With Chris Jericho out for 30 days for the Brazil incident and Randy Orton getting a 60-day Wellness Policy suspension, I thought now was a good time to take a look at how much star power is left on WWE’s active men’s roster. 

BABYFACES

1. John Cena
2. CM Punk (WWE champion)
3. Sheamus (World champion)
4. Christian (Intercontinental champion)
5. Brodus Clay
6. Santino Marella (US champion)
7. Ryback
8. Zack Ryder
9. Sin Cara

Tag teams

1. Kofi Kingston & R-Truth (WWE tag champions)
2. Jimmy Uso & Jey Uso

HEELS

1. The Big Show
2. Daniel Bryan
3. Kane
4. Alberto del Rio
5. Cody Rhodes
6. Dolph Ziggler
7. Jack Swagger
8. Tensai
9. The Miz
10. David Otunga

Tag teams

1. Epico & Primo
2. Hunico & Camacho
3. Titus O’Neil & Darren Young

In case it isn’t clear, I left out all the part-timers like Triple H, Brock Lesnar, and Undertaker.  Also I didn’t see any point in listing or ranking guys who primarily appear on Smackdown, NXT, or Superstars—if you’re never on Raw or the pay-per-views, you’re definitely not one of the top 30 guys in the company.  There isn’t much point in determining whether Yoshi Tatsu is higher in the pecking order than Drew McIntyre.  Obviously Damien Sandow and Antonio Cesaro are on their way to bigger things, but for now there’s a lot of heels above them.

It’s telling that I couldn’t even name ten singles wrestlers who are not jobbers or heels.  (And Zack Ryder is pushing it.)  WWE’s heel side is softer (I wouldn’t buy any of them headlining Summerslam) but deeper (7 of the top 10 have held a world title).  Other than Cena, Sheamus, Punk, and the recently-turned Christian, all of WWE’s faces are comedy acts (Brodus, Santino), rookies (Ryback), or guys they’ve already given up on (Ryder, Sin Cara). 

The company tends to have three tiers—untouchable superman faces like Sheamus, heels like del Rio who job to the supermen but make all the other faces look like idiots, and idiot babyfaces like Santino.  This approach hasn’t been good for building up new stars; the top tier keeps shrinking as guys retire or get injured while the other two keep swelling with guys that aren’t taken very seriously.  It’s taken years for Punk and Sheamus to get to the level they’re at now, and that’s mainly because Shawn Michaels, Edge, Triple H, and (for the moment) Randy Orton have left.

It’ll be interesting to see who gets pushed to fill Orton’s spot, particularly on Smackdown where WWE will feel depserate to compensate for his absence.  This would be an ideal opportunity to brighten the spotlight on Christian and Cody and back up what both of them keep saying about making the IC title important again.  But knowing WWE I wouldn’t count on it, and they’ll just ask Cena and Punk to work more dates.

ohnoitskassius:

idg why people try to compare tna and wwe so much

like

wwe’s been around for 62471591864196 years

and then tna’s been around for like

10 years

that’s around the same length of time as roh right?

so why do people try to compare them so much with such an established beast of a company　

Because TNA is the #2 wrestling promotion in North America, built from the remains of the previous #2 promotion, WCW.  TNA continues the lineage of what a wrestling company with money can do with the talent pool that isn’t locked up with the industry leader.

Comparing and contrasting WWE and TNA helps to illustrate points about how both promotions do business.  For example, they both have prime-time cable shows, and yet one has parlayed that into a billion-dollar company and the other can barely sell 10,000 orders of their next pay-per-view.  The reasons for that go beyond one of them being 50 years older than the other.  Even just acknowledging that WWE is so far beyond TNA tells us a lot about the state of pro wrestling, and the level of competition within the industry.

ROH has been around about as long as TNA, but it’s always been at best #3 in the region, so there’s little use in comparing it to WWE.  When John Morrison left WWE last year, it was understood that if he returned it would either be for WWE or TNA—he’d only go to ROH if the other two passed on him, because ROH isn’t in the same league when it comes to star power or salaries.

themaskednegro:

I missed yesterday so I am doubling up today. Which is sort of easy because both belong to the same person.

Favorite Male Wrestler and Favorite Theme Music?

This motherfucker right here.

No, this is not some LOLIRONY mark moment or some shit. I have always like Mark Henry since day fuckin’ one. One for a personal reason and the other for a “kayfabe” reason. The first personal reason is that all one of my followers that knows me in real life knows what I look like under my mask…and I actually look *a lot* like Mark Henry. Even back before I had the beard and was a wee lad I looked like Mark Henry. So watching WWF(E) when I was little and seeing this wrestler that looks like me show up in the WWF and wrecks hit was just fucking cool. It’s like it was really me in there.

The other reason is that outside of WWF, I used to follow Strongman Competitions and seeing someone like Mark Henry who was a legitimate strongman and not all oiled muscles for show was also cool as fuck. We all know wrestling is fake scripted. We know the punches are pulled and the kicks miss…but seeing a guy come in who could legit beat the lift someone over their head and throw them into the second row…or break the fuck out someone’s back. I just liked that he was a legitimate strongman who even still competed for a bit while doing WWE.

Of course for a large part of his career he was a joke, but I like that he took pretty much all of it in stride. Between injuries he had to work the insanely silly Sexual Chocolate gimmick which was cute at first but after awhile it got out ofHAND.Then there was the ‘rebirth’ when he arrived in ECW and won it’s title. We got to see Mark Henry with championship go—silver around his waist and it looked fucking awesome. But after all of that time we never got to see Mark Henry make a run with the Big Gold Belt until he won it from the 2nd Top Face in the company Mr. Randy Orton in convincing fashion. Although I think his run got cut short (damned injuries) he still sits high on my list of favorite wrestlers. He’s a fucking real life monster outside of the ring, and although it took a long time he finally became one inside of the ring, too.

As for favorite music? Just fucking LISTEN to it. The best themesongs not only work on a ‘hey that’s catchy’ level…but they also personify the wrestler coming to the ring…and…well…just fucking LISTEN TO IT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU0cPihllMg

This man speaks the truth.  Save us Mark Henry!