10 Wrestlers Who Cracked WWE's Secret Code
How to survive (and stay over) in WWE's broken system.
Finding success in WWE is no small task for the dozens of men and women funnelled in and out of the promotion every year, whose fortunes aren't always determined by their own efforts.
The brass ring is a myth. History's piled-up stack of world-class castoffs tells us this. Yearly, the promotion jettisons ultra-talented potential money-makers for not fitting Vince McMahon's amorphous, ever-changing vision of what a sports entertainment star should be. No matter their skill between the ropes, charisma, or other qualities, when budget cut season hit, they were reduced to lines on a spreadsheet.
Getting over is tough in this insane fictional universe scripted by a dozen reality TV scribes, whose prior wrestling knowledge could be written on the back of a postage stamp. Staying over is even tougher. When can't-miss talents are scripted by cack-handed creatives, the Limitless become Bearcats and Bulgarian Brutes burn out.
Longevity in WWE requires more than talent, hard work, and the ability to weather any creative storm. Yes, those within are talent, hard-working, and resilient, but the key to their continued success and popularity (amongst crowds and WWE executives) is more cerebral than that.
Frankly, each has come to understand how to thrive in Vince McMahon's fictional universe better than the man who created it...