WWE's Lost Art: Where Are the Veterans Who Consistently Put Young Stars Over?

There was once a time when the main goal of many of the WWE’s veterans wasn’t to win titles or continue to win matches—it was to put young, rising stars over for the betterment of the company. 

While that has become more difficult today with a thinning roster and an overall lack of star power as compared to the 1990s and early 2000s, it can still be done. 

Yet, for the most part, it isn’t. 

The WWE has seemed to shy away from using veterans to elevate up-and-coming talent, and instead, we see wrestlers who have already been main eventing for years still in the spotlight. 

Guys like John Cena, Triple H (when he’s around), The Big Show and many of the WWE’s other big names should—and let me stress that should part—be laying the foundation for the WWE’s future by losing, at least somewhat often, to the WWE’s rising main eventers. 

But especially with Vince McMahon’s recent obsession with bringing back names from the past (The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Lord Tensai, etc.), it’s become extremely difficult for that to happen. 

The main event and upper mid-card is crowded with major veteran names, who almost always tend to come out on top of any young stars they face. 

There are two obvious exceptions to this rule, however: Randy Orton and Chris Jericho. 

At least in my book, Jericho is arguably the most selfless WWE superstar of all time. 

While wrestling fans tend to think he’s been booked like a loser since his return earlier this year, he hasn’t. He’s just doing what he’s done for years, and that’s putting others over. 

Think back to what Jericho did during his previous WWE run, and you’ll get just a small taste of just how much he’s done for the company. 

While a pro on NXT, Y2J actually lost to Heath Slater (Yes, the same Heath Slater who’s a jobber that we barely ever see these days) and Daniel Bryan, despite the fact that they were both rookies in the WWE’s terms. Jericho, of course, also lost to the up-and-coming Evan Bourne at the Fatal 4-Way pay-per-view in 2010. 

He became selflessness personified, and when he left the company in late 2010, his role was, perhaps unknowingly, given to Orton. 

Although Orton picked up his fair share of wins in 2011, he spent the majority of the year helping other stars and youngsters reach the highest points of their careers. 

Orton had a lengthy feud with Christian that led to the longest main event run of Captain Charisma’s WWE career, and he lost clean to Mark Henry on two straight pay-per-views in the fall. He also helped elevate Cody Rhodes and Wade Barrett through his feuds with them in late 2011 and early 2012. 

While Orton had developed a reputation as someone who “never loses,” he completely shed that notion last year by becoming the 2011 version of Chris Jericho. 

And when Y2J returned, he picked up right where he left off, as he tapped out to Punk at WrestleMania and once again lost to him at Extreme Rules. 

He proved yet again that wrestling isn’t about wins and losses. It’s about managing to stay relevant no matter how many times you lose, and he did that absolutely brilliantly. 

The problem for the WWE, however, is that outside of Orton and Jericho, the company hardly ever uses veterans to help elevate and/or put over rising stars anymore. 

Not to jump on the “We hate Cena” train, but unlike Jericho, this guy hardly ever loses clean. The only time he did so recently was to a 40-year-old part-timer named The Rock, who’s not exactly going to help the company long-term. 

Other guys like The Big Show have been booked ridiculously strongly, and that’s evidenced by Show eliminating four bright young stars in a 21-second span at the Royal Rumble and his continued burial of Cody Rhodes. 

Meanwhile, even someone like Sheamus—though he hasn’t been a consistent main eventer for all that long—has been booked with this “I can hardly ever lose cleanly” mentality that only accomplishes one thing: Hurting the stars that he almost always beats. 

In turn, this has resulted in some of the best young talents in the business being booked like absolute jokes and ending up in a much lower position on the card than they should be. 

Dolph Ziggler’s turned into a glorified jobber, Zack Ryder can’t even get on Raw anymore, The Miz has been buried so much that he’s looking up at 20 feet of dirt, and so on and so forth. 

I’m not going to say it’s been all bad because the WWE has done some things right, such as the push of Daniel Bryan or the sustained WWE title run of CM Punk. 

But the company needs to do more things right. 

That starts with using the WWE’s veteran stars as both main eventers and avenues to help the likes of Ziggler and Ryder creep up the card. 

The WWE, however, has gotten away from that, especially recently, and if it doesn’t at least use some veterans for the betterment of future, then the company is going to be in serious trouble in the long-term.

Drake Oz is the WWE Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions (to be answered in the B/R Mailbag) on Formspring.