10 "Next Big Things" In Wrestling Nobody Cared About

Were The Ascension born into the wrong era of WWE?

Absolutely.

Konnor and Viktor displayed obstinate strength across their 364-day stint as NXT Tag Team Champions. The doubles division in NXT wasn't exactly bubbling at the time - The Lucha Dragons, almost as proof of that sentiment, were chosen to topple them - but The Ascension brought an aura of real brute force to the division. Their Fall of Man finish was authentic as a match-ender.

The phrase 'main roster call-up' is what plagued them post-NXT. Thrust into the world of main roster WWE in December 2014, The Ascension were given Road Warriors-ripoff branding, and were pointed and laughed at for weeks by commentary, the once-callous duo of NXT's tag team division now being the laughingstock of WWE's tag division. Konnor and Viktor were used to put over every other WWE pairing, their future Cosmic Wasteland pairing with Stardust being the highlight of their run - and that was p*ss-poor.

Even with Triple taking over main roster WWE creative in July 2022, The Ascension wouldn't be salvageable, but there's still part of you that thinks 'what could've been' for The Ascension had they not been victimised by a Vince McMahon crap-chute.