Bogus Prophet -Tony Gancarski in a response to this [forum] earlier pointed out that [successfully playing] company politics was an important issue. However, Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes' treatment of Zenk shows that Zenk couldn't win the political game because he simply wasn't part of their agenda. These are the things that I think the Zenk case puts into sharp relief."
Gancarski - "Yes, agreed. Which brings
us to the unanswerable questions: Could Zenk have done anything to get
in better graces with the bookers? Should he have
waited his turn and jobbed with dignity? "
Bogus Prophet
- "Well, from what's provided on the Zenk website, it appears that the
answer was No. Zenk did the good soldier bit during Ole Anderson's
reign as booker and it got him nowhere. It probably pissed Ole off
even more because the purpose of Zenk's booking was to get him to leave
WCW. So, no, Zenk appears to have been antithetical to the philosophy
that Ole was operating with (namely, bring in older guys willing to work
for less money on a non-contract basis and whom Ole could control).
Bogus Prophet
- "Pure speculation. At this point, neither of us knows what options were
open to him..... As
for Dusty's reign as booker, it is less clear."
Gancarski - "And again, he was under
contract for a couple of years. My contention is that
he could've waited out the bookers if he couldn't work with them. A
gun-shy Zenk chose not to, however."
Bogus Prophet - "But I hesitate to think what Zenk may have to have done to have gotten pushed in a big way by Dusty."
Gancarski - "Gain thirty pounds, get a crew cut, bleach it, and change his last name to Runnels?"
Bogus Prophet - "No, marry into the Runnels family (as one of the Nasty Boys did)..... Remember how awful the booking situation was in the early 1990s for WCW (the wrestling business in general was going into one of its cyclic downturns at the time, IIRC). It's not clear that anyone with authority knew what the right thing was to do."
Gancarski - "That much is obvious in
retrospect."
Jpelan - "Sure, he got some raw deals,
but so did Arn Anderson who had to drop the TV strap to the Renegade. Zenk
may be technically better in the ring than Arn, but Anderson has forgotten
more about how to sell a match than Zenk has ever learned."
Bogus Prophet
- "This is something of a nonsequiter, especially given that Arn has
enjoyed a special position in the NWA/WCW because of his relationship to
Ric Flair. Arn was given his chances and he's a fine worker, but it's clear
why he never got to World title status."
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Jpelan - "Zenk was probably just born ten years too late, a decade earlier we might have seen him headlining at MSG against Superstar Billy Graham."
MasMarvel - "Yes,
perhaps so. Well said."
Bogus Prophet
- "Mebbe, or maybe he should have waited a couple of years when Hart and
Michaels got pushed. *shrug* "
Jpelan - "And there we have it... The "timing is everything" theorem."
Bogus Prophet - "Well, clearly it isn't. A related situation that no one has referred to yet is Hogan's treatment in the AWA. He was over as a fan favorite but Verne kept the World Title off of him and on Bockwinkel or whomever, while exploiting Hogan's popularity in making big paydays."
Gancarski - "Which COULD play into the dictum that you use the belt to get a wrestler over who wouldn't be over otherwise (though stuff I've read indicates otherwise, given Verne's proclivities as a booker and as a promoter)."
Bogus Prophet - "I don't see how this is relevant to the point I made. Bockwinkel was Gagne's man, so it's just cronyism operating again to keep workers with greater appeal down...... If Vince hadn't come in and given Hogan a monster push in the WWF, Hogan would probably *still* be jobbing to Bockwinkel or maybe Greg Gagne (or maybe even Mean Gene). Now, I think that you'd agree that Hogan has nowhere near Zenk's skill or work ethic but he did have charisma and the "look".
Gancarski - "And an unparalleled ability
for backroom politics, which we can assume Zenk never developed."
Bogus Prophet - "Hogan wouldn't have gotten over in the NWA but in the WWF, he defined the model of the modern pro-wrestler in 1985. So, no, timing *isn't* everything, but opportunities are..... I don't see your point about "unparalleled ability for backroom politics" with respect to Hogan. Clearly, this "ability" did little for him in the AWA when cronyism kept him down. It's not even clear that it was all that relevant early on in Hogan's WWF career:"
Gancarski - "By WM3 he felt comfortable enough to bitch to VKM about Savage/Steamboat upstaging him. Hogan sensed his importance to Titan (aided no doubt by Vince's spin) and entrenched his position. He wasn't damaged goods in McMahon's eyes until the steroid trial. Compare that to Ric Flair who always seemed to be battling people telling him he was too old or bookers deciding that Rick Steiner would be a viable world champ."
Bogus Prophet - "Non sequiteur. The point is that if Gagne held onto Hogan, his much vaunted ability for backroom politics would have gotten him a spot on sidewalk next to Nash and his own "Will Job For Food" sign."
Gancarski - "I guess you realized that Nash doesn't actually wrestle. Hogan managed to get out of Minnesota while the getting was good (read: when he was a commodity, after Rocky III). And if he hadn't... well, he could've hit Japan again. I believe he's won a title or two there."
Bogus Prophet - "Vince McMahon needed someone whom sports entertainment and casual fans could take one look at and say "Wow, nobody can beat this guy". Hogan filled the bill. He didn't have to have wrestling skill but he did have know how to work the mike and to get himself over, Hogan's true strength.
Gancarski- "That sums up Hogan's worth to a promoter pretty well."
Bogus Prophet
- "McMahon was really quite desperate at this time, having overextended
himself financially in his national expansion. If Wrestlemania wasn't
a profitable event, the WWF might have had to close up shop. Hogan
ensured that that didn't occur because of his appeal to many different
groups of fans:
Gancarski - "Given that the AWA was effectively regional even at this point, I don't know how big a factor that was."
Tony, for shame, ALL of the promotions were regional at this time, Vince was the one going National. His success would depend upon being able to appeal to people outside of the Northeast whom he had a lock on.
Gancarski -
"Yes, but Georgia had nationwide television. As did Southwest Championship
Wrestling. My point was that the AWA fanbase was
not Vince's main consideration."
(2) Casual and Sports
Entertainment fans who were fascinated with the hype that McMahon was producing,
especially with a product that seemed fresh and different from what they
thought pro-wrestling was.
Gancarski - "There we go. Many of them are fans to this day (though I despised Rock-'n-Wrestling as a child). McMahon desperately wants and has always wanted to be mainstream. Hogan was the ticket."
I don't know if I'd
use the term "mainstream". Vince Jr. strikes as being too strange
a guy for that. Instead, I think he'd just settle for unlimited power
and wealth.
(3) Kids:
although it's less clear to me, it still seems to me that one of McMahon's
early strategies was to target the kiddie audience even before he did so
explicitly. Tying in the A-Team series via Mr. T and working off
of its rub, Vince started to orient wrestling more towards Action Adventure
fans rather than traditional wrestling fans.
Gancarski - "I can see that (cf. the weeknight
"variety" shows; MTV collaboration; the ill-fated cartoon)."
(4) Traditional
WWF viewers: Jeff Amdur probably can amplify on this but the transition
from the WWWF to WWF (or the Vince Sr to Vince Jr. transition or the entry
into the Wrestlemania era of the WWF), but it is my impression that even
though a lot of traditional WWF viewers were turned off by Hogan and the
direction that the company was going, they still stuck it out.....
Gancarski - "Amdur has made this point pretty
consistently over the years."
Gancarski - "Yes.
And Hogan, unlike Zenk, bided his time and jumped when the time was right.
Gagne paid for his mistakes dearly in the end. [Re Hogan not getting over
in the NWA] I'm not sure I agree. Hogan could work decent matches
in Japan -- at least when compared to the green Lex Luger and the hopeless
Nikita Koloff -- and his WWF run was fueled by an emphasis on Hulkster
promos. The fans didn't demand that Hogan wrestle credibly, so he never
had to."
Jpelan
- "I think that this [issue of timing] may have been as big factor AGAINST
Zenk as any malicious squashing by Ole Anderson or Dusty Rhodes. Let's
use another example of a wrestler who is hugely popular in Japan but has
never quite seemed to click in the US... Stan Hansen. Let's look at why
Hansen never really got the megapush that he deserved in the US... I'd
have to say that it comes down to the issues of trends and timing; there
were other guys that took his "spot" (apologies to AA) that quite simply
were more marketable at the time."
Bogus Prophet
- "Well, I understand that a couple of things worked against Hansen's
time in the US, one of which was that he caused problems in the lockerroom.
His walking off with the AWA belt probably didn't endear him much with
promoters across the US either."
Gancarski - "These things are true."
Bogus Prophet
- "I don't have much more info on his time in the U.S. but, quite frankly,
outside of his "big man" role, he was quite limited in my view."
Gancarski - "He was a very good brawler
who didn't like to job. If Stan Hansen had done a better job with locker
room politics, he might have spent more time wrestling stateside. I suspect
JDW could flesh out/correct my answer if so inclined."
Rocco - "Returning to the
issue of whether Zenk could have been pushed to world champion status.
Dusty booked Dustin to this position in 1993 and only missed achieving
it by a whisker. DDP and Nash are other wrestlers who've been booked or
booked themselves to be World Champion - despite, in both cases being only
able to make it to the ring with knee braces and other prostheses - none
of the three can wrestle a lick ... if its good enough for them, then why
not a technical wrestler like Zenk."
Gancarski - "Nash is good at one thing,
and that is making a middle-aged TV exec think that he's hip and witty.
DDP is over with the majority of casual fans
for reasons that escape me..."
Bogus Prophet - "Apparently not enough to translate into decent PPV numbers."
Gancarski - "Could Zenk have sustained the "People's Champion" role?"
Bogus Prophet
- "[Once again] it depends upon how he'd have been handled."
Gancarski - "Possibly, although in
Page's defense, a number of casual fans that I know (mostly in the 35-45
year age bracket) think Page is "cool" while the same people consider Flair,
Nash, and Hogan "old". Again, we point to the intangible of charisma. While
I've always thought that Page's hyperactive persona would play better in
WWF, he does seem to be able connect with fans. Could Zenk have done so?
Maybe, but it's very difficult to speculate on as the height of his popularity
was as one half of a tag-team..."
Bogus Prophet
- "I think that you're just doing a simple
extrapolation of where Zenk was in the NWA/WCW into the future. There
is no reason to believe that his career would have
necessarily have continued along this route. Depending upon how open
he was to new things, Zenk could have found a gimmick
or a persona (either in the WWF or WCW) that could have pushed him to the
next level. For myself, the real question
is how could Zenk have been developed to exploit his strengths,
minimize the role of his weaknesses, and be converted into a
megastar (either face or heel) that would have widespread appeal.
Who would have thought that Glen Jacobs would
have gotten as far as he has, main
eventing important
shows in the WWF, bad teeth and all?"
Jpelan - [In summary] - Gancarski, Bogus Prophet [Palij] and Rocco have written more wordage on Tom Zenk in the last couple of days than many people would believe possible.
Bogus Prophet
- Which is amazing only to folks who want to keep the Z-Man down!
Gancarski -
See, he upsets the paradigms we hold so close to our hearts...
Bogus Prophet
- "What you mean, "we", white man? ..... The real question here,
I think, is how the trajectory of Zenk's career could have been different
if he hadn't been kept down at a critical point in time in his development
as a worker....."
And that remains the critical and still unanswered question.....many thanks to Tony Gancarski, Michael Palij, Rocco, John Pelan and others for their contributions to the forum. If you have any thoughts to add please visit our guest book or join the forum at rec.sports.pro-wrestling moderated.