10 Wrestlers Whose Rookie Years Exceeded Expectations

10. Curtis Axel

We’ll kick things off with a slightly dubious entry, because when Curtis Axel re-debuted under his new gimmick in May of 2013, he already had a number of years under his belt from his stint as Michael McGillicutty.

Still, if we look at the resumé of the Axel character exclusively, on paper it certainly makes for impressive reading.

After making his debut on the 20th May, 2013 showing of Monday Night Raw, in his first month he picked a win over Chris Jericho, a pair of victories over John Cena, and another couple of successes against Triple H. Now, if we dig a little deeper, we’ll see that the Cena wins were via count-out and one of the Triple H victories was via DQ, but it still makes for a noteworthy list of scalps nonetheless.

In June, he then won the Intercontinental Championship at the Payback pay-per-view, and all the while he was flanked by Paul Heyman—quite the rub given the kind clientele Heyman usually associates himself with.

Admittedly, this was about as good as it got for Axel, but those first few months were still far more successful than anyone would have realistically expected.