWE

Nody

This was taken from the Undertaker vs. Sting thread but I did not want to derail it so I thought a new thread would be better.

Vision of Disorder wrote: »

The whole purpose would be to see your waning star (Undertaker) defeated by the up and comer. That is how new stars are created. Undertaker himself got to win the title from Hulk Hogan not too long after he arrived (briefly I'll grant you but it certainly elevated him). The attitude could have been, "Hogan is the big draw, this Undertaker guy could flop, what's the point?" You can't be sure anybody will get over unless they're given a chance.

I agree with you that there's nobody on the roster here today that seems a natural candidate to end the streak right now. Punk, Orton and Cena *spits* are already over enough that they don't need to. Daniel Bryan doesn't seem a natural fit to me for some reason (and in any case he's getting over well enough by himself which is pretty much the core of his character).

Guys like Sheamus or (if they drop the comedy gimmick and repackage him well) Wade Barrett, if built up well in the next twelve months or so, are people that I think could be potential streak enders. Roman Reigns might be the guy (so could Dean Ambrose actually) in a year or so but he's not established enough yet to seem a viable threat yet. I can easily see Reigns in a year (or two) at the top end of the table and at that point the mantle of 'Streak Breaker' could make him.

This is what got me thinking; I agree that this is how it used to be (and attempted to be done again with Rock vs. Cena take 2) but does it really work today? Yes it used to work no question about it but today I'm not so sure.

Lets take another example, Bryan vs. Cena at Summerslam when Bryan won with his new knee finisher. In terms of booking it was brilliant and surprising but did it elevate Bryan in any way as star that he won over the biggest star of the show (if we remove HHHs ego from the picture)? In my book not really. I saw him as a top level player before and after this event (WWEs booking afterwards did not exactly help get him over with the general public either). He got there by taking what ever gimmic given and making it his own and making it work. No matter how WWE tried to pull him down by giving silly gimmics he made it work and click with the audience while backing it up with brilliant wrestling to the point the audience loved him. That's what made him a star because WWE could no longer ignore that the fans loved him no matter what they did.

What about Del Rio? WWE's been trying to make him a main star for two years now but has utterly failed; would taking Undertaker's streak make him a star? Nope; he'd still be seen as boring and it be decried as a wasted oppertunity by the internet fans yet he's a guy who knows how to move, he knows how to cut promos (given the freedom for it) yet still fans are in general bored with him.

So how would you build a star today in today's WWE universe and what do you think actually work considering the push up/tear down mentality of WWE building?

gerrybbadd

There's no doubting the fact defeating Taker would be a star making achievement. However, for it to be done properly, I believe that Taker would need to be destroyed - physically decimated. And the right guy to do it is Roman Reigns. But he's a year our from that yet I think.

Taker needs to be physically dominated from the get go, not hammered with chairs and sledges like HHH did in the Cell. But outmanovered, overpowered and comprehensively beaten in the ring.

Del Rio's best chance of coming out of his current groove is this mini feud with Batista, but I fear, once that's done with (Batista will go through him of course), then he will fall back into his boring groove.