Justin's credibility

There's a lot that can be said on the importance of "enhancement talent" or "jobbers" in the pro wrestling industry. While not as prevalent it once was, the role of enhancement talent is simple: make the star you're wrestling look like a star by getting squashed in a quick match. Sure, these days you don't see too many generic Barry Horowitz-types; rather, jobbers in WWE tend to have a "known" name or some kind of gimmick a la the Brooklyn Brawler (you're fooling yourself if you think Scotty 2 Hotty or Visera is anything BUT a jobber when wrestling singles matches these days... and there's nothing wrong with that -- you NEED the audience to believe in your stars, and having them go over identifyable opponents is one way to do so).

While I kid that Justin Credible is nothing more than a jobber, I do believe that the way he was used on ECW's SCI FI debut was poor due to its sheer laziness, thus making him look more like a jobber than, say, someone ECW was interested in pushing. That being said, note this newsbit from Jeremy Botter's latest Inside Pulse column:

- The squashing of Justin Credible by Kurt Angle wasn't done to demean Credible in any way; it was simply done to make Angle strong out of the gate. Credible will be a part of a new Impact Players faction, and it's been noted that his strong friendship with Triple H and Shawn Michaels will put him in a good political position to get a good shot at showing what he can do.

Let me ask ECW's bookers one question: if you didn't mean to demean the character, and expect to do big things with him down the road -- friends with DX or not -- how do you even put him in the position of looking as weak as he did against Kurt Angle on Tuesday? I'm not saying I think Justin should have won. And I'm not saying that he should have gotten in more offense vs. Angle. Kurt is an animal in the ring and needs to come across as invincible right now, and Justin pushing him to the limits just wouldn't have seemed... credible. But here's the rub on Justin: he shouldn't have been in that match in the first place.

All reports are saying that the ECW show ran short, which is why they added the footage of Lawler vs. Tazz at One Night Stand into the broadcast. Didn't someone backstage realize that maybe everyone would have been better served if Angle squashed, say, Al Snow or Danny Doring or even a no-name jobber, while Justin either did the same or was given a promo package/interview segment that could establish his character to the newbies, showing some highlights from ECW's tape library? I know, things were done on the fly on Tuesday, and changes made at the last minute by seemingly too many cooks; they likely didn't even know the show would run short until all of the supposed editing was done. But that isn't enough for me: I'm a demanding wrestling fan!

So that's my big concern. And I'll keep goign back to the theme of time management, looking at a longer-term big picture, and better utilizing old footage... Doesn't seem like too much of a stretch from where I sit.