10 Times Modern WWE Stars FINALLY Felt Like Big Deals

After a spot of introspection, with a mind weighed down by just how brutally ugly the imminent prospect of WWE Crown Jewel is, and an increasing apathy towards a turgid flagship product, this seems as good a time as any to pay committed tribute to WWE's main roster mainstays.

Getting over in WWE is incredibly difficult. It matters little whether an act is a technician, a flier, or a powerhouse; the magnetic ring posts, suicide dives and rest holds are mandatory plays on the homogenised stage, the repetition of which is as contrived as it is damaging as it is tedious. This normalisation extends to scripted promos and 50/50 booking. It can only result in a fleet of talented performers travelling in the same lane in the middle of the road. The effect is often numbing; the joy of supporting and investing in a midcard act is lost under this crushing mentality. We can't truly believe in a Finn Bálor anymore; we can only belee "dat".

This roster would rather stay in that lane than travel to Riyadh, and who can blame them?

WWE won't acknowledge their concerns, but we can acknowledge their unheralded ability to connect to a fanbase increasingly disconnected to the product at large...

This is the example of all the sh*t outlined in the intro that WWE stars must contend with to stand a chance of getting over.

Becky, in storylines, defying the incredible performance she had entered at TakeOver: Unstoppable, was always presented as the fourth of the Four Horsewomen. She was the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion, but in this turn-taking era, she was sent swiftly to the bottom of the pile as 2017 unfolded, a year in which she jobbed to Mickie James and Natalya, the women she was ostensibly promoted to replace as the Women's Revolution Evolved, before suffering the bizarre indignity of becoming captain of Team SmackDown ahead of Survivor Series - a match from which she was eliminated first.

This year, apparently unaware that the winsome Becky was a cult favourite, a status only heightened through her dire record of losses, SmackDown created a storyline in which we were expected not to sympathise with a woman we liked after her supposed best friend benefitted from her work and, by doing so, stole her dream.

Face. "Tweener" (there's no such thing). Heel. Becky Lynch is a heel, the intention was always to turn her heel, and they eventually did after some muddled stuff, and this would all read as pure rubbish if - if - Becky wasn't so bloody assured and badass in a role she has mastered so well that nobody really cares about the misguided principle that led to it.

Becky is a total d*ckhead now, and people still love her.