10 Awesome Wrestlers WWE Totally Slept On

5. Dean Malenko

If you're going to unironically name yourself "The Man of 1000 Holds," you'd better be able to back it up. Dean Malenko could, and there's a strong argument to be made that he is one of the finest technical wrestlers of all time.

Ultimately his career highlight will forever be his scintillating WCW feud with Chris Jericho, but Malenko certainly arrived in WWE on a wave of hype, jumping ship from WCW in 2000 with his pals Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Perry Saturn as part of The Radicalz.

While his teammates slid into mid-and-upper-card programs, Malenko was stranded in WWE's mediocre Light Heavyweight division. Before long he was shoehorned into a terrible James Bond spoof gimmick which, given Malenko's no-nonsense approach, couldn't have been less fitting.

By mid-2001, Malenko decided to enter semi-retirement and work with WWE as a road agent, a role he maintained until being released earlier this year. Malenko quickly landed on his feet though, joining AEW as a senior producer mere weeks later.

Though his small size and low level of charisma definitely worked against him, one suspects he could've had a far more respectable mid-card run in WWE if he was paired with a suitable manager/mouthpiece.