8 Wrestling Game-Changers Who Became JOBBERS!

8. Motor City Machine Guns

When the Motor City Machine Guns debuted in WWE, Corey Graves used the "your favourite tag team's favourite tag team", and this was completely without hyperbole unless you're one of those weird zealots that still refuses to acknowledge the influence of The Young Bucks.

Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley had something of an impossible job in the mid-2000s, in that they drastically raised the quality bar of USA tag team wrestling while the promotions big enough to pay them fairly lowered audience expectations of doubles action. Breaking through as a team in Pro Wrestling Zero1-Max before building a reputation for the likes of Ring Of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, the good press only got them so far. With WWE taking little-to-no interest in acts like theirs at the time though, Total Nonstop Action was the ostensibly the best spot. TNA was in some respects perfect in showcasing and platforming their futuristic style, but was also TNA. Lousy booking was never too far away. Up and down the card they went, with little effort to truly preserve their brilliance in amber before it was almost too late. A 182-day reign in 2011 with the Tag Team titles ended with a miscommunication spot, as was the rematch to get them back, but any split was curtailed by both experiencing injuries before Shelley elected not to renew his contract with the company in 2012. 

Various returns over the years (in between singles and different tag runs for both) kept them around to get that aforementioned sweetheart WWE deal in 2024, but the early high of the run was the only one. Given tag gold on SmackDown in their third televised match, they weren't given anything interesting creatively after the fact, and they spent 2025 losing and losing and losing before their April 2026 release.