Wrestlemania: Where Is The Youth?

Wrestlemania represents so many things to so many people. The event is considered to be the pinnacle of wrestling performances, the most exciting night in all of the WWE calendar, 4+ hours of the most electrifying atmosphere in wrestling today.

Wrestlemania is also the place where legends cement their legacies and young talents begin the so coveted rise to superstardom. Here's the point of interest regarding my article.

Wrestlemania XXVI featured 10 matches. Out of those, about 4 of them involved young talents, with the rest being performed by actual superstars, established main eventers and legendary wrestlers.

The aforementioned 4 matches were: Orton VS Dibiase VS Rhodes, MITB, Sheamus VS Triple H and Showmiz VS Truth & Morrison (I'm a bit doubtful about this one, but lets pretend Miz, Morrison and Truth are "not there" yet...).

In all 4 of those matches, the young talents were not able to live the Wrestlemania dream of being showcased in the biggest way possible, delivering the most wonderful performance of their career up to that point in time.

The tag team match was given no time to deliver an unforgetable performance, hence the superstars involved had little to no chance to be showcased the way they deserve to be.

I was not able to see the Triple Threat, but considering what I've heard and read, Dibiase and Rhodes did not shine as they were supposed to, looked weak and fell to Orton's superstardom and presence in the end.

Sheamus did gave Triple H some trouble and grew up a little bit in the "credible threat" scale, yet, was outshined by Hunter's persona.

MITB was the only match with a young talent actually having a moment of his own to be on the spotlight, but Swagger's victory, as surprising as it was, felt awkward and, in my opinion, premature.

My point? This Wrestlemania was a huge dissapointment in most dimensions (match quality, crowd reaction, outcomes, time given to every match, etc.), but one of the main downers was the fact that numerous fans expected to witness the future of the company actually blooming in front of their eyes live on PPV. Young talents were supposed to step up on that particular night, but ended up being outshined by their more experienced opponents and fell victims to the fact that, with exception of the last match, this was a very, very forgetable Wrestlemania (if Sunday's 4 hour show deserves to be labeled in such an honorable way).

Shawn Michaels is gone; the event has marked the end of an era. WWE won't be able to rely on HBK to save the night delivering a show-stealer anymore.

Yes, the company still has amazing performers like Jericho, The Undertaker, Misterio and Triple H; yes, WWE is lucky enough to have a set of relatively young superstars in the main event realm such as Cena, Orton, Punk and Edge, who's names are flashy enough to draw people into any arena and will most certainly give the audience a fuck of a show. 

Yet, The Undertaker is expected to be gone soon; Jericho, Hunter and Misterio have some years left, but the company can't be pretty sure about how many of them, besides, injuries can shorten their careers heavily. The young main eventers are fresh, but the injury factor is still present, and a strong upper-mid card with younger superstars certainly improves the product.

A new era has started, and it brings a clear picture of what's coming with it, yet some spots are still not clear enough. Cena and Edge will be there as the top guys for a while most probably, Punk and Orton will explode and teach the other guys how a wrestling show should be delivered, several old superstars will be gone, but what about the young talents? Things looked pretty clear with Morrison, Miz and Kofi, but now we can't be so certain about them. Sheamus and McIntyre can't get over with the fans. Swagger feels like a premature main eventer. Ziggler and Bourne seem to be stuck on the mid-card or below.

I'm not so worried about the health or near future of the company, my concern is tilted towards the role of young talents, upcoming superstars in the company and how is the creative team willing to drive them into situations that will create the perfect amount of magic that is needed to reach the rising pod. If they could not do it at Wrestlemania, the biggest platform in wrestling, and since the Royal Rumble has been used lately to put established main eventers in the marquee, well...my concern is somehow justified.

Maybe I'm being bit paranoid about this situation. Anyways, thanks a lot for the read.