10 WWE Stars We Expected To Be World Champion By Now

10. Jeff Hardy

A 40-year-old man should not be smashing his back upside down on "THE HARDEST PART OF THE RING, COREY", but that's exactly what Jeff Hardy did to try and get people talking a little more about his dead spot SummerSlam snoozer with Shinsuke Nakamura.

The bone-crunching bump was more wince than wow, particularly considering the relative unimportance of the match on the pay-per-view and in the wider WWE picture. Nakamura's United States Championship simply isn't a prize worth maiming yourself for, and Hardy's brush with his own youthful insanity was an unseemly reminder of the risks somebody like him shouldn't be taking anymore.

It's bumps such as this that remind audiences how big a star Jeff could still be without doing quite as much damage to his weathered frame. He's kept hold of much of the support channeled towards his 2017 return, still bristling with many of the intangibles needed to be a headline act and boasting a relationship with the audience as pure now as it was back when he last held the company's top titles a decade ago.

Was the apron Swanton a senseless act of begging bravado from the 'Charismatic Enigma', or a cry for attention directed at a neglectful booking team?