“Brock Lesnar doesn’t love the business”.
If I’ve heard that once over the past couple of years, I’ve heard it a thousand times. It’s yet another stick for fans to hit the man who “deserted” the WWE for greener pastures with. It’s another reason to be angry that the “part-timer” can waltz in, only fight a handful of times a year and still get a push as a main event World Champion. It’s another way the WWE get it so wrong when he earns four or five times, guaranteed, what the likes of a, say, Dolph Ziggler would earn for a full schedule.
But is it really true? Nothing Brock has ever said about the “working” side of the business gives that impression. He didn’t like the constant travel and being away from home three quarters of every month but who would appreciate that? It’s telling that a lot of WWE Superstars who hit the million dollar pay-line suddenly find their big bank balance allows them to take time off or go part-time. Or to be able to chase uncertain “dreams” in other industries safe in the knowledge that if it doesn’t pay off they can always return to their first “love”. Mentioning no names of course…
And it’s not even as if it’s a “work” to suggest he has such an attitude as a heat building tool. It’s merely wrestling fans projecting their frustrations with the product in general on the shoulders of a man who doesn’t deserve it.
But whether it is true or not, does it matter if Lesnar “loves” the business? Does it matter if he’s only in it for the money? As strange as it might seem for a wrestling fan to argue within a wrestling article for a wrestling website that it doesn’t, that’s exactly what I am about to do.
Sport holds its stars on a higher pedestal than “normal” workers. The idea that someone making millions of dollars for a career that many kids dream of (and that many adults would give their right arm to be able to do) might only be in it for the money will disgust some. “Don’t they know that I would play for my home-town team for free if I could” might be one line of attack. Many of you reading this article might have at one time dreamt of lifting the World Title at WrestleMania. The idea that one man’s dream is just a job to Lesnar will infuriate some.
And yet we will all know someone who has taken a job that they have no particular passion for but that pays them well. They may even, much like Lesnar, have been headhunted for that position and been unable to turn down the money on offer. (Lesnar was the highest paid “development” talent ever in the WWE). If they’re good at their job and work their way up the corporate ladder, does it matter that they’re not doing it for “love”?
Many sports stars love what they do. But I’m sure there are many that pay lip service to that ideal. How many high-paid footballers question where the business of Football is going as they collect their multi-million salaries? Does a star player stand up for the youngsters coming through the ranks or is he more concerned about being in the team, being the star and being paid as much money as he can get?
And therein lies the rub for me. Wrestling is unique in the way it’s run and indeed exists but we should no more suggest that a star striker in “Soccer” or a star quarterback in the NFL should be responsible for the future of their “business” than we should that wrestlers are for theirs.
For better or worse it’s not the 1960’s and 70’s territorial days where a disparate band of brothers criss-crossed North America having to get over or not get paid. The days where the likes of a Terry Funk or a Ric Flair seemed to genuinely care for the “business” as a whole are gone. Through no fault of their own, the likes of a John Cena or a Randy Orton don’t need to fight to keep their jobs nor do they necessarily have to help to elevate new stars to keep those big cheques coming in.
The WWE is the only game in town in some respects and will be a huge financial success regardless of their personal input. WWE anointed them as stars, pushed them until they made it and will continue to pay them as such until they have to call it a day. It’s not in their self-interest to “make” stars to save a “business” that is generally dead in an national sense anyway. The show itself is that “star” these days. Perhaps we have to go back to 1994 and Kevin Nash for the last time one star was expected to carry business. And look how that turned out… Not even John Cena, as important as the WWE feel he is, is expected to carry EVERYTHING on his own. So for all intents and purposes, WWE is “the business” now.
That is not in any way to disparage what’s left of the “rest” of the wrestling scene in North America. I love the action that Ring of Honor presents and TNA, well, they get it right sometimes too. The influx of RoH alumni into the WWE suggests that they are doing something right. But in years to come more and more superstars than ever will come through the WWE doors having had little other experience elsewhere. There will be more Lesnar’s whose only wrestling experiences will be through the eyes of the WWE. There’s only a finite amount of “Indy names” that NXT can snaffle up and that pool will only become smaller if the WWE’s performance centre becomes the best/only way to make it to the WWE.
I don’t believe for one second that Brock Lesnar has no “love” for Wrestling. He’s just not a mark for it, the WWE or Vince McMahon. He’s back because the WWE agreed to pay him what he’s worth (and the vast majority of WWE stars are underpaid for the work they put in, but that’s another topic for another day) and gave him a schedule that suits his desire to be at home. To blame Brock for agreeing to the deal offered him would be ludicrous. As it would to blame him for the ills of the WWE’s “star-making” factory that meant the company felt compelled to bring back yet another big name from the past to fill the supposed gap where new stars simply aren’t being created. It’s not Brock Lesnar’s fault that Dolph Ziggler or Antonio Cesaro or Bray Wyatt aren’t in main event spots. It’s the fault of a company who messes up so many pushes with their stop-start tactics. And hey, no body complained when “part-timer” Chris Jericho wrestled World Champion CM Punk at a WrestleMania did they?
And the ultimate irony is that the likes of Lesnar and Dave Batista returned to the WWE after “abandoning” it quite happily to put over others in the “right way”. The man who is held up as the example of “loving” the WWE and working 24/7 and coming back way too soon from injuries, John Cena, could learn a lot from Lesnar about putting people over and “helping the business”. But like I say, that is a moot point anyway.
