Even now, you’ll hear from a lot of retired veterans, generally people that haven’t had to deal with WWE’s regular system for the past decade and a half or so, trying to tell you that the current generation of worker is the problem.
They’ll tell you it’s their own fault for not standing up to Vince or creative, for not taking liberties and going off-script, for being too afraid to fight for their character. They’ll tell you it’s their own fault that they’re booked as haphazardly as they are, as if somewhere along the way, new wrestlers just lost their will.
To put it simply, this is a lie.
Jon Moxley’s shoot promos since leaving WWE were eye-opening to some, and merely confirmed assumptions for many, including myself. It meant a lot to basically everyone who follows wrestling in the modern day with a close eye. But I imagine for the 60-year-old curmudgeons with scarred-up foreheads out there, they might not take his word as holding all that much weight.
On the other hand, there’s not a single person in the business that doesn’t have a deep respect for the Undertaker. For decades he’s been a top level performer with an impossible presence, on-screen or otherwise. They practically coined the term ‘locker room leader’ to describe him, such was his pull and his ability to maintain order backstage.
That he was in a different position from everyone else was always plain to see from watching him. You could get the sense that there was nothing they could or even would force him to do. Not a single match or angle that they would dare book without his approval. If anyone in the last 20 years of WWE ever had something resembling creative control, it was him.
Anyone else might struggle, butting heads with creative, but not him, surely. Undertaker does what he wants and only what he wants. That’s long been the thought, and generally speaking, nobody even takes issue with that. He’s earned that right.
That’s why it should truly be telling that even The Undertaker is fed up with how WWE uses him.
Yes, that’s the Undertaker using his official Instagram account to like a fan’s message. A message bashing WWE for trying to force a regular length match out of himself and Goldberg. It was already close to ten minutes when it came to a merciful end, and that was a rushed finish. Some reports suggest it was actually meant to go a full twenty, only being called early due to what a disaster it was.
One can only imagine that the Undertaker knew from the beginning this was a terrible idea. It shouldn’t have been attempted, and he knew it. Honestly, how could you not? But that oil money is enough to get them to sell out absolutely anybody it seems.
For the first time that I can recall, Undertaker and the company he’s worked for since the dawn of the 90s don’t appear to be on great terms. You’ll likely recall that he was scheduled for Starrcast II, the fan convention that was running alongside Double Or Nothing in Las Vegas. That was until WWE pulled him – and Kurt Angle – from the proceedings.
Because of course they did. God forbid their most loyal and valuable asset since… anyone, really, get to make any sort of money outside of WWE. God forbid he draw a few more people into that event’s general area, as if they’d ever be able to breach the MGM Grand’s capacity more than they already had anyway.
But this is a little different, isn’t it?
This is the same kind of lack of control over his booking that everyone else has to deal with. Somehow, at this stage of his career, they’ve decided that the Undertaker is just like all the others. They’ve decided that his opinion matters to them even less than his health.
I really hope the legends out there, from the Steve Austins to the Billy Grahams understand that if The Freakin’ Undertaker is now struggling with situations like this, what kind of hope would a Mojo Rawley have to take any sort of control over his character? If he, with all his goodwill and backstage wizardry, can’t negotiate to have a shorter match when it’s obviously the only smart decision, what makes you think Dana Brooke has any say on what she does in the ring?
The workers have never had less control of their careers.
It’s the nice, company man answer to never blame Vince McMahon. To deny that his constantly changing creative direction is the cause when things go wrong. It’s the responsible, accountability-driving message to send out, to say that it’s all in the hands of the performer. And it’s the way a lot of legends remember it, that it’s up to the wrestler to make things work. But it’s becoming progressively obvious that it’s not the reality anymore, as much as it should be.
The wrestlers haven’t grown scared or dispassionate, far from it. Basically everyone that works for WWE now is a diehard wrestling fan. You’d best believe they didn’t get in the business for the money. They aren’t like the litany of wrestlers that littered WCW’s roster when it was of similar size. The people in that locker room aren’t happy to get paid to sit on their hands. They want nothing more than to have the same creative freedom that sparked such a fire in the business long ago.
But you’re looking at caged animals in a zoo, wondering why they don’t have the initiative to roam free. Break the lock, watch how wild they’d run…
