The article on the "leaked WCW legal letters" last week generated considerable debate on the wrestling boards. The debate, some of which is reproduced below (in edited form), broadly reflects our own view that Tom Zenk's career upsets the paradigms of conventional wrestling analysis while highlighting - in sharp relief - the corruption and cronyism of WCW's wrestling cliques.  Our thanks to Tony Gancarski, Michael Palij ("The Bogus Prophet") "Rocco"  "JPelan"  and others for their thoughts which originally appeared on "rec.sport.pro-wrestling (moderated)" (June 28 to 6 July, 1999).

The forum began with the following reference to the articles -

Bogus Prophet  - "Since you've brought up the issue of misguided booking, I was wondering what you thought of the tale being told over on the Tom Zenk website?  Do you think that Tom (or whomever is setting up the site for him) is just a whiner who hasn't been able to get beyond some of the basic dues most workers have to pay (i.e., getting screwed royally every once in a while) or do you think that he raises legitimate issues about how good workers are misused by bookers who are more concerned about asserting and maintining their authority while engaging in shameless cronyism and engaging in outdated business practices? "
 
Gancarski replied - "I think we aren't being told the full story.

Bogus Prophet - "Well, clearly.  The purpose of the website is to get Zenk over, not Ole Anderson or Dusty Rhodes or the Jack Petrick/Jim Herd period of WCW."

Gancarski replied - "Even accepting that as the purpose (no problem, given it's tomzenk.com), questions are raised about whether or not the site is interested in genuine scholarship or in providing propaganda retroactively. Sure, Zenk might've been misused: he's not the first and he's not the last wrestler to be so misused. Not everyone can main event, after all. ... Zenk -- at best  -- stayed in the *** range."

Bogus Prophet - "I think this statement completely misses the point, namely, that the way Zenk was booked, it is amazing that he was even able to achieve *** matches.  The snippets from Meltzer show that he thought highly of Zenk's work as shown in the following quote from the Zenk site:
 

 "In December 1990, Tom Zenk was booked to win the World TV Title revitalizing a belt that had lost much of its status during Arn Anderson's  tenure.  "A television taping on 12/4 at Center Stage in  Atlanta before a sellout crowd was headlined by Zenk winning the TV title from Arn Anderson after a dropkick off the top rope.... a great  match" (WON12/17/90). Anderson appeared for the match with a bandaged wrist and plastered forehead, feigning injury as an alibi for his impending loss. He led the match, as the 'heel' should, but had obvious difficulty keeping pace for the full period (17 minutes), resorting to frequent rest intervals.  Zenk was in great shape,  physically and mentally,   motivated again after a demoralizing year. His win over Anderson was popular, with solid crowd support throughout the match. After the  Zenk-Anderson title switch was aired (Saturday -12/22/90) WON  reported   (1/8/91) -  "An old-style match which lasted 17 minutes.  Slow builder but tons of heat for the finish which was most impressive ......" The match drew a 3.4 rating, the best rating for the WCW Saturday show since February 1990.
 

Bogus Prophet - " Clearly, Ric Flair thought enough of Zenk's potential to get him to come to WCW."

Gancarski - "True enough. After Zenk/Jaggers "upstaged" the main eventing Flair/Rhodes.  It's curious that at no time in Zenk's career does he encounter workers that just blow him away... "

Gancarski - "As the careers of people from Ric Flair and Bret Hart to Dean Malenko show, everyone gets jobbed out in the early going. Everyone gets jobbed out for stretches in the middle and at the end of their careers.

Bogus Prophet - "I don't think that this is an important or even relevant point even if it is a true one:  the point in time being considered for Zenk (ca 1990-91) appeared to be a breakthrough time for him, that is, if he got pushed then (instead of being buried) then his career would have taken off."

Gancarski - "The same could've been argued -- and was, at least during his ECW tenure -- for Chris Benoit during his first WCW run. As Nash and Bischoff have indicated during interviews here and there, so much of getting the push is politics. We find corollaries in other entertainment fields, FWIW. Authors winning prizes after their creative energy has long since started to recede, and actors winning Oscars for films inferior to their early output. Networking is a skill that one can assume Zenk lacked once he got into WCW."

Bogus Prophet - "Timing and marketing are things that are often ignored in understanding how and why people go on to become stars.  McMahon's genius, for example, lies in coming up with ideas that attempt to make maximize the effect of both (e.g., the Sgt. Slaughter Iraqi War angle)."
 
Gancarski - "I'm not ignoring those factors at all. But I don't think either of us know jack about why Ole refused to push Zenk beyond what the aggrieved's advocate(s) tell us. And sourcing Teddy Long and Joey Maggs, two others with axes to grind, doesn't make for unimpeachable cred. My point in summary: Zenk might have had his moveset down, but needed to play the politics end and kiss up to the bookers to get anywhere. Arn Anderson's still kissing Flair's ass for the slot Flair created for him in Charlotte."
 

Gancarski - "I can't imagine that the site does Zenk's career any good.. "

Bogus Prophet - "*shrug*  Maybe, maybe not.  I see it's purpose as addressing a past wrong".
 
Gancarski - "And where is Ole now? Flair -- who the site can't decide whether to vilify or to uphold as better than Ole in terms of pushing Zenk -- plays a weak heel now after being the world's most unprotected mega-face. Arn's working an angle with someone who attacked him with scissors; Arn's face registering a great deal of discomfort about this. And so on.......  For what it's worth, I remember Zenk as being technically competent, but a curiously soulless wrestler."

Bogus Prophet - "Soulless"?  You mean like Undertaker "soulless" or Sabu spotmachine "soulless" or Chris Candido/Bodydonna "soulless"?  Actually, I see whatever meaning one might attached to the term "soulless" as being too hopelessly mired in subjective interpretation to be useful in meaningful discussion."
 
Gancarski - "Sure it's subjective. I was just giving my thoughts on Zenk, to establish my bias or lack thereof."

Bogus Prophet - "Even so, it is fascinating to see how someone like Ole Anderson, with his misguided booking policies, and Dusty Rhodes, with his cronyism and nepotism, were able to keep Zenk down."

Gancarski - " I agree. I read the site too. It's like Eric throwing the coffee on Eddy or the 'Vanilla Midgets' (apocryphal, or so its retro claimed) by Nash. But cronyism and nepotism will always be a part of wrestling. I think we both can agree on that."
 
 

Rocco - "I can't see that Tony Gancarski has answered the central question about cronyism and the misuse of talent in WCW -  if you don't fully believe 'the Zenk story', you could always check out what happened to Shane Douglas in WCW (- the guy that Zenk substituted for in Dos Hombres and no-one even Meltzer knew) - or you could look at how WCW uses Hart or Goldberg or Jericho or Benoit or .........."
 
Gancarski  - "Douglas is quite the blind spot for me, but...  I'd be willing to bet that he didn't do a very good job of playing politics in the way WCW required. The fact of the matter is that Douglas has been bitching for five years about not becoming the man in WCW, WWF, and everyplace he's worked but ECW. Pro wrestling, like any other field, quite obviously isn't a meritocracy. And even if it were, Douglas still isn't even one of the thirty best US workers."
 
Rocco - If you think Zenk was "soulless" then I'd guess your memory is short - though that may indeed have been the cumulative effect in the later years (1992-4) of being endlessly jobbed (recall that his career started 10 years earlier). WCW knew what they had in Zenk - that's why they gave him a 2 year initial contract and $50,000 p.a. more than Pillman, Douglas, etc -Then Ole Anderson booked him to humiliating squashes to get rid of him through 1990 for reasons canvassed on the Zenk page. 

Gancarski - "I'm not defending Ole's booking -- who could? -- but I am suggesting that Zenk needed to alter his approach to the back room if he really  wanted that main event push (cf. Arn Anderson's approach to Flair)."
 
Rocco - " ...then Rhodes came in and built the booking to make his son top babyface and the youngest world champion (through 1991 -2); then Bill Watts came in and competed to get his boy the top babyface (1992+). For Zenk - the ultimate babyface - it was over with no Vince to go to, since the Can-Am walkout..."

Gancarski - "You mean that Zenk burnt a bridge to Connecticut? Quelle surprise. Again, the Watts and Rhodes regimes are largely indefensible. Again, it would've behooved Zenk to kiss some bookers' asses. Why ? Because that's part of the game. It's hierarchical."
 
Rocco - "BTW I can't see the argument that Zenk was just  *** star status - the ratings on the page are Meltzer's and relate to matches where Zenk was working against the booking grain - i.e. he turned in an average *** when he was largely being jobbed."
 
Gancarski - "No, he didn't. His *** matches were largely at big events. And being jobbed or going over, that doesn't matter in terms of match quality."
 
Rocco - "I can't agree with that. IMO if Zenk had been able to leave WCW for's WWF he would have become a major star (remember how WCW could make nothing out of Zenk contemporaries Oz (Nash) - who can't wrestle but Vince made him a 'star'; The Diamond Stud (Hall) who has three moves but Vince made him a 'star'; same for HHH, Mero, X-Pac etc."
 
Gancarski - "WWF wouldn't have done much with Zenk, given VKM's subscription to the 'Bigger is Better' ethos back then. Mero got pushed during a lull in Titan's bidness. X-Pac is midcard, and will stay there. It's taken HHH 5 years to make upper midcard.  I don't think Zenk would've stuck around and waited patiently for 5 years."
 
Rocco - "The final proof of the WCW incompetence through cronyism is that even when these 'stars' returned at huge inflated salaries - they still can't book a decent match. QED."
 
Gancarski - "Can't argue with you there."

Rocco - "To get back to Tony's point re average *** I'm still not sure I understand. If you're sent out, as Zenk generally was, to do a 5 minute job to Vader or Hansen or Rude or Anderson, and then Ole or Dusty signals the ref after two minutes to "go home" (deliberate humiliation) I reckon it's going to be pretty difficult to maintain an average *** rating. Equally when Dusty sends you out to do a stipulation match (e.g. the tuxedo matches) and then tells you not to damage the tux - and takes the money from your pay when you do - it's not surprising when Meltzer wonders what the hell is going on and marks the match down to *. It seems to me to follow, that if Zenk had been allowed to get over more, the *** rating would have risen accordingly. As to 'soulless' and sterotyped 'face', Bockwinkel was right when he told Zenk that he would always be type-cast by his looks - but that was never the case in Japan where he played a very persuasive heel (particularly on the Neidhart tour and later when he put Bigelow over as a face). As Steve Keirn says Zenk could handle the ball in any department - he just wasn't given the chance.
i
MasMarvel - "Points well made, but I think there is a natural tendency to push the Tom Zenk *type* of wrestler down the card .....Roma and Powers in the WWF (The Young Stallions) are another case in point.  They actually were a very talented tag team in the ring but never got much beyond glorified jobbers.  Roma had to become an awkward heel with Hercules to get even a mid level push.  Powers never even got that chance......  Goofy, zany and even idiotic gimmicks are viewed by many promoters as the ticket to success. The "Mr. Nice Guy" type is often used to "put over" the non conformist heels, not beat them back and restore order in the face of disorder."

Bogus Prophet - "A wildcard that I would like throw in here is that if someone with Vince McMahon's marketing genius could work with someone like Zenk, it is an open question how far Zenk could go.  Shawn Michaels is probably the best example of this.  Zenk had a basic appeal, the question for the marketing  types is what sort of gimmick to package it with to best exploit it."
 
Gancarski - "Probably true,[re Zenk working any angle, including heel] though I could make some comments about a more sophisticated audience that is also preconditioned to readily accept US workers as heels..."
 
Bogus Prophet - "Again, being perceived as a heel or a face is probably secondary to the gimmick that is attached to a worker.  Hogan was a fan favorte and during the 1980s simply could not be packaged as a heel, at least among the sports entertainment fans.  The Road Warriors are the prototypical example of a tagteam who were over regardless of their heel/face status during the 1980s. The Undertaker, Jake the Snake, and others have transcended their heel personas because they were so over with fans. Could Zenk have been pushed  in the same way?  Maybe.  Then again he could have been saddled with a cheesy gimmick (e.g., the Red Rooster) or an unexciting, limiting gimmick  (Marc Mero is most relevant here).
 

  

Jpelan - "Somewhere earlier on this thread the word "souless" was used to describe Tom Zenk...."

Bogus Prophet - "Tony used it.  I pointed out how hopelessly ambiguous it was as a term."

Jpelan - ".... as was the term talented; both are accurate IIRC."

Rocco - "I'm assuming here that "soulless" refers to Zenk's pre-occupation with technical or scientific wrestling rather than the soap-opera role-playing and mike work common today."

Bogus Prophet - "I would say that Zenk was talented and I would go further and say that he had some basic charisma.  As pointed out on the Tom Zenk site, Zenk apparently was a babe magnet which appeared to have been one of the problems the "old guys" like Ole had with him.  One just has to think of HBK to appreciate how important this aspect to a worker might be."

Jpelan - "While there is certainly no defense for Ole Anderson's booking, (and I foolishly preserved much of it on tape thinking that it might be good), there are a couple of harsh realities that one has to consider when discussing Zenk: Zenk was/is a few years too late to be a main eventer. A throwback to the technically proficient pure babyface style of Bob Backlund, Zenk's career started just as the shift to bigger is better got underway with the advent of Hulk Hogan and the Road Warriors."

Bogus Prophet - "I'm not sure I agree.  Vince got Hogan in December 1984 and pushed him to championship status in January 1985, about 5 years before the time frame being considered for Zenk.  From 1985 on, Vince's "Larger Than Life" philosophy (i.e., use steroid monsters with "The Look") ruled especially in the use of such workers as Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and other "Big Men" who either came by their size naturally (e.g., Andre) or unnaturally, but that changed with Hogan's leaving of the WWF (ca. 1993) and the push of "smaller" workers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.  If Zenk had been allowed to develop, there is good reason to speculate that he might have been World Title material, a la Michaels by 1993-1994."
 

 
Jpelan - "Sure, there were big men in the sport before, but the popularity of Hogan convinced VKM that in order to get a wrestler over, that wrestler had to have tons of charisma or a great gimmick and actual ring work was secondary. The days of the pure, gimmick-less babyface (with the exception of Steamboat) were pretty much over."
 
Bogus Prophet - "Except that that philosophy got cut back significantly with the push of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.  The only exception here was Diesel, whom I could never take seriously as a champion (Note: I was at the the special "NY Rumble" at MSG which preceded the Royal Rumble by a week or so, I guess back in Jan 1995 (?), and saw him just bulldoze 6-7 guys without a problem; at that time I knew that he was going to get a super push, which was confirmed by his repeat performance at the Royal Rumble -- I just kept thinking "This guy was f'n Oz!").  Zenk's potential role in all this is, of course, unknown but it is quite possible that he could have been pushed to the top, like Michaels was."
 
Rocco - "Anyway, if babyfaces were finished,  then how can the extraordinary popularity of the Can-Am Connection be explained? Zenk had a gimmick with Martel - if Martel hadn't cheated Zenk in the contract negotiations by taking twice what Zenk was getting, it might all have been a different story."

Mas Marvel - "That's interesting information. I recall reading Martel's "take" on the situation in an interview with the Toronto Sun's wrestling reporter (www.canoe.ca wrestling archives.... it may still be there) and Martel indicated that he felt Zenk just lacked the resiliancy to deal with the nightly expectations of pro wrestling.  He indicated that he pleaded with Zenk to finish up his contract, which, in retrospect might have been very good advice. By leaving the WWF on bad terms he left himself at the mercy of WCW. That explanation you give, that he felt he was getting short changed, seems just as persuasive as Martel's.  My guess at the time was that he might have been unhappy with the bookings. As I recall, and my memory may be inaccurate, they were starting to job to Demolition shortly before he left.  They previously had destroyed Orton and Magnificent Muroco in a feud.
 

Mark Nixon  - Montreal fans were much more into workrate wrestling, having cut their teeth on Yvon Robert, Ed Carpentier, The Rougeau's et.al. as scientific megafaces. Even the resident brawlers like Michel Dubois, Tarzan  Tyler and Mad Dog Vachon could go when the situation called for it. The pure brawlers were usually imported.
 
Tom Zenk was a face of the Rougeau/Carpenier ilk, and could be booked in Montreal with closed eyes.
 
Rocco - "If  Zenk hadn't, as it turned out, burned his bridges to WWF by walking out on the Can-Am Connection, he could have played one fed off against the other instead of being stuck in WCW and subject to the booker's whims."
 
Bogus Prophet - "Interesting point.  It suggests that if Zenk had been more manipulative, more of a psychopath in his dealing with management, he'd have gotten further." 

Jpelan - "[Re Can-Am Connection] There's something odd that happens with the chemistry of a tag-team, particularly of the babyface variety. I could cite the Fabulous Ones, the Fantastics, the Rock n' Roll Express, and even the heelish Midnites as examples of the phenomena I'm about to describe. With the notable exception of HBK, individual members of these teams do not seem to get over very well on their own. You might argue the Hollywood Blondes, but both individuals underwent dramatic changes of persona before getting over as singles.

Bogus Prophet - "The Blonds produced one super-over worker, Steve Austin, but it took the Stone Cold gimmick to get him over (the Ringmaster gimmick and his association with the million dollar man Ted Dibiase was just burying him). Brian Pillman was just starting to go down that road when he died.  What took Pillman so long?  He was part of the group that was held down in the early 1990s along with Zenk.  The Loose Canon gimmick was his ticket to breakthrough success.
 
The most obvious example is, of course, The Rockers.  Given Michaels size, I never thought that he would be over in the WWF, especially given Vince's love of Big Men.  But the Boy Toy gimmick and several interesting storylines, as well as the fact that the Big Man Diesel was willing to work with Shawn instead of burying him, all worked to get Shawn over.
 
My point is that while some guys can only be over in a tag team, they'll fail as individual workers, but, when given the right gimmick, storyline, and support, can be pushed right to the top.  Zenk's case appears to be [a case of not being given this chance]."

 TheRev - "Bobby Eaton was part of multiple solid and some spectacular tag teams and the TV champion. I notice we don't argue him as he plays matback to everybody that isn't Scott Putski."
 
Gancarski - "This is something that bears discussion, yes. Eaton actually 'knew his role' in the way I've argued Zenk didn't.

["Does this mean Eaton "knew his role" as in "knew his place" - i.e. accepted the inevitability of the cliques and his menial position within them, whereas Zenk refused and stayed outside?" - ed.]

Gancarski - "TomZenk.com lists Eaton as part of the 'Charlotte clique' (which included Flair, AA, et al.), and I see no reason to argue with that designation. Eaton, even though a pathologically ugly and inarticulate man, was a great example of a promotion maximizing its abilities as far as booking him went from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. The only apparent things he really has to bitch about are the premature downcarding of the Midnights during Ole's tenure and a truncated showcase match against Flair on a Clash."

Jpelan - "How much of the "extraordinary popularity" of the Can-Ams was attributable to Martel?"

Bogus Prophet - "We have enough history on Martel to see that he didn't appear to have the personality to get much further than he did, at least in the Big Two.  His "Arrogance" angle in the WWF could only take him so far, Shawn Michaels, working with a variant of this angle, showed that it required an attitude that was missing in Martel."
 
Jpelan - "How much is attributable to that intangible that's present with a team? It's not something that you easily provide empirical evidence for..."      
 
Bogus Prophet - "I agree, it is not *easy* to provide empirical evidence for some of these things.  But that's where scholarship, listening to workers with different viewpoints, and using good old logic and common sense come in....."