The Absurdity of Mark Henry's Main Event Push

Easy.

Do they draw money?

It doesn’t matter if the heel is getting booed or cheered if people are paying money or watching the TV to see their programs. The nWo got cheered all the time, and they were the most successful heel act WCW ever had because people paid money to see them fight, it didn’t matter that some fans wanted the nWo to die a fiery death, and other fans wanted the nWo to pulverize those WCW jobbers, the WCW fans just wanted to see them fight, and would pay any price to do so.

Will they elevate the babyface they’re in a program with?

This is the biggest measurement by which you judge how good a heel is. Anybody can pulverize people in five minute matches, but it takes a true artist to make the guy your in the ring with look good even if you’re going to pulverize them. I’m not asking a monster heel to bounce around like Ric Flair in every one of his matches, but when it comes time to face their big money opponent, a good monster heel has to elicit reactions from the fans during the match other than “this match sucks,” and “when will this shit be over?” Mark Henry can’t deliver in that department because all his matches suck, and nobody in the company today but John Cena, Kane, and Big Show can even lift his ass off the ground.

If fans don’t want to see your matches, you’re not a good wrestler. Largely because it renders you incapable of truly elevating your opponents.

Sheamus, Big Show, Alberto Del Rio, and Wade Barrett are all better on the mic and in the ring than Henry, why not give those guys a huge monster heel push instead of spending months killing their heat?

Chris Masters and Luke Gallows are both better on the mic and in the ring than Henry, why not give those guys a huge monster heel push instead of firing them?

Husky Harris and Brodus Clay are both at around the same level as Henry in the ring and on the mic. They still need much more seasoning to be decent, but if WWE gave either of them a huge push, there’s at least a chance they’d become huge stars and good workers, as opposed to Henry, who everyone knows isn’t getting any better than where he is now.

Or, we could stop this nonsense about people needing to be hosses to get pushed as unstoppable badasses, and just give huge pushes to the guys who are best in the ring and on the mic? Really, any option is better than the Mark Henry push.

I hate flippydoo spot monkeys and no selling. What I do hate are brutality free, psycholigy free, one star snorefests put on by guys with horrible cardio and zero flexibility.

The reason why Henry’s so terrible is because he has the worst cardiovascular conditioning and least amount of flexibility of anyone in the company, including Kevin Nash. Even if you have no natural wrestling ability and can’t flip around or execute your moves with anything resembling grace, you can have great matches if you work on your cardio enough. Look at John Cena, he’s as graceful as a one legged mule, and the phoniest looking offense in the business, but because Cena has great cardio, he can have great matches with great workers. Look at CM Punk, he has zero natural athletic ability, but thanks to his fantastic cardio, he’s able to keep up a good pace in all his matches, and put on a five star match with John Cena of all people.

Sure, obviously cardio isn’t everything, if you don’t have psychology skills or interesting offensive maneuvers, you can only get so far, but even if you don’t have any of those, you can at least be carried to a quality match by someone who does, and if you don’t have cardio, you can’t develop interesting offense, or pull off psychology in the first place. Henry doesn’t have it, so he can’t. Ergo, all his matches suck.

I’m just fed up with WWE killing the heat of so many guys I really like who could have bright futures. Guys like Alberto Del Rio, Dolph Ziggler, Zack Ryder, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger, Wade Barrett, Sheamus, Chris Masters, Luke Gallows, Colt Cabana, Bryan Danielson, and until recently, CM Punk are forced to shovel shit for a living by WWE, get over by sheer force of will, only to be shoved back down the card lower than ever before if they’re not fired. But for some reason, Mark Henry of all people gets pushed to the moon. Think of what anybody in the company other than Henry could be doing if they were pushed in his position right now.

I have nothing against Henry as a person, but if a guy can’t bring it in the ring, they shouldn’t be pushed to the moon, let alone one of the only guys in the company who doesn’t have his heat killed on a regular basis.

You should have told him to ditch the bogus numbers too. In the summer of 1996, Mark Henry signed a ten year contract for $250,000 per annum. Though that was a lot of money guaranteed at the time (I’m guessing only Shawn Michaels and maybe Marc Mero had a sweeter deal in the WWF at the time), it was quickly dwarfed by the contracts of Bret Hart, Ken Shamrock and Paul “Big Show” Wight amongst many others, as the WWF gave out more downside guaranteed contracts to compete with WCW.

Mark Henry has earned more money in base pay than anybody else in WWE history. From the moment he came into the company he was given a guaranteed contract for one million dollars every year he worked for them regardless of what he did for the company: and this isn’t the first time WWE has pushed Henry to the moon. Henry has had countless opportunities tossed his way beforehand, and he was responsible for each one of them going belly up.

Think of Del Rio, you said that WWE is incapable of making younger guys look compelling, but if Del Rio took out Kane, Great Khali, and Big Show, and then beat Randy Orton clean, he’d be exactly as over as Henry is, and he could do everything Henry’s doing now, except it’d be better. There was nothing stopping Vince McMahon from giving Mark Henry’s push to anyone else on the roster.

Not to mention, Cody Rhodes and Wade Barrett already gained legitimacy largely by working hard at it without help from WWE. Last year Wade Barrett got more heat than Vicky Guerrero, Barrett was literally shaking buildings with how much people hated him, but rather than keep his push steady like WWE has done with Henry, they jobbed Barrett out in every match he was in. Cody Rhodes was over as anyone could be two years ago, people were begging for him to take out Orton, but rather than have Rhodes do to Orton what Batista did to Triple H, they just had Cena beat Orton, and turned Orton face against his own stable.

It isn’t that WWE’s incapable of pushing people properly, Vince McMahon made the decision to kill the heat of everyone in the company except a select group he gives preferential treatment towards. Henry’s obviously part of that group.

The NBA decided to go on strike this year, leaving a large chunk of the 18-49 demographic without a rigged sport featuring over the top 300 lbs yahoos to watch. They decided to give Smackdown a chance because of that.

Sure, there’s probably a small number of people who are tuning in because they like watching a dominant heel champion kick ass and take names, but Vince McMahon could’ve booked anyone to be a dominant heel champion who kicks ass and takes names, there’s nothing Henry does as an asskicker, wrestler, or a promo that Sheamus, Wade Barrett, Alberto Del Rio, Big Show, Jack Swagger, Luke Gallows (if he wasn’t fired), of Chris Masters (if he wasn’t fired) couldn’t do better if they were given the exact same push.

Hell, the fact that people demand only a hoss can be a dominant champion is part of the problem. Lots of moderately sized and small guys could be booked dominantly if Vince McMahon ever got over his “size” boner. Bryan Danielson became the highest grossing indie star ever with that character.

Mark Henry’s match with Sheamus was probably the fifth best match on the card, if I’m being generous. Hell, the card only had six matches to begin with.

The only card I can ever remember where the Mark Henry match was even in contention for “second best on the card” was at this years Vengeance PPV, and the only reason the match was even good was because of Big Show. Show had all the interesting offense in the match, and took the biggest bump, Mark Henry laid on Big Shows leg for five minutes. I’d even be skeptical of calling it the second best match of the night, as Air Boom had a better match that went longer with a decently hot crowd to open the show, and Orton/Rhodes was probably the best wrestling match of the night if you ignore the fact that the crowd didn’t buy Rhodes would win for a second. Being one of three contenders for “second best match of the night” on a forgettable B-Show doesn’t make you good.

Both Christian reigns were terrible, and did a lot to damage the titles reputation, but they were both vastly superior to the Mark Henry, Miz, and Kane reigns because the Christian matches were really good, and the Henry/Miz/Kane matches suck.

No matter how badly booked a title reign is, if the matches were good, I’m more forgiving. The only acceptable reason for matches as bad as Kane, Miz, and Mark Henry have been putting on is if they’re draws, and none of those guys draw jack.

Henry’s matches have always been terrible. This is a guy who’s worked programs with Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, and the Rock at the peak of their careers, yet Henry has almost continuously stunk up the buliding every night.

I can name two Mark Henry matches that were good, but they certainly weren’t great. One was with Rey Mysterio, who could have a * match with a sandbag, and the other was with Big Show. Both matches involved his opponents doing all the work, particularly the Big Show match, where Show did all the heavy cardio, performed all the interesting moves, and took the biggest bumps, yet for some reason people use that match as evidence on how awesome Henry is.

For a guy who’s been in so many big matches against so many great workers, not to mention the fact that he’s been given almost two decades to perfect his style, you’d expect him to have at least a * match every time he goes out there for a non-squash match. I don’ t expect a wrestler to be able to deliver matches on Rey Mysterio’s standards by default to be in the main event, but I at least expect solid action along the lines of guys like John Cena and Randy Orton for them to be an acceptable main eventer for a major promotion. Henry doesn’t cut the mustard.

well said

Hell, a lot of concepts WCW tried were incredibly new, and they should’ve never been done in the first place.

“Let’s have shows with nothing but promos!”

“Let’s have the conniving heel get screwed out of beating the babyface clean! (Starrcade ’97)”

“Let’s give Ultimate Warrior magic powers!”

“Let’s give MONGO a stay in the Horseman!”

“Let’s work those marks on the internet!”

If you can put on a show that does nothing but high quality wrestling with mangagers who can cut fantastic promos and charismatic wrestlers, it won’t matter if all your storylines are ripoffs if they’re well executed. WWE just hasn’t been executing good storylines, so nobody wants to watch them.

Also, what’s new and different about giving a huge push to a guy who’s already recieved damn near a dozen huge pushes that have all bombed previously?

WWE could’ve chose to strap a rocket to Sheamus, Barrett, Ziggler, ADR, Swagger, or a lot of guys other than Henry. Vince McMahon just chose to pick Henry because of his size fetish, and because of his insane theory that the guys who’ve been with the company forever despite never drawing and never having good matches deserve a place above guys who could have a future.

Literally the exact same thing happened with Kane last year, and for some reason, people still haven’t caught on.

With LeBron James essentially giving the middle finger to Cleavland by joining the Miami Heat, the NBA got better ratings than they had since the MJ days.

What I’m saying is that WWE should’ve booked almost anyone else in the company to be dominant other than Mark Henry.

Henry is awful in the ring, passable on the mic, and too big for most of his opponents to lift off the ground. For a guy with that many limitations, WWE has done a phenomenal job of booking him, but considering that there are at least a dozen and a half wrestlers on the WWE roster alone who could use that huge push more than Henry, picking Henry as the guy to push nonstop is flat out insulting.

Think of what WWE could have done if they followed through on Wade Barrett, Jack Swagger, Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, and Legacy’s pushes instead of killing their heat and pushing Kane and Henry to the moon instead. They wouldn’t have to work so hard to hide their top guys weaknesses, they’d stick around for a lot longer because their top guys would be younger and healthier, and there might be a chance that their top guys would become stars and draws instead of the old fat guys who weren’t good enough to become stars back when wrestling was popular. Instead, we get this shit, and it’s inexcusable.

I could probably avoid the Hall of Pain by gently jogging around Henry while he tries desperately to reach me, and then gives up after five minutes.

Henry’s also a shitty wrestler, has a limited moveset, limited flexibility, overuses restholds in short matches, too heavy for most of his opponents to lift off the ground, and Henry can’t jump high enough to make it look like those guys can actually lift him. The thing is, a lot of those flaws are directly because of his crappy cardio, so I focused on that in my retorts.

Henry’s also been obscenely overpaid throughout his entire career, and is so bad in the ring that WWE actually sent him down to developmental for longer than a year as a tenured employee. Despite all this, Henry has continued to recieve huge pushes and main event PPV’s throughout his career because of Vince McMahon’s love of big man. There’s no justifying that the effort to push Henry would’ve been far better served at pushing almost anybody else, but Vince McMahon didn’t go that way because nowadays, he values being a long tenured employee more than putting on good matches and actually being over.