Where did they go wrong with Pope?

[Captain Stud Muffin (BLM)]

He was perfectly primed to become champ and they never pulled the trigger. Cooled him down considerably and had him in turn into stereotypical and border line racist character of fornicating pimp and dog fighter. Between the Joe and Devon feud he was buried quick fast. Crazy to think how hot he was and they did nothing with it

[dav]

It's TNA, what do you expect? For everything good they've had, you can pretty much add "And then they f***ed it up." On the end.

[xCompackx]

They hired him.

Kidding, I think Pope could've been a star in WWE or TNA had they booked him properly. I think in TNA, it was just another case of "We have no f***ing idea what we're doing here."

[Allie Kitsune]

It just doesn't seem like anybody in pro wrestling won't eventually devolve into the most frustratingly stereotypical version of their gimmick.

[JTG Fan]

After building him up perfectly to main event level in 09-early 10 Russo/TNA management seemed to lose interest in him after the LockDown 2010 World Title match against AJ Styles. He had to miss some time so they wrote him off as being injured by Anderson only to turn Anderson face a few weeks later and leave Pope with nothing to do when he came back. And then came the aforementioned awful 10-10-10 storyline and Pope's family turning on him and then Pope becoming Michael Vick and just all sort of awful bullshit that pretty much killed his career.

Anyway they went wrong with him not winning the World Title in 2010, because he would have been a much better choice to pull the trigger on then RVD a few weeks later.

[lionheart21]

You answered your own question in the second sentence. Turning him heel was a career-killer.

[Captain Stud Muffin (BLM)]

Oct 22, 2016 22:15:47 GMT -5 JTG Fan said:

After building him up perfectly to main event level in 09-early 10 Russo/TNA management seemed to lose interest in him after the LockDown 2010 World Title match against AJ Styles. He had to miss some time so they wrote him off as being injured by Anderson only to turn Anderson face a few weeks later and leave Pope with nothing to do when he came back. And then came the aforementioned awful 10-10-10 storyline and Pope's family turning on him and then Pope becoming Michael Vick and just all sort of awful bullshit that pretty much killed his career.

Anyway they went wrong with him not winning the World Title in 2010, because he would have been a much better choice to pull the trigger on then RVD a few weeks later.

AJ:(Years later) RVD should of hooked the f***ing leg

[comahan]

He was hurt in his cage match with Styles, lost all of his momentum, and they never really got back behind him again.

[Deleted]

Pope was basically the Monty Brown of 2010.

[jimmyjames]

As you said; when they stereotyped him.

[dav]

I'm going to just go over something, Pope is the reason I got into TNA. Back in 2010, I'd been away from the wresling scene for eight years and was slowly getting back into the groove of things after buying some Silvervision DVD's. Looking around WWE for a while , I then started to look at the competition and watched several of Pope's matches and promos and honestly believed that this guy could be a star.

Hell, if not for TNA's incompetence, he should have been. To seee Pope's talent wasted so badly was one of the most frustrating things I've ever had to deal with as a fan and the guy deserved so much better.