Can Venis' Career Be Saved?

[gWIL 0]

For the first time in forever, Val Venis was on Raw. He looked alright against Edge, he was treated as a jobber but did get in some stuff, but the question is can anyone do something with Morley? He looked promising and then faded away. I think with the right gimmick he could get over, enough to be an upper-midcarder at worst. What I would do would be to have him come out next week and say that he has to take his career more seriously and drops the Val Venis name and goes with Sean Morley he challenges Edge to a rematch and wins but its considered a fluke so he does it again the next week and a fued is born.

[CanadianChris 0]

Morley isn't anywhere near in a position to be put with anyone in the upper tier. If creative cared, they might be able to come up with something that might lead somBWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

I couldn't even type that with a straight face, sorry.

[CBright7831 0]

I liked his Chief Morley gimmick.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Can he be saved? Maybe.

 

Can he be saved by the WWE and their crack staff of writers and bookers? No.

 

The problem has always been the same for Val, he's limited by his gimmick and their attempts at moving him away from it have been half-hearted and they always go back to the Val Venis character. The guy is completely on life-support now, but there are ways he could be brought back to life because the guy is one of the better workers on the roster, so he can back it up in the ring which is half the battle. He had a fantastic dark match with Sheldon Benjamin and they could do well together in a feud, however at this point-in-time a feud would weigh Benjamin down rather than Val getting elevated. There are a bunch of tricks they could use to jump-start him, but I dunno if it would be worth it.

[Guest JMA]

When Orlando Jordan turns face, Morley needs to replace him as JBL's Chief of Staff.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

TNA and Japan are the only places Val will see a career revival. He's done as far as the WWF.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

His gimmick killed him dead faster than you can say 'Red Rooster'. Can he be saved? Perhaps, but only with a move to Smackdown, a gimmick change, and a decent push.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

Quote:

 

"The problem has always been the same for Val, he's limited by his gimmick"

 

I take it you haven't seen Viscera making out with Trish Stratus or buying condoms.

[Dandy 0]

I second the move to Smackdown. I thought up a character tweak that might do wonders for him. It is pretty well-known that he has fallen off the radar, and loses almost all of his matches. Why not have the announcers beat that into our heads for a few weeks, while pointing out that he still busts his ass in the gym and the ring. Then one match, BAM, he hits this new finisher out of nowhere and gets the win. Next week, the finisher gets him another win. Venis is now a threat if he can get this new move in a match.

 

Could get Venis over as a plucky face that has worked hard to get back competitively, and also gets a finish over instantly.

 

 

As for the new finisher, I have no idea.

[CanadianChris 0]

Quote:

 

"The problem has always been the same for Val, he's limited by his gimmick"

 

I take it you haven't seen Viscera making out with Trish Stratus or buying condoms.

Eh. No one else in the Ministry was really killed by that gimmick. The Acolytes should've been buried by it, and they turned out OK.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Quote:

 

"The problem has always been the same for Val, he's limited by his gimmick"

 

I take it you haven't seen Viscera making out with Trish Stratus or buying condoms.

They are going to make Vis champ with that gimmick? A main eventer?

 

Gimmicks play well in the midcard, but like I said, they are limited. They won't get you to the top*

 

(*Undertaker always being the exception to the rule)

[Guest Thrashist]

I wouldn't be surprised if they release Venis this week. They always seem to bring back these lower midcarders out of nowhere, job them out on Raw, and then fire them.

 

Anyway, they've seemed to have made it clear that they will never plan to go anywhere with him. It'd odd how the time the business was the hottest in the Attitude days, the Venis character was one of the more talked-about and well-known..and yet in the past few years he can't even make TV more than a handful of times.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

My point is, he's a 500 pound black man with white contact lenses who wears a trash bag, was a horrible, forgettable KOTR 10 years ago, and wrestles about once a month on television.

 

Yet tonight he stepped out of that and was the "Sexual Chocolate" of this decade.

 

If Viscera can go on dinner dates with Trish and have the crowd POPPING, then something can be done with Venis. Hell, they got Funaki over.

[Eclipse 0]

I remember there being a rumor back then when he was Chief Morely, that he would be doing a wrestling mark gimmick, just to get the internet fans mad. I still think that would have been awesome.

[gWIL 0]

I like the idea with a new finisher, maybe a standing submission. Also JBL's Chief of Staff would be good as well. Its a shame that Austin buried him every 30 seconds when he was doing the Chief Morley gimmick, they could have had a good fued with Morley getting a couple in ring wins, that could have made Morley seem like a threat to the Champion.

[iliketurtles 0]

I thought the Chief Morley thing was better than what he's doing now.

[AndrewTS 0]

I don't think his gimmick is the problem so much as his history of injuries. WWE sees him as injury prone and doesn't want to invest any time in him anymore.

 

Of course, there's Orton...but he's 24 and he's the future, you know.

 

He was awesome in the Chief Morley gimmick, and could have broke out from there--but then they put him back into the Venis gimmick.

 

Plus, him going bald really came at bad time. Angle was already an established star when his was getting worse--and of course he looks great bald. Venis doesn't exactly look like a star now, even if he shaved it all off. Yeah, it's a shame, and awfully shallow, but WWE does base decisions off things like that.

 

I remember there being a rumor back then when he was Chief Morely, that he would be doing a wrestling mark gimmick, just to get the internet fans mad. I still think that would have been awesome.

 

I thought that was a jesting creation of this board.

[gWIL 0]

About the balding, when was the last time we had a wrestler in a full mask? Hmm...

[The Czech Republic 0]

Mr. America

[cabbageboy 0]

Val Venis is the epitome of a guy who needs to be released. He's just stale as all shit and there's just nothing more the guy can do at this point. I mean at various points the roster just needs to be cleansed of all the stale jobbers. Val hanging around for about 7 years is like Tatanka hanging around until about 1999.

 

I submit that being in the Ministry didn't really kill anyone's career, mainly because for some bizarre reason people have a fondness for that campy angle. Being in the Right to Censor is what really killed Val's career dead. Basically everyone in that group has been released or is on life support (Val, Stevie).

[The C Man 0]

Why don't they work the balding into a gimmick for him? Hear me out. First they need to create a Rick Rude/Ric Flair type character, a ladies man. I was thinking maybe Rob Conway. It would get him out of the stale La Rez, plus he could use his old 'Ironman' nickname as a sexual inneundo. Val would then become jealous because Conway represents everything that Val used to be. Maybe even have a few of the diva's refuse Val's advances but hook up with Conway to add to the jealousy.

[iggymcfly 0]

They had a couple chances to salvage him, most recently with the Chief Morley gimmick. However, by returning him to the Val Venis gimmick multiple times which was so stale that no one could stand it four years ago, they've effectively killed him dead. The thing is that at this point, even a character change would seem meaningless since we'd know that he'd end up with he stupid Val Venis character again in three months anyway.

 

He would actually be a great case for TNA, because they usually don't refer to the previous gimmicks whatsoever. If he just came in and started wrestling as Sean Morley, he might do all right, but on Raw, he's more stale than HHH and La Resistance combined. I really think he needs to be released.

[Guest Thrashist]

My point is, he's a 500 pound black man with white contact lenses who wears a trash bag, was a horrible, forgettable KOTR 10 years ago, and wrestles about once a month on television.

 

Yet tonight he stepped out of that and was the "Sexual Chocolate" of this decade.

 

If Viscera can go on dinner dates with Trish and have the crowd POPPING, then something can be done with Venis. Hell, they got Funaki over.

I think you're neglecting the fact that Viscera is getting over in this angle precisely *because* he's a 500 pound black man with white contact lenses. He's not someone you would see every day. Him getting over does by means make creative have the ability to get anyone over, as they clearly can't. Them failing with Venis, as well as releasing many talented guys over the past several years because they have "nothing for them", proves they can't.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah, Viscera is getting over in the Mark Henry type way, namely as a 400-500 lb. black dude hitting on chicks and all that. Viscera is perhaps more bizarre and amusing, since there's no way in hell Trish would ever have anything to do with him (whereas Mark Henry making the moves on a mannish Chyna isn't THAT implausible).

 

Anyway, Val is toast at this point no matter where he goes. He was always kind of a 2nd rate Rick Rude anyway, but the thing is that Rude never had such a cheesy gimmick of being a porn star.

[Black Lushus 0]

Well, they could always go the route of the "Sean Morley is tired of being held down by stupid gimmicks and fans that don't give a shit" heel-turn angle...I dunno...

[Carnival 0]

I remember when Val came back at RR02..i think. Then the RAW after Val and Austin had that stare down and the crowd went kinda crazy. I wish they would have done something there.

 

I still love Val...i hope he never gets fired.

[cabbageboy 0]

I'm not saying Val is a bad wrestler or anything (he's decent). But the thing is after a point a gimmick loses its shelf life. I mentioned Tatanka earlier as a good example of someone who was over for a certain amount of time, then his gimmick got stale and they got rid of him. A roster has to be turned over after a certain point. Having Val around doing his embarrassing, dated 1998 schtick is like having the Godfather around today.

 

Lushus, the problem with your idea is that at the end of the day he'd still be Val Venis and no one gives a shit if he's tired of being a joke. It's just a case of him being so identified with a gimmick that he can't ever escape it.

[Guest Edgehead]

If he reverted to his Bad Ass gimmick, which he had in Pueto Rico, he could breath some new life in his career. He can still go if given the chance. Give him 20 minutes with Christian and watch some magic happen.

[Black Lushus 0]

Oh don't get me wrong, cabbage, I think his WWE career is dead as can be, but that's about the only thing left for them to really try with him...

[Guest Hass of Pain]

Val Venis is the first of many guys who's going to have his career cut significantly short due to lack of competition. If this was six or seven years ago, as stale as he is now, he could have showed up on Nitro, cut a bitter promo about how WWE misused him and gone on a big run. That's the way it has always been. Wrestlers run their act in a territory or promotion and then move elsewhere when it starts to get stale. Wrestlers no longer have that option, and moving Val to Smackdown wouldn't make things any different than they are now. I guess they could do something with him. He's a great talker and a hell of an intelligent guy and a hardcore Liberatarian, so they could go somewhere with that and make him a vicious heel or something, but I doubt it would work. People see him as a perennial nobody and I think it's too late to change that perception.