5 Ups & 5 Downs From Big Cass' WWE Career
1. A Cup Of Cawfee In The Big Time
The summer introduction of the Universal Championship following the 2016 Draft saw Monday Night Raw's best and biggest all eventually fall to maiden titleholder Finn Bálor and follow-up fatal four-way winner Kevin Owens, but Big Cass being one of the unexpected rank-and-files to make it out of the chasing pack alongside Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins et al was a stature-enhancing nod of approval from WWE management.
His efforts against the red brand's topline crew were more than passable - small doses of high impact action again favoured the seven-footer as they had in his lengthy tenure alongside Enzo Amore, and the added benefit of actually still being over helped exponentially in comparison to his woeful heel turn the following year.
The spell ultimately remained an outlier, but with Vince McMahon's unending propensity for pushing giants over and over again, it would be foolish to thing that - on this ocasion at least - 'released' even remotely means 'never coming back'. It's perhaps too why Big Cass can still keep his chin up, despite now needing to get his head back down.