Wrestlers who deserved better.

[H-Virus]

What are some examples of people who got a raw deal during their careers, despite having the skills and potential to be great? Whether it be from:

-Being held back for whatever reasons (didn't have 'the look', unliked by superiors, lack of creative direction, backstage politics, etc).

-Being saddled with a horrible gimmick that ruined their credibility.

-Being jobbed out or buried to the point where they couldn't recover any momentum or until people just stopped caring about them.

-Any other reasons you can come up with.

When I think of this, one of the first people to come to mind is Nick Dinsmore. If memory serves, he held (still holds?) the record for most heavyweight title reigns in OVW, but when WWE finally brought him up, they made him play a 'special person'. Sure, he was over with the crowd for a while, but it was obvious from the beginning that he was never going to be as big as he could have been if they had just let him be himself, instead of stumbling around like an overgrown toddler.

Another WWE example would be MVP, who started out slow and unimpressive, but started improving before long and began looking like a future main-eventer. Then they decided to give him a losing streak, and he's been stagnant ever since.

Other examples? Not just in WWE, but anywhere.

[Deleted]

Mark Henry is one recent name that comes to mind. There's a laundry list of things they've done to him, yet he keeps coming back for more. He reminds me a lot of myself: keep your mouth shut, do what you're supposed to do and move on to the next step.

[Angus Mcloud]

Its Dinsmors own fault Eugene was his idea.

[vinnysimmo]

DDP. In WCW he was crazy over, he was a solid wrestler, had a great finisher.
Then he joins WWE and is saddled with strange storylines and terrible gimmick ideas. A real shame. I beleve DDP could have been awesome in WWE if they used him correctly.

[neal]

Terry Taylor. He went from being one of the strongest heels in Mid-South/UWF with his best years ahead of him, then once he joins the McMahon Family Circus and Petting Zoo he becomes a rooster. His career never recovered and that's a shame, especially considering the solid worker he was.

Bill Dundee. His heigth held him back once the era of monster-sized wrestlers kicked in. Shame since he was one of the best performers of the late 70's-80's. His only real in-ring successes were in Memphis where the ability to talk and bump were more important than being over 6 foot tall and steroidy.

[H-Virus]

Oct 30, 2010 10:14:19 GMT -5 Angus Mcloud said:

Its Dinsmors own fault Eugene was his idea.

Hm, I seem to remember people saying the idea was Stephanie's, for some reason. Oh well.

[xtremehorseman]

Mike Awesome-The Fat Chick Triller/That 70's Guy

[Milkman Norm]

Brad Armstrong was stuck in so many crappy gimmicks over the years and he was never given a chance to get over as a serious wrestler.

[noleafclover1980]

Pretty much everyone nailed it already:

Taylor and Dinsmore got gimmicks you just cant recover from, and Brad Armstrong... eventually his gimmick was that Armstrong's are jobbers... they wore those damn "Armstrong Curse" shirts.

[Murf]

Malenko.

[ICBM]

Malenko in WWE or WCW? wwe he did nothing because he was given nothing. In WCW he was the focal point of the mid card for a while. Won the US title, the TV belt and the Cruiserwieght. He was even a memebr of the 4 horsemen. He became a trainer and an agent in WWE but on screen they never did squat with him

[johnpricesuperstar]

Lanny Poffo- he was a great high flyer but he was around in the wrong era. If he was around in the 1992-1996 era he could have been someone special.

Demolition- they had it all and then Ax got sick, Crush popped up and they were crapped all over by LOD

Jimmy Snuka- came back in the late 80s and was a Jobber. It hurt when my best friend used to call him "Jobberfly"

Shane Douglas- was a new face in the early 1990s WWF- with Lord Alfred Hayes doing the call of the action- but he never made it then.

[texaswhopper]

Shane Douglas- was a new face in the early 1990s WWF- with Lord Alfred Hayes doing the call of the action- but he never made it then.

ECW seemed to be where fared best. He wasn't going anywhere being a Dynamic Dude. What an awful gimmick.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Bryan Clarke. He was green as the Nightstalker and early in his run as Adam Bomb, but had little chance of climbing the card due to the political climate in the mid 90's WWF, he goes to WCW, starts getting over only to have his momentum killed by one Mr. Nash. He gets over in a tag team, WCW folds, they're brought to the WWF and put up against another big man tag team and get blamed for the match being horrible when there were two other guys in the ring.

Chris Kanyon is another... The WWF treated him horribly after the invasion, they humiliated him by having him dress as Boy George and never even gave his attempt to revive the Mortis character a chance. I can't help but feel, were WCW still around, he would be a former world champ there and now in the Pat Patterson/Jim ross role, planning matches or recruiting talent

[toonami4life]

Psychosis in WCW should've been so much more. He should've been cruiserweight champion for more than a week. He finally got his big break by beating his Arch Rival Rey in a Fatal 4 way to win it only to lose it to him the next week. And let's not forget his second reign where he showed up on Nitro with the CW belt (after Lenny Lane got fired due to public outcry over his gimmick with Lodi) and loses it quickly to Disco Inferno of all people.

[toonami4life]

Oct 30, 2010 20:47:07 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Bryan Clarke. He was green as the Nightstalker and early in his run as Adam Bomb, but had little chance of climbing the card due to the political climate in the mid 90's WWF, he goes to WCW, starts getting over only to have his momentum killed by one Mr. Nash. He gets over in a tag team, WCW folds, they're brought to the WWF and put up against another big man tag team and get blamed for the match being horrible when there were two other guys in the ring.

Chris Kanyon is another... The WWF treated him horribly after the invasion, they humiliated him by having him dress as Boy George and never even gave his attempt to revive the Mortis character a chance. I can't help but feel, were WCW still around, he would be a former world champ there and now in the Pat Patterson/Jim ross role, planning matches or recruiting talent

Taker and Kane have all the blame as they showed no motivation or desire to do anything in that match, including making their opponents look good.

I can't help but feel that some of the WWF guys decided to be lackluster and lazy in the matches and make the WCW guys look bad and then they would complain to Vince about it saying it was all their fault and force the WCW guys to get made to look like a even bigger joke.

[Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite]

Oct 30, 2010 10:09:48 GMT -5 @sandman said:

Mark Henry is one recent name that comes to mind. There's a laundry list of things they've done to him, yet he keeps coming back for more. He reminds me a lot of myself: keep your mouth shut, do what you're supposed to do and move on to the next step.

Considering he's been continuously employed by WWE for such a long tine, he can't be THAT upset

[turkeysandwich]

Oct 30, 2010 22:23:19 GMT -5 Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite said:

Oct 30, 2010 10:09:48 GMT -5 @sandman said:

Mark Henry is one recent name that comes to mind. There's a laundry list of things they've done to him, yet he keeps coming back for more. He reminds me a lot of myself: keep your mouth shut, do what you're supposed to do and move on to the next step.

Considering he's been continuously employed by WWE for such a long time, he can't be THAT upset

Agreed, Mark only been there one year less than Triple H.

Shelton Benjamin was never completely horrible on the mic, but just never quite seemed like the personality that the WWE likes. Of course they never really gave him much to do as far as storylines or gimmicks. I guess the best they could come up with was dying his hair blonde, since it worked so well with Butch Reed in the 80s (sarcasm). Too bad that Slick wasn't around to talk for Shelton.

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

Oct 30, 2010 22:23:19 GMT -5 Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite said:

Oct 30, 2010 10:09:48 GMT -5 @sandman said:

Mark Henry is one recent name that comes to mind. There's a laundry list of things they've done to him, yet he keeps coming back for more. He reminds me a lot of myself: keep your mouth shut, do what you're supposed to do and move on to the next step.

Considering he's been continuously employed by WWE for such a long tine, he can't be THAT upset

Also, for the first 10 years he was on a MASSIVE contract, the crappy stuff was designed to embarass him so much he'd quit and save them millions of dollars, look how much better he's been booked since they gave him a different, I'm presuming much smaller contract, 2006 onwards.

[Deleted]

True, he did get a pretty nice run with the ECW title, despite having to TV main event against Matt Hardy some 964 times.