10 Awesome Wrestling Debuts That Quickly Faded Away

Sami Zayn’s initial Raw debut died-out through no fault of his own, but life isn’t always fair, particularly when you’re a WWE superstar. In May 2015, John Cena was in the midst of his excellent United States Title open challenge series. Previous weeks had seen him successfully defend the belt against the likes of Dean Ambrose, Stardust, and Bad News Barrett, and WWE decided to call-in a hometown hero when Raw hit Montreal.

Bret Hart’s music hit, but The Hitman wasn’t there to answer the challenge. No, his job was to introduce the night’s real challenger: Sami Zayn.

Hart’s fellow Quebecois emerged to a monstrous ovation in his home state, and he was more than fired-up for the biggest match of his career thus far. Unfortunately, Zayn got a little too carried away with himself: he blew his shoulder out while throwing his arms up to the crowd before the match, and was forced to fight through the pain.

Zayn put forth a sterling effort in defeat, and got over huge by pushing Cena to his absolute limit. The injury was severe, however, and after wrestling Kevin Owens for the NXT Championship two weeks later, Zayn was set for a long spell on the sidelines. He didn’t return to WWE programming for seven full months, and while he eventually graduated to the main roster in March 2016, his call-up would’ve surely come sooner had his debut gone according to plan.