Time To Move On

Rick Flair – born February 25, 1949 – age 62

Started Wrestling Career in 1972

First NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1981

Hulk Hogan – born August 11, 1952 – age 58

Started Wrestling Career in 1977

First WWF Heavyweight Championship in 1984

Sting – born March 20, 1959 – age 52

Started Wrestling Career in 1985

First NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1990

First Sting vs Flair feud – 1988

First Flair vs. Hogan feud – 1996 (from the NWO storyline)

First Hogan vs. Sting feud – 1996 (from the NWO storyline)

Looking at the statistics above, each wrestler won their first championship within 5-9 years of being in the business.  When a person wins the Heavyweight Championship title, the company trusts that he can be their spokesperson and grab the attention of the public in hyping up their events.  After each of the above wrestlers had their first title run, the popularity they generated made them one of the main talents for their company.  By 1996, when all 3 talents were signed to the WCW, their popularity was undeniably huge in the wrestling world.  By 2001 when WCW was sold to the WWE, they were 3 of the biggest names in wrestling history.  Roughly, within 15-20 years of their career, these 3 wrestlers have reached levels in the wrestling business that only few have ever reached.  Why?  Were they at the right place at the right time?  Were they just too unique and exceptional at what they do?  Were they the results of great promotion work from the company they were with?  The answer is Yes to all the above.  There is no one reason why they became popular.  The time came when someone chose to put them in the center of the company and they stayed with that decision and invested in their popularity.

How long can Impact Wrestling rely on these 3 wrestlers to promote their company?  It’s great that these 3 wrestlers have an active wrestling career until now, but to constantly give them main event angles then means less and less time for any up-and-coming talent.  The sad thing is that many of these Impact Wrestling up-and-coming talents have been in the business for over 10 years, but haven’t come close to the level of Hogan, Flair, and Sting  Here are some statistics:

Aside from AJ Styles who one the World Heavyweight Championship 3 times and Abyss who won it 1 time and Samoa Joe who won it 1 time, no other wrestler on this list had ever held the World Heavyweight title.  

Why haven’t any of these wrestlers been able to reach the heights of Hogan, Flair, and Sting?  Some say that Hogan, Flair, and Sting do not want to give up their main event status.  Others say that Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo don’t know how to promote wrestlers to the next level.  And others also say that Dixie Carter let’s everyone else run the company, which she owns.  Who is right?  I think they are all right to a degree.  Until Hogan, Flair, and Sting can just use their popularity to promote the company instead of their in-ring ability to help the company move forward, they will not grow.  Until Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo can move the other wrestlers into significant storylines, they will not grow.  Until Dixie Carter takes a stand and realize that they all work for her and if they can’t create something unique or original to gain fans and viewership and make money for the company, then they just have to part ways. 

Let me describe this way.  To have your own unique house, it’s easier to build a house from scratch according to your own specifications rather than buying an existing house and renovate it and be stuck with its parameters.  Impact Wrestling has been riding on the existing popularity of their talents like Hogan, Flair, and Sting. They’ve been riding on remnant WCW fan base who never liked WWE.  What they should do is create the next Hogan, the next Flair, and the next Sting.  They need to build a different look with a variety of characters to match-up against each other.  Until this happens, Impact Wrestling will never grow.

Overall, Impact Wrestling is not that bad.  It’s only bad when compared to WWE.  The in-ring wrestling is pretty good sometimes.  They do have good talent on their roster.  They have the ingredients to create a unique promotion that isn’t compared to the Old WCW and the current WWE.  But, as Hogan, Flair, and Sting continue to dominate a good part of their storylines, they will never escape the comparison.  They will never promote other wrestlers to be the next best thing. 

Personally, I hope that one day someone will decide that Hogan, Flair, and Sting’s time in the spotlight as in-ring competitors is finally over.  They do have name value, but I think it’s time for them to be PR representatives than active wrestlers.  I have great respect and admiration for those 3 competitors, but this isn’t the 80s/90s.  The WCW is done.  The Crow is an old movie and the next Batman movie won’t feature the Joker.  We have entered the next decade of this new century.  It’s time for Impact Wrestling to do the same thing.