10 Monster Pushes That WWE Totally Wasted
Build them up, tear them down.
As easy as it is to deride WWE for not pushing certain members of their multi-talented roster, when they do push a wrestler, they generally go all-in on them. WWE's monster pushes don't always work out as planned (see: Roman Reigns), but WWE can still send a wrestler to the stratosphere when they want to - though their follow-ups are usually lacking.
WWE have no problem heating a wrestler up during the first few months of a push, but tend struggle with maintaining their momentum from that point onwards. As a result, they have experienced a great deal of trouble when it comes to building new stars in the modern era, and heavily pushed wrestlers often come to a screeching halt after running into one of WWE's pre-established superstars.
The company don't always capitalise when something's hot, and they have been historically poor at reading crowd reactions and pushing the right guy at the right time. This has led to them squandering many a rising star over the past few decades, usually for the sake of feeding them to a John Cena...
10. Ryback
An ankle break prevented Skip Sheffield from playing a major role for the Nexus after their disastrous night at SummerSlam 2010, but everything changed when he reinvented himself as Ryback in 2012. Now a babyface, he re-entered the fray that April, destroying a series of local jobbers over the coming weeks and months, before moving on to full-time enhancement talents like Heath Slater.
Ryback’s act was getting over with live crowds, and so was his goofy “feed me more” chant. He spent five months running through the card’s lower reaches before inevitably setting his sights on bigger goals. With 38 straight wins under his belt, Ryback entered the WWE Championship hunt but lost to CM Punk at Hell In A Cell 2010 following some screwy officiating by Brad Maddox.
Ryback remained in the title picture, but never came close to winning the gold. His push dissipated shortly thereafter, and after turning heel and joining forces with Curtis Axel, his career was well and truly in the doldrums. Ryback eventually became Intercontinental Champion, but his initial push turned out to be a huge waste of time.
The unfavourable Goldberg comparisons didn’t help, of course, but while Ryback’s character always drew a share of smarky derision, audiences lapped it up in his early days. Given the lack of direction given to him following the initial surge, his run was a fruitless endeavour.