The glass ceiling appears in certain industries. Professional sports seem to be one of the few settings where you won’t experience it or notice it. After all, sports are mostly performance and results-based. It’s rare for clubs and teams to say ”This player isn’t all that good but he’s marketable so he’s a star player!” In wrestling, you get the glass ceiling often and WCW and Impact Wrestling (as TNA) were notorious for it.
WCW and Its Glass Ceiling
If you watch WWE and WCW between 1994-2001, you’ll see the glass ceiling in effect. Sting represented a particular generation in WCW but he didn’t have many contemporaries who would stick around the main event with him. All the chips were pushed towards building just around Sting.
Rick Rude left the ring, Vader eventually left, Sid was in and out, Big Bubba was never really pushed heavily, and Luger left and then returned. Oh, and something just went off the rails with Windham. Foley eventually bounced. Below them, guys like Dustin, DDP, Bagwell, Jarrett, Scorpio, Pillman, and Austin should’ve been on the rise.
I could keep going but things get so cluttered with WCW that we’re talking eras that smush together. I didn’t even get to Booker T, Jericho, Konnan, Benoit, and Eddie. When would their group’s rise come? How far would it push WCW’s New Blood back?
And Scott Steiner should’ve been on top sooner, actually!
Good thing we don’t have to think about it too much because WCW brought in a lot of Big Boys from its competitor! Oh yes, with Hogan, Savage, Hall, and Nash there only a few people advanced to being true main event names. DDP rose up and Goldberg’s streak accelerated his rise. When things started to get dicey for WCW, Booker T and Jarrett were ascended.
That’s not how this works. WCW didn’t have eras it had periods. You could look at WWE’s different era and say “OK, this is a different vibe in the company. I can see these guys coming up.” Then WWE would pull the trigger on them.
You got the vibe in WCW, but you didn’t get the sense of guys being up-and-comers.
The Glass Ceiling In Impact Wrestling
Fast forward a few years and now we have Impact Wrestling—or TNA at the time. Some of the same faces popped up early on but TNA pushed a few young faces initially. By a few, I mean AJ Styles and R-Truth.
It looked gravy outside of the title always finding its way to Jarrett. You still had guys who would somehow dip their fingers into plans. These guys didn’t push to be in those positions but were put there. Raven ended up World Champion as did Rhino. These reigns were short and didn’t cause the company’s glass ceiling.
Even when Jeff Hardy and Christian came in, things were fine. The WWE-TNA card position rule was in effect. If you were an uppercarder or main eventer in WWE, you were the main event in TNA. Nash hung back and while he was in the ring, he didn’t contribute to the glass ceiling.
During the early-mid 2000s, Jarrett was pretty much it. When the late 2000s and early 2010s rolled around other names came in. Sting, Anderson, RVD, Foley, Hardy returned, Angle, Ray, Hogan, and Bischoff—things got murky for TNA’s home-grown crew.
What was the result? Styles—the face of the company—was handled poorly. Roode managed to float with the newcomers but he should’ve been floating with his TNA contemporaries. Something Chris Harris, where’s James Storm? Oh, he was champion for a little over a week? Vulgar.
Abyss was always around and featured but he was mishandled at times. His hot period should’ve been 2005 to 2010 or so but he was in gatekeeper mode for the longest.
Here’s hoping AEW learns from those and don’t make the same mistakes.
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