This is gonna be tl;dr and I didn't know where to post this but I was thinking about this idea of burying wrestlers and such, and it got me thinking about The Rock's career as a title contending face. He turned face on Raw 4/26/99 after losing to SCSA at Backlash and had a two year stretch where he was pretty comfortably the top draw before leaving post WM 17 to pursue acting. Here are all of his title/big singles matches.

KOTR '99- loss to Undertaker for WWF title
Fully Loaded '99- loss to HHH strap match
MSG House Show '99- loss to HHH for WWF title
First ever Smackdown- loss to HHH for WWF title
Unforgiven '99- pinned by HHH in 6pack match for WWF title
Rebellion '99- loss to HHH for WWF title cage match
Survivor Series '99- loss to Big Show (HHH pinned) for WWF title
Royal Rumble '00- wins the RR (but is proven to not have actually won)
No Way Out '00- loss to Big Show for #1 contender @ WM
Raw 2/28/00- beats HHH & Big Show to gain a spot in main event @ WM
Wrestlemania '00- loss to HHH for WWF title in fatal fourway (Mick Foley, Big Show)
Backlash '00- wins WWF title vs HHH
Insurrextion '00- retains title vs HHH & Shance McMahon
Judgement Day '00- loses WWF title vs HHH
KoTR '00- pins Vince to win WWF title in 6 man tag match (HHH drops without being pinned, yay still strong)
Fully Loaded '00- retains title vs Benoit, but match was restarted after he lost due to Shane interference
Summerslam '00- retains in triple threat match vs Kurt Angle & HHH
Unforgiven '00- retains in fatal fourway vs Benoit, Undertaker, Kane
No Mercy '00- loses WWF title to Kurt Angle
Survivor Series '00- beats Rikishi
Rebellion '00- loss to Kurt Angle in fatal fourway for WWF title (Austin, Rikishi)
Armageddon '00- pinned in 6 man Hell in the cell for WWF title by Kurt Angle
Royal Rumble '01- loss to SCSA in the Royal Rumble
Smackdown 2/1/01- loss to Kurt Angle in triple threat match for WWF title (HHH)
No Way Out '01- wins WWF title vs Kurt Angle
Wrestlemania '01- loses WWF title to SCSA
Raw 4/2/01- No contest in WWF title match vs SCSA

some stats:
-7-12-1 in title matches
-5-7 vs HHH (one win where he didn't pin him)
-0-3 in WM main events for WWF title (including WM 15)

I don't think anyone would disagree that despite constantly losing big matches, The Rock would never be accused of being "buried". So why is that? We now live in a world where any booking that doesn't align with what smarks like constitutes as a burial. Cena, one of the most decorated wrestlers of all time, beats Baron Corbin clean once on Smackdown and ZOMG HE'S BURIED. I think The Rock is proof that storytelling and charisma of your characters are far more important than the cold results of each particular match. If you are a good entertainer and good in the ring, you will get over, simple as that. If fans stop caring about Baron Corbin it isn't bc he lost some random match to John Cena, it's bc they don't care about him. FTR this post wasn't meant to be about Corbin but moreso the idea of burying/jobbing/putting people over in general.

The difference between the rock as a face in that period and what happened to Corbin is the Rock was already super over and had already had an extensive history of success by that point.

Corbin has none of those things and had super legit momentum as a monster heel for the first time since getting called up after last years wrestlemania. I doubt many people would have had a problem if Cena beat literally anyone else on the roster, but he beat the guy who was on the upswing due to multiple dominating wins in succession like he was a chump.

I agree that "buried" is overused and that Corbin isn't a great example of a burial; a single clean loss to a guy who beats everyone isn't THAT harmful. Granted I think they could have booked him a bit stronger in defeat, but I don't think that result was any huge tragedy.

That said, I agree with darO that The Rock isn't a great comparison since you started the results at a point where he was already largely a made man. It's way more difficult to bury a made man.

A person who has never been atop the card, and who loses frequently, can absolutely lose momentum/overness because of it; casuals give up because he seems like less of a star, and smarks give up because they see signals that the company is just never going to push the guy into being any sort of big deal. I know that there have been times when I've stopped caring as much about a wrestler because it just feels futile and pointless to hope on them to become anything more than a JTTS.

+1

Put Luke Harper in Baron Corbin's place and no one has a problem. It would have had the same effect too.

They kind of laid a little bit of groundwork for a Corbin/Taker match on Talking Smack. Would seem to be one of the more interesting ways they could go, though just laying down for Taker at this point (like Bray Wyatt a few years back) might not exactly catapult his career.

Well couldn't you kind of make the argument that that same feeling could have been applied to The Rock? On the main card he spent ~6 months as a heel battling with Mankind but pretty much never winning clean. Then he turned face and went an entire year, including losing his first seven title matches, without regaining the title. Yet his push and popularity never stopped because of how good he was in the ring & on the mic. I obviously didn't mean to compare Corbin to The Rock, but if you contextualize it a little I think it's not a completely irrelevant comparison. Think about how The Rock was booked compared to Austin & HHH. Austin in particular was always made to look as strong as possible. 3-0 in WM main events for the WWF title, never ever lost clean, hell HHH won that 6 pack HIAC after Austin stunned The Rock, and then was pulled out of the ring. HHH didn't add any other damage he just pinned him. Yet The Rock always kept up with the two of them and was as over as possible.

I don't really know what I'm arguing, clearly "be one of the best wrestlers of all-time" isn't exactly a strategy anyone can follow. I just think people get too caught up in individual booking when, imo, the bigger problem is that the talent just isn't what it used to be in any realm. It's a lot harder to create interesting storylines with consistent booking when you don't have much confidence in your roster. There was a time when Kurt Angle & Chris Jericho weren't top 5 wrestlers in the company. That's insane. And it probably made it incredibly easy to write shows each week.

Wins and losses are also just one part of the equation. A wrestler's push also has to do with the amount of resources, most notably screentime, being put into that wrestler. As a point of example, obviously a well-done underdog story works, and it does involve some bumps in the road that usually include in-ring losses. I admittedly don't remember 1999 that well on a week-to-week basis, but I definitely don't have it in my mind that Rocky was ever being pushed down the card at all.

Usually the biggest problems that include jobbing to Cena involve those bull**** sequences where Cena wins, then there's a "prove it" match that Cena also wins, at which point they sometimes do yet ANOTHER match where Cena wins. The harm done to the jobber in these sequences far surpasses the diminishing value it gives to Cena and the fans who tune in to watch Cena.

Have said it before, but I hate hate hate the auto-rematch stuff when a guy loses the title. A guy should be able to lose the title and go straight back into strong booking in a non-title feud against someone else.

I think the other major problem is that people have seen the pattern so many times over the past decade:

Person gets momentum, wins matches
Gets fed to Cena
Becomes irrelevant comedy jobber

Wins and Losses also matter differently depending on your character. Staying strong as a monster is far more important than staying strong as a chicken****.

Big difference between losing via screwjobs like the Rock often did, and losing squeaky-clean to one AA from Cena and moving back down the card right after.

As a fan this is why that's frustrating--what's the point of building people up and feeding them to the guy who's already the #1 guy in the company over?

Bolded continues to demonstrate one of the places where WWE has ****ed up the hardest. To whatever extent finishers should even be a thing, they SHOULD win almost always. But I understand that they've booked themselves into a position where this seems notable.

Angle won this match. Invalidates everything you said . I kid.

The Cena burying people is dumb. It's all about how people are booked after they lose to Cena. Take Bray for example. He loses to Cena at WM 30. His next program and next ppv match? vs. Evolution. He was kept strong in spite of losing to Cena.

There's nothing wrong with feeding a new up and coming guy to Cena. Cena is the end boss and in kayfabe should be the favorite against almost any opponent except maybe Goldberg, lesnar or undertaker.

I agree with LKJ that the real problem is when people lose multiple times for no added benefit. Rusev went from the top heel in the company to a complete joke in the span of 2 months. This hasn't happened to Corbin yet and that's what's important. I don't think Corbin has been hurt at all because in kayfabe he shouldn't be able to beat Cena yet. One may argue that Corbin shouldn't have faced Cena in the first place but not everyone can have a 100 win undefeated streak either. It all depends where they go next with the guy.

When did that happen?

You're mistaken. The Shield fought Evolution.

Bray after Cena went:

MitB - lost the mitb match
Battleground - lost to jericho
summerfest - beat jericho
NoC - off the card
hiac - off the card


Rusev is another great example.


It's nothing new. "Build up a heel to feed to *top guy* and then throw them back down and if they sink or swim doesnt matter" has been a tired and true method of wwe booking for ages. And other promotions. It's not really a terrible thing either from their perspective. Easier to build someone credible from scratch than maintain credibility for like 5 different main event level heels in theory.

I guess if the crowd reactions were strongly for the face, that system is actually alright.

The issue is when the crowd reactions are huge for the guy on the way up and they still just kill his momentum

Attempting to be in for Raw tonight, though a Reigns promo to start the show isn't the best way to get me to stick around.

I tried but after 20 minutes I gave up. I'll think I'll watch that RAW that everyone was talking about in the MNW thread instead before I read LKJ's write up

I'll probably check back in to RAW tonight at the top of the hours though

Bayley is sooooooo bad

Holy ****, did Cole actually just call a Michinoku Driver correctly?

To end that match on a ****ing distraction rollup was just criminal.

Turned on WWE, see guy get distracted by music -> rollup loss, turned off WWE

Good to see theyre trying new things

Agreed...was a quality match

Just tuned in. Looks like they're making the Universal and US title holders look really strong.