[Tom Guycott]

Originally Posted by Vastardikai YEAH! I said something about THE RYBACK that also applies to L.A. Knight (YEAH!) If you are gonna rip someone off, it is best to rip off someone who is a draw. The actual wrestling part of wrestling is the least important part of wrestling. A charismatic guy who isn't a complete klutz in the ring will make a promoter more money than a guy who can "wrestle good." Source: last 40 years of wrestling.

The biggest problem here is that people treat this as an either/or thing: be it the promotions or the talents themselves. And, of course, one of the biggest persuaders of the trend is WWE. Not even a "fedbad" argument, but just how they hard-headely spearheaded style over substance. It made more sense when Vince took over from his dad and took the biggest metaphorical "sizzles" from just about every promotion he could to put together a locker room full of almost nothing but guys with tremendous personality all their own. The problems came from when they started either:

a) trying to prepackage or repackage people into cartoons. Everyone remembers the hits like Undertaker, but forgets Duke "The Dumpster" or Issac Yankem DDS in general (unless they're doing some sort of retrospective about Kane specifically and not the gimmick and timeframe)

b) hire people who merely "look the shit" and hoping that stuff like the wrestling, gimmicks, and promos just happen along the way. Especially since, over the same amount of time, the people who are tall bodybuilders ain't really built for or into this shit, and the people into this shit aren't tall bodybuilders.

So, you get to a guy like Eli Drake/LA Knight (or like the 3 other names he had in either developmental or on the main roster over time), and, for the most part, he had "star" written all over him, but he wasn't as tall as guys like Baron Corbin. So, he was minimized, embarassed, run off, let go in housecleaning sessions because there was "nothing for him" or any of a myriad of excuses. I will point out again that this is the same company that was going to release CM Punk from his developmental contract because they weren't signing him as much as the indy buzz, and didn't want anyone else getting that buzz at the time even though they themselves had zero plans for him. The same company that was going to release John Cena because Vince "didn't see it" in him. Was ready to relegate Steve Austin to "a good hand" and have him job every week (pre KotR)... but was ready to give guys like Sid or Luger or Ahmed Johnson "the boots" - as in make them the newer version of Hogan - to be positioned as the company figurehead.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect LA Knight isn’t even bad in the ring. It’s more important to understand why you’re doing things than doing a lot of things. I was wrong about him when he was basically my least favorite wrestler ever during his TNA days. I thought I was judging what I saw from him fairly, but his NWA and WWE work have changed my mind.

I feel you about his TNA stuff. It felt like he was leaning way too hard into aping The Rock in a company that already tried to do exactly that years earlier with Sonny Siaki. So, he felt like a ripoff of a ripoff. Took awhile to find his own voice, as it were. But when he did, he became a lot more tolerable.