The article on the "leaked WCW legal letters" last week generated considerable debate on the wrestling boards. The debate, some of which is reproduced below (in edited form), broadly reflects our own view that Tom Zenk's career upsets the paradigms of conventional wrestling analysis while highlighting - in sharp relief - the corruption and cronyism of WCW's wrestling cliques. Our thanks to Tony Gancarski, Michael Palij ("The Bogus Prophet") "Rocco" "JPelan" and others for their thoughts which originally appeared on "rec.sport.pro-wrestling (moderated)" (June 28 to 6 July, 1999).
The forum began with the following reference to the articles -
Bogus Prophet
- "Since you've brought up the issue
of misguided booking, I was wondering what you thought of the tale being
told over on the Tom Zenk website? Do you think that Tom (or whomever
is setting up the site for him) is just a whiner who hasn't been able to
get beyond some of the basic dues most workers have to pay (i.e., getting
screwed royally every once in a while) or do you think that he raises legitimate
issues about how good workers are misused by bookers who are more concerned
about asserting and maintining their authority while engaging in shameless
cronyism and engaging in outdated business practices? "
Gancarski replied - "I think we aren't
being told the full story.
Bogus Prophet - "Well, clearly. The purpose of the website is to get Zenk over, not Ole Anderson or Dusty Rhodes or the Jack Petrick/Jim Herd period of WCW."
Gancarski replied - "Even accepting that as the purpose (no problem, given it's tomzenk.com), questions are raised about whether or not the site is interested in genuine scholarship or in providing propaganda retroactively. Sure, Zenk might've been misused: he's not the first and he's not the last wrestler to be so misused. Not everyone can main event, after all. ... Zenk -- at best -- stayed in the *** range."
Bogus Prophet
- "I think this statement completely misses the point, namely, that
the way Zenk was booked, it is amazing that he was even able to achieve
*** matches. The snippets from Meltzer show that he thought highly
of Zenk's work as shown in the following quote from the Zenk site:
Bogus Prophet - " Clearly, Ric Flair thought enough of Zenk's potential to get him to come to WCW."
Gancarski - "True enough. After Zenk/Jaggers "upstaged" the main eventing Flair/Rhodes. It's curious that at no time in Zenk's career does he encounter workers that just blow him away... "
Gancarski - "As the careers of people from Ric Flair and Bret Hart to Dean Malenko show, everyone gets jobbed out in the early going. Everyone gets jobbed out for stretches in the middle and at the end of their careers.
Bogus Prophet - "I don't think that this is an important or even relevant point even if it is a true one: the point in time being considered for Zenk (ca 1990-91) appeared to be a breakthrough time for him, that is, if he got pushed then (instead of being buried) then his career would have taken off."
Gancarski - "The same could've been argued -- and was, at least during his ECW tenure -- for Chris Benoit during his first WCW run. As Nash and Bischoff have indicated during interviews here and there, so much of getting the push is politics. We find corollaries in other entertainment fields, FWIW. Authors winning prizes after their creative energy has long since started to recede, and actors winning Oscars for films inferior to their early output. Networking is a skill that one can assume Zenk lacked once he got into WCW."
Bogus Prophet
- "Timing and marketing are things that are often ignored in understanding
how and why people go on to become stars. McMahon's genius, for example,
lies in coming up with ideas that attempt to make maximize the effect of
both (e.g., the Sgt. Slaughter Iraqi War angle)."
Gancarski - "I'm not ignoring those
factors at all. But I don't think either of us know jack about why Ole
refused to push Zenk beyond what the aggrieved's advocate(s) tell us. And
sourcing Teddy Long and Joey Maggs, two others with axes to grind, doesn't
make for unimpeachable cred. My point in summary: Zenk might have had his
moveset down, but needed to play the politics end and kiss up to the bookers
to get anywhere. Arn Anderson's still kissing Flair's ass for the slot
Flair created for him in Charlotte."
Gancarski - "I can't imagine that the site does Zenk's career any good.. "
Bogus Prophet
- "*shrug* Maybe, maybe not. I see it's purpose as addressing
a past wrong".
Gancarski - "And where is Ole now?
Flair -- who the site can't decide whether to vilify or to uphold as better
than Ole in terms of pushing Zenk -- plays a weak heel now after being
the world's most unprotected mega-face. Arn's working an angle with someone
who attacked him with scissors; Arn's face registering a great deal of
discomfort about this. And so on....... For what it's worth, I remember
Zenk as being technically competent, but a curiously soulless wrestler."
Bogus Prophet
- "Soulless"? You mean like Undertaker "soulless" or Sabu spotmachine
"soulless" or Chris Candido/Bodydonna "soulless"? Actually, I see
whatever meaning one might attached to the term "soulless" as being too
hopelessly mired in subjective interpretation to be useful in meaningful
discussion."
Gancarski - "Sure it's subjective.
I was just giving my thoughts on Zenk, to establish my bias or lack thereof."
Bogus Prophet - "Even so, it is fascinating to see how someone like Ole Anderson, with his misguided booking policies, and Dusty Rhodes, with his cronyism and nepotism, were able to keep Zenk down."
Gancarski - " I agree. I read
the site too. It's like Eric throwing the coffee on Eddy or the 'Vanilla
Midgets' (apocryphal, or so its retro claimed) by Nash. But cronyism and
nepotism will always be a part of wrestling. I think we both can agree
on that."
Rocco - "I can't see that Tony Gancarski
has answered the central question about cronyism and the misuse of talent
in WCW - if you don't fully believe 'the Zenk story', you could always
check out what happened to Shane Douglas in WCW (- the guy that Zenk substituted
for in Dos Hombres and no-one even Meltzer knew) - or you could look at
how WCW uses Hart or Goldberg or Jericho or Benoit or .........."
Gancarski - "Douglas is quite
the blind spot for me, but... I'd be willing to bet that he didn't
do a very good job of playing politics in the way WCW required. The fact
of the matter is that Douglas has been bitching for five years about not
becoming the man in WCW, WWF, and everyplace he's worked but ECW. Pro wrestling,
like any other field, quite obviously isn't a meritocracy. And even if
it were, Douglas still isn't even one of the thirty best US workers."
Rocco - If you think Zenk was "soulless"
then I'd guess your memory is short - though that may indeed have been
the cumulative effect in the later years (1992-4) of being endlessly jobbed
(recall that his career started 10 years earlier). WCW knew what they had
in Zenk - that's why they gave him a 2 year initial contract and $50,000
p.a. more than Pillman, Douglas, etc -Then Ole Anderson booked him to humiliating
squashes to get rid of him through 1990 for
reasons canvassed on the Zenk page.
Gancarski - "I'm not defending Ole's
booking -- who could? -- but I am suggesting that Zenk needed to alter
his approach to the back room if he really wanted that main event
push (cf. Arn Anderson's approach to Flair)."
Rocco - " ...then Rhodes came in
and built the booking to make his son top babyface and the youngest world
champion (through 1991 -2); then Bill Watts came in and competed to get
his boy the top babyface (1992+). For Zenk - the ultimate babyface - it
was over with no Vince to go to, since the Can-Am walkout..."
Gancarski - "You mean that Zenk burnt
a bridge to Connecticut? Quelle surprise. Again, the Watts and Rhodes regimes
are largely indefensible. Again, it would've behooved Zenk to kiss some
bookers' asses. Why ? Because that's part of the game. It's hierarchical."
Rocco - "BTW I can't see the argument
that Zenk was just *** star status - the ratings on the page are
Meltzer's and relate to matches where Zenk was working against the booking
grain - i.e. he turned in an average *** when he was largely being jobbed."
Gancarski - "No, he didn't. His ***
matches were largely at big events. And being jobbed or going over, that
doesn't matter in terms of match quality."
Rocco - "I can't agree with that.
IMO if Zenk had been able to leave WCW for's WWF he would have become a
major star (remember how WCW could make nothing out of Zenk contemporaries
Oz (Nash) - who can't wrestle but Vince made him a 'star'; The Diamond
Stud (Hall) who has three moves but Vince made him a 'star'; same for HHH,
Mero, X-Pac etc."
Gancarski - "WWF wouldn't have done
much with Zenk, given VKM's subscription to the 'Bigger is Better' ethos
back then. Mero got pushed during a lull in Titan's bidness. X-Pac is midcard,
and will stay there. It's taken HHH 5 years to make upper midcard.
I don't think Zenk would've stuck around and waited patiently for 5 years."
Rocco - "The final proof of the
WCW incompetence through cronyism is that even when these 'stars' returned
at huge inflated salaries - they still can't book a decent match. QED."
Gancarski - "Can't argue with you there."
Rocco - "To get back to Tony's point
re average *** I'm still not sure I understand. If you're sent out, as
Zenk generally was, to do a 5 minute job to Vader or Hansen or Rude or
Anderson, and then Ole or Dusty signals the ref after two minutes to "go
home" (deliberate humiliation) I reckon it's going to be pretty difficult
to maintain an average *** rating. Equally when Dusty sends you out to
do a stipulation match (e.g. the tuxedo matches) and then tells you not
to damage the tux - and takes the money from your pay when you do - it's
not surprising when Meltzer wonders what the hell is going on and marks
the match down to *. It seems to me to follow, that if Zenk had been allowed
to get over more, the *** rating would have
risen accordingly. As to 'soulless' and sterotyped 'face', Bockwinkel was
right when he told Zenk that he would always be type-cast by his looks
- but that was never the case in Japan where he played a very persuasive
heel (particularly on the Neidhart tour and
later when he put Bigelow over as a face). As Steve Keirn says Zenk could
handle the ball in any department - he just wasn't given the chance.
i
MasMarvel - "Points
well made, but I think there is a natural
tendency to push the Tom Zenk *type* of
wrestler down the card .....Roma and Powers in the
WWF (The Young Stallions) are another
case in point. They actually were a
very talented tag team in the ring but never got much beyond
glorified jobbers. Roma had to become
an awkward heel with Hercules to get even
a mid level push. Powers never even
got that chance...... Goofy, zany
and even idiotic gimmicks are viewed
by many promoters as the ticket to success.
The "Mr. Nice Guy" type is often used
to "put over" the non conformist heels,
not beat them back and restore order in the
face of disorder."
Bogus Prophet
- "A wildcard that I would like throw in here is that if someone with
Vince McMahon's marketing genius could work
with someone like Zenk, it is an open question
how far Zenk could go. Shawn Michaels is probably the best
example of this. Zenk had a basic appeal, the
question for the marketing types is
what sort of gimmick to package it with to best exploit it."
Gancarski - "Probably true,[re Zenk
working any angle, including heel] though I could make some comments about
a more sophisticated audience that is also preconditioned to readily accept
US workers as heels..."
Bogus Prophet
- "Again, being perceived as a heel or a face is probably secondary
to the gimmick that is attached to a worker.
Hogan was a fan favorte and during the 1980s
simply could not be packaged as a heel, at least among the sports
entertainment fans. The Road Warriors are the
prototypical example of a tagteam who were over regardless of their heel/face
status during the 1980s. The Undertaker, Jake
the Snake, and others have transcended their heel personas
because they were so over with fans. Could Zenk have been pushed
in the same way? Maybe. Then again he could have been saddled
with a cheesy gimmick (e.g., the Red Rooster)
or an unexciting, limiting gimmick (Marc
Mero is most relevant here).
Jpelan - "Somewhere earlier on this thread the word "souless" was used to describe Tom Zenk...."
Bogus Prophet - "Tony used it. I pointed out how hopelessly ambiguous it was as a term."
Jpelan - ".... as was the term talented; both are accurate IIRC."
Rocco - "I'm assuming here that "soulless" refers to Zenk's pre-occupation with technical or scientific wrestling rather than the soap-opera role-playing and mike work common today."
Bogus Prophet - "I would say that Zenk was talented and I would go further and say that he had some basic charisma. As pointed out on the Tom Zenk site, Zenk apparently was a babe magnet which appeared to have been one of the problems the "old guys" like Ole had with him. One just has to think of HBK to appreciate how important this aspect to a worker might be."
Jpelan - "While there is certainly no defense for Ole Anderson's booking, (and I foolishly preserved much of it on tape thinking that it might be good), there are a couple of harsh realities that one has to consider when discussing Zenk: Zenk was/is a few years too late to be a main eventer. A throwback to the technically proficient pure babyface style of Bob Backlund, Zenk's career started just as the shift to bigger is better got underway with the advent of Hulk Hogan and the Road Warriors."
Bogus Prophet
- "I'm not sure I agree. Vince got Hogan in December 1984 and pushed
him to championship status in January 1985, about 5 years before the time
frame being considered for Zenk. From 1985 on, Vince's "Larger Than
Life" philosophy (i.e., use steroid monsters with "The Look") ruled especially
in the use of such workers as Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and other "Big
Men" who either came by their size naturally (e.g., Andre) or unnaturally,
but that changed with Hogan's leaving of the WWF (ca. 1993) and the push
of "smaller" workers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. If Zenk had
been allowed to develop, there is good reason to speculate that he might
have been World Title material, a la Michaels by 1993-1994."
Jpelan - "Sure, there were big men in
the sport before, but the popularity of Hogan convinced VKM that in order
to get a wrestler over, that wrestler had to have tons of charisma or a
great gimmick and actual ring work was secondary. The days of the pure,
gimmick-less babyface (with the exception of Steamboat) were pretty much
over."
Bogus Prophet
- "Except that that philosophy got cut back significantly with the push
of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. The only exception here was Diesel,
whom I could never take seriously as a champion (Note: I was at the the
special "NY Rumble" at MSG which preceded the Royal Rumble by a week or
so, I guess back in Jan 1995 (?), and saw him just bulldoze 6-7 guys without
a problem; at that time I knew that he was going to get a super push, which
was confirmed by his repeat performance at the Royal Rumble -- I just kept
thinking "This guy was f'n Oz!"). Zenk's potential role in all this
is, of course, unknown but it is quite possible that he could have been
pushed to the top, like Michaels was."
Rocco - "Anyway, if babyfaces were
finished, then how can the extraordinary popularity of the Can-Am
Connection be explained? Zenk had a gimmick with Martel - if Martel hadn't
cheated Zenk in the contract negotiations by taking twice what Zenk was
getting, it might all have been a different story."
Mas Marvel - "That's interesting information.
I recall reading Martel's "take" on the
situation in an interview with the Toronto
Sun's wrestling reporter (www.canoe.ca wrestling
archives.... it may still be there) and
Martel indicated that he felt Zenk just lacked
the resiliancy to deal with the nightly expectations
of pro wrestling. He indicated that
he pleaded with Zenk to finish up his contract, which,
in retrospect might have been very good advice.
By leaving the WWF on bad terms he left himself at
the mercy of WCW. That explanation
you give, that he felt he was getting short
changed, seems just as persuasive as Martel's.
My guess at the time was that he might
have been unhappy with the bookings. As
I recall, and my memory may be inaccurate,
they were starting to job to Demolition shortly
before he left. They previously had destroyed Orton
and Magnificent Muroco in a feud.
Mark
Nixon - Montreal fans were much more into workrate wrestling, having
cut their teeth on Yvon Robert, Ed Carpentier, The
Rougeau's et.al. as scientific megafaces.
Even the resident brawlers like Michel Dubois, Tarzan
Tyler and Mad Dog Vachon could go when the situation called for it. The
pure brawlers were usually imported.
Tom
Zenk was a face of the Rougeau/Carpenier ilk, and could be booked in
Montreal with closed eyes.
Rocco - "If Zenk hadn't,
as it turned out, burned his bridges to WWF by walking out on the Can-Am
Connection, he could have played one fed off
against the other instead of being stuck in WCW and subject
to the booker's whims."
Bogus Prophet
- "Interesting point. It suggests that if Zenk had been more
manipulative, more of a psychopath in his
dealing with management, he'd have gotten further."
Jpelan - "[Re Can-Am Connection] There's something odd that happens with the chemistry of a tag-team, particularly of the babyface variety. I could cite the Fabulous Ones, the Fantastics, the Rock n' Roll Express, and even the heelish Midnites as examples of the phenomena I'm about to describe. With the notable exception of HBK, individual members of these teams do not seem to get over very well on their own. You might argue the Hollywood Blondes, but both individuals underwent dramatic changes of persona before getting over as singles.
Bogus Prophet
- "The Blonds produced one super-over worker, Steve Austin, but it
took the Stone Cold gimmick to get him over
(the Ringmaster gimmick and his association
with the million dollar man Ted Dibiase was just burying him). Brian
Pillman was just starting to go down that road when he died. What
took Pillman so long? He was part of
the group that was held down in the early 1990s
along with Zenk. The Loose Canon gimmick was his ticket to breakthrough
success.
The most obvious
example is, of course, The Rockers. Given Michaels size, I
never thought that he would be over in the WWF, especially
given Vince's love of Big Men. But the
Boy Toy gimmick and several interesting storylines, as well
as the fact that the Big Man Diesel was willing to work with Shawn instead
of burying him, all worked to get Shawn over.
My point is that
while some guys can only be over in a tag team, they'll fail
as individual workers, but, when given the right gimmick, storyline,
and support, can be pushed right to the top. Zenk's case
appears to be [a case of not being given this chance]."
TheRev - "Bobby Eaton was part of multiple
solid and some spectacular tag teams and the
TV champion. I notice we don't argue him as he plays matback to
everybody that isn't Scott Putski."
Gancarski - "This is something that
bears discussion, yes. Eaton actually 'knew his role' in the
way I've argued Zenk didn't.
["Does this mean Eaton "knew his role" as in "knew his place" - i.e. accepted the inevitability of the cliques and his menial position within them, whereas Zenk refused and stayed outside?" - ed.]
Gancarski - "TomZenk.com lists Eaton as part of the 'Charlotte clique' (which included Flair, AA, et al.), and I see no reason to argue with that designation. Eaton, even though a pathologically ugly and inarticulate man, was a great example of a promotion maximizing its abilities as far as booking him went from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. The only apparent things he really has to bitch about are the premature downcarding of the Midnights during Ole's tenure and a truncated showcase match against Flair on a Clash."
Jpelan - "How much of the "extraordinary popularity" of the Can-Ams was attributable to Martel?"
Bogus Prophet
- "We have enough history on Martel to see that he didn't appear to
have the personality to get much further than
he did, at least in the Big Two. His "Arrogance"
angle in the WWF could only take him so far, Shawn Michaels, working
with a variant of this angle, showed that it required an attitude that
was missing in Martel."
Jpelan - "How much is attributable to
that intangible that's present with a team? It's not something that you
easily provide empirical evidence for..."
Bogus Prophet
- "I agree, it is not *easy* to provide empirical evidence for some
of these things. But that's where scholarship,
listening to workers with different viewpoints, and using good old logic
and common sense come in....."