The WWE doesn’t want to make new stars

The WWE claims they can’t make stars, but is the reality that they are too afraid to move on from stars of the past?

For the longest time, the WWE proclaimed that they are in the business of making new stars. After all, the company can only lean on certain headliners for so long before their shelf life expires.

And for a while, it seemed as though the company was succeeding in its mantra. Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock gave way to Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. Then came the incredible Ohio Valley Wrestling class that produced future Hall of Fame performers Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena and Batista.

But since that stacked OVW class, it has been slim pickings. The first three are still on top of the company a decade-plus later and Batista is only gone because he’s made a successful transition into film.

There have been a few notable stars to emerge since then — Alberto Del Rio, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Edge — but only one of those men ever really got the huge push from the front office. Del Rio was clearly earmarked as their successor to Rey Mysterio, their ticket to the lucrative Hispanic market. The others listed, as well as a few others, got their time in the spotlight through their own hard work. How many times have we heard how management didn’t want Punk or Bryan to be in the positions they wound up being in?

For whatever reason, it seems as though the WWE is hell-bent on having a select few remain on top. There have been stories about tactics used to keep Cena firmly on top of the WWE merchandise sales list as if it’s to prove to all the doubters “see, Cena is still on top.”

In the meantime, business is declining. Television ratings are slumping. Creatively, this has been one of the worst periods in company history, echoing the mid-1990s in terms of repetitive, uninteresting storylines. And yet the company has a plethora of talent that, with a little push, could get over and establish themselves as main event players.

Just look at how the company has handled two superstars in particular: Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt. The former had all the makings of this generation’s Roddy Piper or Steve Austin. He’s eccentric and unique, charismatic and versatile. Yet the WWE can’t seem to give him a sustained push. One minute, he’s the “Lunatic Fringe”, the slightly unhinged star that seems ready to follow fellow Shield-mates Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins to the top of the mountain.

And then the script flips. During his feud with Wyatt, he was painted as an incompetent weirdo. He lost due to hologram and exploding television (because he couldn’t figure out how to unplug it) and just looked like a weird comedy character.

People are cheering him and he’s gotten some of the biggest pops in recent memory, yet WWE almost seems reluctant to just get behind him and pull the trigger. The name of the game for WWE is how they present their superstars and presenting Ambrose as if they don’t know what to do with him shows up on screen.

But as frustrating as Ambrose’s stop/start push has been, it doesn’t hold a candle to Wyatt.

When he debuted, Wyatt and his family — then just Erick Rowan and Luke Harper — had the makings of the next Undertaker or Mankind. He was as unique a character as the WWE had ever seen and had the potential to be a made man for the next decade as one of the top heels in the game.

Then Super Cena intervened. Wyatt got a program with the face that runs the place and his career hasn’t looked the same since. Wyatt did the job to Cena at Wrestlemania as they all do and it just led to a constant cycle of the same: Wyatt being presented as this spooky, elite heel only to lose when it matters most. He lost to Cena, he lost to Undertaker and there’s a really good chance he’ll lose to Brock soon.

The funny thing is that all of those guys he’s lost to have one thing in common: they are all bullet proof. Cena could literally never win again and still be JOHN CENA. Beating Brock would put someone over as one of the most dangerous performers in the company, making them a force to be reckoned with going forward.

But the fact of the matter is that WWE doesn’t want to. The reason for that is beyond me, but the WWE continues to hang its hat on familiar faces like The Rock, Triple H, ‘Taker, etc. Instead of using their star power to make new stars — as they did when they had a young Brock beat The Rock for the title back in 2002 — they simply feed their up and coming faces to them instead.

When the WWE is ready to begin making new stars, they have more than a few faces that will be ready to receive the push. Or maybe WWE can just hope they can ride Cena’s coattails for another 15 years.