WWE: The Land of Missed-Opportunity?
One of the must frustrating things in the WWE Universe has always been the missed opportunity of something awesome.
Wether it is with brand-split or not, the most recent years have seen an increasingly high rate of superstars not being used to their full potential. Earlier just reserved for the undercard, WWE's misuse of talents has gotten worse in time. From Main Event to the actual show 'Main Event' no one really seems to be safe from WWE crafting 'yet another body'.
It happened to Finn Balor, Braun Strowman and others. WWE not doing storylines at all or using the same templates over and over again, like they do in the Women's Division, just creates a huge amoutn of characters, the will to invest in as a fan just decreases.
In my preperation of for this article, i realised that the amount up missed-opportunities of so large, there is no way to list all of them.
So i will just list five missed-opportunities that are will not be possible anymore thanks to the wrestlers moving on.
But if you have any tale to tell on missed-opportunities in WWE, just tell me @Walu2go on Twitter!
1. Cody Rhodes vs. Goldust at WrestleMania 31
For my personally the biggest missed opportunity ever. I was driven to see this match happen ever since learned that Cody Rhodes and Goldust are brothers.
There just was so much to do with, so many angles to choose from.
Two brothers, sons of the legendary Dusty Rhodes, clashing in an epic encounter. The two are brothers, by the could not be more different. Two generations colliding, the perfect concept of retiring Goldust and turning Cody Rhodes into an absolute mega star. The amount of talent between the two is just something absolutley amazing, so when WWE decided to make them a Tag Team with a succesful run and then turn Cody against Goldust, we were set for the biggest clash of generations ever at the Grand Daddy of them all. But then WWE decided that Cody won't be dropping his Stardust gimmick and Goldust was, in storyline, forced to wrestle a safe match against Cody in their storyline build to Fastlane (right before WrestleMania). The match therefore has a stipulation, something a lot of the crowd did not catch up on therefore resulted in a boring match. But WWE continued to book the storyline afterwards, making hope for a true match, this time not Goldust vs. Stardust, but Cody Rhodes vs. Goldust in a far more interesting match and very likely better in-ring contest. But, Vince McMahon felt like that match was not WrestleMania worthy and scratched the storyline. Right now, four years after this, Goldust is still recovering from a double-knee injury and very likely closing in on his career, while Cody Rhodes left WWE and is now in charge of AEW, a promotion with the potential to become a big player in the wrestling scene going forward.
So the opportunity has gone by. Just sad.
2. Sting vs. The Undertaker
A match a lot of people were driven to see, when WCW folded in the year 2000. But Sting just did not wanna go to WWE and turned back up again in TNA, which he stayed on for almost the rest of his career. The time-window for probably one of the biggest dream matches ever was closing with each passing year. In 2014 Sting finally decided to come to the WWE, at the age of 55. At that year's WrestleMania WWE decided to not go with the Undertaker, but Triple H and made Sting take the pinfall. Sting then vanished for a while, only to return to face Seth Rollins in a match for the WWE Championship, in which he injured his neck, being forced to retire. The Undertaker himself is rumoured to have retired every other month, only to come back in pretty sad matches, that he just should not do.
3. The Nexus
The Nexus arrived in 2010 as the Winds of Change in WWE. Ready to take down the old guard and to enforce their own legacy, turning the WWE upsite down. And for the first few month, they did quite well, destory the likes of Vince McMahon and The Undertaker.
But all that turned around when WWE decided John Cena and his 'Team WWE' needed to beat The Nexus at SummerSlam 2010. This the build and the match felt epic, it was the end of the Nexus. Of course they excisted for another couple of months, but started to falt apart more and more. Now, in 2019, only Daniel Bryan, David Otunga and Heath Slater are still under contract. While Bryan is WWE Champion, Otunga is an expert on PreShow (sometimes) and Slater is somewhere down in the undercard, teaming with Rhyno - another storyline that has been dropped multiple times.
4. Damien Sandow
5. Neville
He was just so incredibly good. After he left NXT with an epic run there as a former NXT Tag Team and NXT Champion, he was ready to create the same buzz on RAW, but he never did.
When 205live arrived, he realised this is his thing and when WWE finally decided upon using him there, he turned the entire show around. The King of the Cruiserweights went on to be one of greatest modern wrestling characters of the time. His epic reign as Cruiserweight Champion will probably never be touched, but towards the end of his reign WWE botched it. First his short title drop to Tozawa, then his awful feud with Enzo Amore, derailed his momentum. When WWE decided not to pay him for the on-demand/DVD release in his epic work at WrestleMania against Austin Aries, that was enough for the proud english men and he decided to leave. WWE then forced him to sit out his contract at home, taking an entire career-year from the man that gravity forgot.
Well in 2019 his back, probably on if AEW's biggest signings and with his pre-WWE name 'PAC'.
What a shame, he should and could have been World Champion in WWE, especially with the genius of this character.
Do you agree with the list? What do you feel is WWE's biggest missed opportunity?
