Cook: Jobbers Are The Stars Of The Show

Jobbers To The Stars are back in a big way–and according to Steve Cook, it’s making them stars in their own right.

It’s tempting to say that everything has gone downhill since the beginning of the Pandemic Era. I always try to look at the bright side during difficult times, and there are a number of things that I can say are improvements from the way things were before the coronavirus took hold here in America.

• Traffic is so much better it’s ridiculous. I never have to worry about sitting in a long line unless I’ve got a craving for some chicken.
• People are staying six feet away from me. As somebody that’s always been a bit anti-social, this is a welcome development.
• I’m working the afternoon shift now, which means I can go to bed obscenely late instead of waking up obscenely early.
• The Reds are undefeated, and I’ve convinced myself that the Louisville Cardinals won either the men’s or women’s basketball national championship. Heck, why not both?
• Have you seen gas prices lately? If they could stay under two bucks a gallon the rest of my life, I would be a happy camper. I’d probably buy a camper and live in it.

Now I know what you’re wondering. Since this is a wrestling column on a wrestling website, you’re wondering “What has gotten better about wrestling?”. Well, that’s easy, sunshine! I’ve been watching pro wrestling for thirty glorious years. The first wrestling I watched was WWF Superstars & WWF Wrestling Challenge. Those of you who were around back then know that those shows didn’t exactly feature a ton of competitive matches. There were stars that would come down to the ring with their opponent already there, and they would proceed to destroy that opponent. They would hit their big moves, they would look impressive, and the opponent would die. Until a week or two later, when they came back to get killed by somebody else.

They became as recognizable as the stars.

The Brooklyn Brawler. Barry Horowitz. Duane Gill. PJ Walker. They and countless others would show up week after week, knowing they had little chance of victory, to take their best shot at the top stars of the World Wrestling Federation. If they got lucky and got a pinfall, they could advance to the next level. They could become WWF Superstars themselves. It rarely happened, but 1-2-3 Kid did get that win over Razor Ramon on Raw, so you never know! You get one win, you can become a star.

This booking strategy died off during the Monday Night War. WCW & the WWF both decided that they couldn’t afford to have one-sided matches during a ratings war, so they constantly booked stars against stars. The days of the hopelessly outmatched wrestler ended. We ended up in the era of 50/50 booking because nobody could afford to look bad. Everybody had to look strong, so nobody could really get over in the same fashion that stars back in the day did. You could build somebody up with videos, but the second they appeared on TV, they had to go 50/50 with somebody that hadn’t won a televised match in years, or had won one of two that everybody forgot about.

Nobody stood out.

Which was the idea. WWE realized that they were better off not making stars, because they might realize their worth at some point. WCW…well, who knows what the hell they were thinking. They usually didn’t know. All I can tell you is that pro wrestling shows were populated with 50/50 matches for many years, and nobody got over as a result of them even though they got many starsfrom the experts. Good wrestling matches are always fun for people like us to watch, but they don’t always get people over.

Killing people does. That’s why I love the fact that the Pandemic Era has brought us more one-sided matches.

This week’s episode of Raw had 11 matches. ELEVEN MATCHES. Even for three hours, that’s a lot. I saw some people on that show that had no chance of beating anybody. I also saw Santana Garrett, which was pretty awesome until the Street Profits did commentary on her match with Bianca BelAir. That…was rough.

Talk about somebody getting buried right out of the gate. As much as I appreciate the awesome husband/wife energy between Bianca & Montez Ford, as I know no other people with that type of energy, I wish WWE wouldn’t have put a microphone on Montez. We would have heard him fine without one! It made me yearn for the days of Corey Graves & Renee Young arguing over every match for no reason.

I was fine with Santana being cannon fodder though. She’s got the talent to do that. She’s got the look to stand out and be notable even if she loses all the time. Every promotion needs people that can do that. WWE has been feeding NXT talent to the main roster the past few weeks, which makes some people upset. I understand the fury when that talent is expected to be taken seriously on NXT. Akira Tozawa is expected to be taken seriously in this interim Cruiserweight Title Tournament where Drake Maverick is undermining other fired talent that shouldn’t be expected to come in for random bookings. Yet,Tozawa is the first one to be fed to whichever of Zelina Vega’s wrestlers needs to win a match this week. It doesn’t seem like the best choice, but at least the matches are good, right?

All Elite Wrestling has been feeding us a healthy diet of squash lately. It’s pretty good timing for some guys, as the likes of Brodie Lee, Lance Archer & Wardlow could use some easy wins. There’s no better way to put over monster heels than feeding them some jabronis. Or, you can feed some popular wrestlers some easy opponents and have some fun with it. Nothing wrong with that, especially when you’re a young company like AEW that can still use some talent.

They’ve already signed some of them!

We all know about the Dark Order expanding their ranks with guys like Alex Reynolds, John Silver & Preston Vance. It’s nice for them to have guys under masks that can take punishment, and the mask helps the guys retain some dignity for when they try to do good things later on.

And then there’s the story of Anna Jay. We’re talking about a young girl that’s had a very low number of matches since starting out. Very early on in her career. A product of QT Marshall & Ray Lloyd’s Nightmare Factory, which is a good way to get on AEW’s radar but doesn’t ensure a job. You might be able to get booked on an episode of AEW’s Dynamite or Dark, but you need to stand out to stay there. Anna stood out in her first match on television against Hikaru Shida, and impressed the brass enough that she got signed to a contract.

She might be a jobber for now, but she won’t be a jobber for long.

This is the way young wrestlers learn. Take a look at the career of Kenta Kobashi. Kobashi did nothing but lose for the first year of his career in All Japan Pro Wrestling. He learned. Once he figured things out, he became one of the company’s top stars. Fans had grown invested in him as he worked his way up the card.

Not that I’m comparing Anna Jay to Kobas-oh what the hell, let’s make that comparison. Anna Jay just might become to AEW’s women’s division what Kobashi became to AJPW’s men’s division. We can’t rule it out! Everybody’s been talking about the lack of depth in that division due to the fact that WWE has almost every female wrestler in captivity signed to a contract. They got a former WOW Champion hanging out to do jobs. It’s quite the situation. AEW has to look under the radar and find the future of the business because WWE has the past & present locked up.

Could Anna Jay be that future? It’s impossible to say, though based off her look & her ring presence this early in her career I would say 100% yes. Maybe it doesn’t pan out, but she’s definitely worth a look. I would buy all the Anna Jay stock right now and count on her being the Star of the Show for years to come.

That’s what can happen when you show up to be a jobber.

Anna Jay was on nobody’s radar before she popped up on Dynamite. Now she has a contract with one of the top two promotions in North America. There’s no reason that other people booked on her level can’t reach up and grab that brass ring. If you stand out now, you’ll stand out even more when people can actually go to shows. You can’t tell me that Anna Jay wouldn’t get a tremendous reaction from a typical AEW crowd right now. She’d probably be one of the most over people on the show because the folks that go to AEW shows love those types of stories. They’d have to turn her face.

Every jobber has their day. Barry Horowitz beat Bodydonna Skip. The Brooklyn Brawler got a title match against Shawn Michaels. Anna Jay hasn’t won a match yet, but she impressed enough people while battling Shida & Penelope Ford to get some attention. She’ll be heading to the pay window soon enough.

If there’s one good impact the coronavirus had on the wrestling business, it’s that we’ve been introduced to Anna Jay. And other folks that have come in to lose matches. But mostly Anna Jay. I like to look on the bright side, and to look at any side of Anna Jay I can look at.

Did that sound right? Probably not, but what the hell? Y’all know what I’m saying. Jobber matches are awesome. They remind me of the good old days. I’m not usually one of those guys that yearns for those good old days, but this is one instance where I’m on board. Make America Jobbers Again! OK, that’s probably not right either, but what the hell?