Get Behind This...

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

In reading the Zach Ryder changed the business thread, I was reminded of this picture. I remember it being in many sigs and lots of folks rallying behind CM Punk's "Get behind this or get left behind" comment. It's almost hard to believe it was just a little over a year ago it was taken. Beth isn't with the company, Bourne is seemingly injured or suspended forever, Ryder is a non-entity on the shows again, Kofi and Cody are pretty much exactly where they were then, Bryan has become a comedy figure and Punk is briefly directionless after a massive title reign.

So what comes to mind when you look at the picture now? Missed opportunity? Just a quick aligning of Internet favorites? Did we all fail to get behind them or did were they the ones who deserved to get left behind?

[Deleted]

I think Punk and Daniel Bryan are in good positions in the compnay. Daniel Bryan is part of the tag team revitalization process. After a 436 day title reign and nearly 500 days in the WWE title picture he needs to step down for a bit. Cody Rhodes maybe revitalize with a face turn. So it's not as bad as you make it out to be.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Everyone hates Ryder now.

When I look at the picture, I just see everyone who happened to have a belt at the time.

[BorneAgain]

Really the only two with lost potential were Zack and Cody. Punk got cemented as a main eventer, Bryan remains over as ever, Beth was hardly doing anything groundbreaking with her reign, and Kofi/Evan were the standard generic babyface tag team. Ryder barely got a chance to spread his wings before he was turned into fodder for the Kane/Cena feud and Even's heel turn. Cody had a strong run even in his loss to Show at Wrestlemania, and then basically did nothing after dropping the IC title a second time. I honestly thought he was a favorite to with MITB because he had made strong up until just recently before then.

[Deleted]

Mar 2, 2013 0:23:34 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Everyone hates Ryder now.

If it's any consolation I(and others) called that once he was featured on TV most everyone would realize how boring that he is and lose interest.

As for the OP, Punk and Bryan are in good positions and will get future runs at the top. Who really cares about Bourne at this point? Kofi is El Matador II and really shouldn't be any higher than that anyways. Beth was boring even for a diva. Not sure about Cody Rhodes, sometimes I think that he could be a main event player and other times I think that he'll be heel Kofi. Ryder is and always has been a joke, it's too bad that he doesn't realize this.

[percymania]

Evan Bourne looks most out of place to me now.

[stealthamo]

I'd say that what was going on at the time, they dropped the ball with Ryder and Cody. Ryder was going strong, but then the Kane saga started shortly after this photo, and he hasn't been the same since. Cody was doing alright, but after the Big Show feud, he just sort of drifted for a while before Rhodes Scholars, which never went anywhere.

Beth did alright with herself for a while before leaving, and Kofi is where he has been for the last few years, which I guess you could argue is good or bad, but he's what seems to be a fairly stable position. As for Bourne, he f***ed up with the double Wellness, then got hurt. So he basically has no one to blame but himself.

As for Punk and Bryan, they definitely came out the best out of all of this. Punk cemented his place as a main eventer with his over year-long reign and having a feud with The Rock. And Bryan was able to get really over, was apart of the biggest angle of the summer, before forming a very successful (albeit stale at this point) tag team with Kane.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Mar 2, 2013 0:29:33 GMT -5 @akeem said:

Mar 2, 2013 0:23:34 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Everyone hates Ryder now.

If it's any consolation I(and others) called that once he was featured on TV most everyone would realize how boring that he is and lose interest.

As for the OP, Punk and Bryan are in good positions and will get future runs at the top. Who really cares about Bourne at this point? Kofi is El Matador II and really shouldn't be any higher than that anyways. Beth was boring even for a diva. Not sure about Cody Rhodes, sometimes I think that he could be a main event player and other times I think that he'll be heel Kofi. Ryder is and always has been a joke, it's too bad that he doesn't realize this.

I still care about Bourne. I know he screwed up with drugs, but he's an amazing seller. Honestly, I would keep him around as a jobber so that guys with bigger upsides don't have to be jobbed out anymore.

I think Beth's problem was that there were no other Divas on the roster who could be booked believably as her equal, so she was either losing by fluke rollups or squashing everyone.

Cody's problem probably stems from WWE's lack of a real midcard. He's hotshotted into programs with main eventers simply because WWE refuses to elevate anyone to HIS level. When the main event faces are occupied, instead of giving someone else a push in order to give Cody something to do, they have him floating around aimlessly. Also there's the systematic stripping of his awesomeness.

I called Ryder flaming out as well. Even as a Ryder fan, I find him bland and generic in the ring, but I still feel that he deserved better than he got. I feel that WWE needlessly took him out of his element and exposed his weaknesses. They wanted him to be a main eventer or nothing, and since he isn't ready to be a main eventer, they made him nothing. I'm not too fond of Ryder's Twitter bitching either, but that's mainly because there are others on the roster who would kill even to be in his current diminished spot. But his complaints aren't completely invalid.

[BigBadZ]

Mar 2, 2013 0:08:53 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

So what comes to mind when you look at the picture now? Missed opportunity? Just a quick aligning of Internet favorites? Did we all fail to get behind them or did were they the ones who deserved to get left behind?

I can think of one person who got behind them.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCsVbLHRm94

[thelonewolf527]

It's called shitty main event rating the next night on Raw

[Straight Edge Scrotum]

Mar 2, 2013 0:08:53 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

So what comes to mind when you look at the picture now? Missed opportunity? Just a quick aligning of Internet favorites? Did we all fail to get behind them or did were they the ones who deserved to get left behind?

It was a hopeful glimpse of something that just didn't pan out.

[Cronant]

I never saw it as some sort of movement, despite Punk's comment.

Still seems like a kinda random group. Its not like Kofi or Beth were strangers to holding belts at the time.

[Deleted]

There's nothing odd about Bryan right now. He's just going through the upper-midcard motions. He'll be back at the top in the near future.

Punk is clearly someone they have a lot of faith in, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten the ridiculous reign that he did. He'll continue to serve them well as a worker.

Cody, Zack and Kofi, I feel bad for, because they each have had chances to go to the main event at certain points and WWE held them back. They're kind of just "there" now, and that's not really their fault when you consider WWE's lack of willingness to pull the trigger.

Beth Phoenix I don't miss at all. She got so many opportunities despite not at all being over for most of her career and not really having very many memorable matches. The best way to summarize her career is the heel-heel feud she was in, in 2008, where her opponent (who originally got more heel heat than she did) got turned face per crowd response.

Evan Bourne deserves what he's gotten. He prefers his weed to being a champion. Actually, I think it's safe to say he prefers his weed to anything else.