Lessons from the Combine, or It's Easy to Shine in Practice

Benjamin had the tools, but he wasn't a good wrestler
Photo Credit: WWE.com

The NFL's Draft Combine is going on right now in Indianapolis, IN. It's a weeklong event where the college players who have declared for the draft get together and do a bunch of athletic feats like the 40 yard dash to show scouts they have the raw physical tools to succeed in the NFL. What does this have to do with professional wrestling? Well, without a bridge made out of context, nothing, really. But does the idea of signing someone based on how they look remind you of anyone's rumored mode of choosing roster talent? If it doesn't, congratulations on getting into professional wrestling, seeing as you've just gotten into it recently.

WWE has made a habit of signing guys based on how big they are or how they "look" for years. Some of those signings have been pretty successful for them, whether it be on the box office level with Hulk Hogan or John Cena, or on the critical level like Chris Masters. However, the list of statuesque failures has been generously populated as well. Ludvig Borga, Heidenreich, Luther Reigns, and Mason Ryan in WWE and Rob Terry in Impact (although he's admittedly caught on in a niche as Robbie E's sometimes-friend, sometimes-antagonist) are just a few of the flops that have come through the ranks of the televised promotions over the years.

Then again, the Combine isn't really about being a meat market in the purest sense. Scouts don't just look at size as much as they do the things that athletes can do with their size, as varied as it might be. How high a player can jump or how fast they can run or how well they catch a ball thrown in controlled practice are not particularly effective at determining gametime acumen either. Much in the same way, pure athletic ability isn't sole determinant as to whether on will be a great pro wrestler either. Shelton Benjamin is the primest example of this that I can think of right now.

With the right amount of schooling, above-average athletic ability, or a charismatic voice, anyone can project to be a great professional wrestler. If the only thing available is footage in a controlled environment, read - school or the gym, it paints an incomplete picture. Don't tell me a guy has the tools to be a great wrestler. Show me someone who has actually been a great wrestler in any sense of the word in front of a crowd bigger than the maximum capacity of a port-a-potty. Being successful in a company with a substantial following, be it Ring of Honor, Chikara, or otherwise, isn't the only indicator, but why would I believe that a dude with a 42" vertical leap would be better than Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose at the next level? It's all about probability.

In sport, entertainment, or really any field, practical results are a better predictor of success than pure, raw athletic numbers. Of course, raw on-field/in-ring results need to be analyzed as well. It's the same in the NFL as it is for WWE. Tim Tebow had gobs of success in college, but he didn't translate to the NFL as well as, say, Jay Cutler for various reasons. There are going to be people on the indies with that same profile too. However, look at the guys who have succeeded on huge levels in wrestling over the years. Some of them had a distinct look. Some of them could probably do feats of strength or run real fast. But there's one common thread among all of them. They all know how to do the pro wrestling thing really well in some regard. Bruno Sammartino, Ric Flair, Harley Race, Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, The Rock, Sting, Randy Savage, Jerry Lawler, John Cena, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Batista, Mick Foley, Taz, Sabu, Dusty Rhodes... all of them could take one or more strains of the professional wrestling business and master them.

The truth of the matter is that Vince McMahon is probably going to have an idea in his head about what the perfect wrestler should be until the day he dies. Thankfully, it seems the people who surround him have a better idea of what characters are great for a wrestling cast. The disturbing thing is, just as there are amateur combine "experts" who tout the idea of raw numbers as being gospel, there are people in the fandom who cling to the outmoded concept that you can be too small, or for the females, too "ugly" to be a pro wrestler, as some shitheads keep telling fantastic wrestlers like LuFisto (And by the by? Even though it doesn't matter how she looks for her as a wrestler, LuFisto, to me at least, is the polar opposite of ugly or even "too ugly for wrestling.").

For those fans, I may not be able to talk sense into, but I will say this. When you guys see a wrestler like Shelton Benjamin or Mason Ryan in the future and swear they're going to be the stars of the industry over "skinny fat" CM Punk or "small and pale" Daniel Bryan? Well, you guys have fun when they end up becoming more like Darrius Heyward-Bey and Mike Mamula instead of, say, Brian Westbrook and Vontaze Burfict.