Sheamus, Jack Swagger and Kofi Kingston: Is the WWE's Youth Movement Working?

I would like to apologize for my lack of wrestling articles lately. My focus has been on my NFL Offseason Two-A-Days series and will be writing heavily on the upcoming NFL Draft. Now to the article.

For the past couple of years, we have seen many stars retire or leave the WWE. Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho and Batista to name just a few. This forced the WWE to start their "youth movement," which began with Sheamus' WWE Championship win at TLC in December of 2009.

Let's start with Sheamus, shall we? His push to the top was one of the quickest in WWE history. Perhaps only rivaled by Brock Lesnar and Alberto Del Rio. Sheamus debuted on June 30th on the now defunct ECW show. He would quickly move to Raw, and on December 13, 2009 he won the WWE Championship.

Sheamus had he decent title reign (by WWE's standards), and then moved onto a feud with Triple H. He took Triple H out of action at Extreme Rules, and would regain the WWE Championship at the Fatal Fourway pay-per-view. It has since gone completely downhill.

The "King of the Ring" has a 1-9 record in 2011. He has been squashed by Mark Henry, Evan Bourne and even his real life friend, Triple H. This is just one example.

Kofi Kingston looked like he was on pace to win the WWE Championship, ironically, right around the time Sheamus did. This was until he botched a punt turned RKO and was pushed down to the midcard by the Randy Orton. He has not sniffed the main event since.

And how about the "All-American American" Jack Swagger? He won Money in The Bank at WrestleMania 26. He cashed in just five nights later. After a mediocre championship reign, he was pushed back down. It seemed as if Swagger went from being in Chris Jericho heel mode to having a mascot in the span of a month.

These are three examples of the WWE pushing guys into the main event, just to push them right back down. Why do they do this? Well, I have two explanations:

1. The WWE has been pushing too many Superstars too quickly. It seems as if they can never commit to pushing a guy into the main event. The solution to this would be simply to slow down pushes. They should actually use the midcard belts for elevating guys, like the push of The Miz.

2. The politics and backstabbing that we don't see behind the scenes. The solution here is... I have no clue. It's the nature of the business, or at least the nature of the WWE.

To be fair, look at The Miz and Alberto Del Rio. While both of them could go downhill, they both will be in championship matches at WrestleMania. In The Miz's case, I think he was built-up perfectly, as previously mentioned. If the WWE would do this more often, I think it would help. Using midcard belts to elevate future star almost always seems to work. Of course, Kofi Kingston had the same push, but it failed.

To answer the question brought up in the title of this article, we have seen mixed results. It's difficult to develop new stars when you don't have many to start with. The WWE has realized the lack of star power and are seemingly trying to fix this, for example, with The Rock.

In five years, will this have been a failed era? Or will we have new immortalized names with the likes of The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin? Will The Miz and Alberto Del Rio be able to stay atop the WWE or will there pushes faulter? Will Kofi, Sheamus, Swagger and others ever recover from the de-pushes?