Why were there so many "nobody" wrestlers in WWF 80s & 90s?

Question

In the 80s and 90s (I haven't watched in a while so not sure if this is the case now), the WWF Wrestling shows that appeared on TV (e.g. Superstars of Wrestling, Wrestling Challenge) would show several matches over the course of the hour. But few of them - perhaps even as little as one per episode had any real competition and featured two of the regulars facing off against each other.

The majority of them would be one of the WWF regulars vs some guy with a normal name we'd never heard of before. e.g. "Bam Bam" Bigelow vs Bobby Krakzinski. (name I made up)

The match would proceed extremely one-sidedly, we'd see the regular performing a bunch of moves on the hapless 'nobody' before eventually performing their finishing move and pinning them (or forcing submission). It would be pretty boring and the crowd would only get excited if the visitor managed to perform an actual move on the regular - but this rarely happened and the regular would usually regain control if it did.

Who were these people and why were they there? What was the motive - given the WWF had control over the progress of the match itself (and so could have artificially introduced a bit more excitement) - for having such one-sided matches?

Answer 1

They were probably Jobbers

From the Wikipedia article about the term Job:

In professional wrestling slang, a job is a losing performance in a wrestling match. It is derived from the euphemism "doing one's job", which was employed to protect information related to kayfabe from being revealed. The term can be used a number of ways. When a wrestler is booked to lose a match, it is described as "a job". The act itself is described with the verb jobbing, while the act of booking (rather than being booked) to job is called jobbing out. To lose a match fairly (meaning without any kayfabe rules being broken) is to job cleanly. Wrestlers who routinely (or exclusively) lose matches are known as jobbers or "dummy wrestlers".

The page goes into a lot of detail about how World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) made greatest use of full-time jobbers during their syndicated television shows in the 1980s and early 1990s, inclduing a list of wrestlers considered jobbeers.

Jobbing could be used in a number of ways:

Sometimes, jobbing is presented to a wrestler because of the problems and bad working relationship that the wrestler and the owner of the promotion have. At other times, it is a requirement of a wrestler's on-the-job training, learning how to perform in front of a live audience while helping make the more established wrestlers look credible.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has referred to jobbers as lovable, adorable "losers". Sometimes they euphemistically use the term "local competitor".

Essentially, jobbing boosts the profile and perception of a wrestler, at the cost of another.

One example that stood out for me was the duo Kaientai, who would appear on WWF shows each week, only to be thrown around the ring with no chance of victory, against opponents who were clearly tiers above them.

They were quick matches, designed to build excitement around the superstars.

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If you search for 'WWF/WWE jobber' on YouTube, you'll find great examples of jobbers in a 'squash' match.

And that said, I found a great example here: 6 minutes of Kaientai jobbing:

“Undertaker & Kane vs Big Show & Kaientai Undertaker Teaches Kane The Last Ride”