10 Biggest Failed WWE Pushes

For WWE, turning emerging young talents into bona fide main event stars is a task that is perhaps more difficult than many of us realise.

They may have considerable marketing might, but in the end, it's the audience who get to decide whether they embrace their latest musclebound Vince McMahon project or greet their every word with a chorus of hostility.

It's not just the fans who decide whether they sink or swim, either. In some cases the WWE execs are guilty of misjudging the character of their next big thing, learning a few months down the line that they don't have the required levels of hunger to reach the very top after all.

There are a whole host of examples over recent and distant wrestling history that serve to illustrate this point. Many of them have gone onto middling careers in the ring, either inside or outside the WWE, whilst some of them have since hung up their boots altogether.

It speaks to the fact that timing - as well as, obviously, talent and originality - really can make or break a career.

Bobby Lashley's push perhaps failed as much because of bad timing as anything else, in that he came to prominence at precisely the same time fans - thanks to John Cena - were sick of squeaky-clean good guys monopolising WWE's main event.

As a result, the company's efforts to elevate their latest project to the status of A-plus player, whether it was aligning him with Donald Trump in WrestleMania 23's Battle of the Billionaires or having him beat Vince McMahon for the ECW Title two months later, were effectively doomed to failure.

In a way, it's a crying shame. Lashley had gaps in his skill-set, sure, but he was a semi-decent prospect who proved once or twice, particularly when he was briefly paired up with Cena at Great American Bash, that he could go in the ring after all.

His record since leaving WWE speaks for itself, although having now passed his 40th birthday it's looking increasingly unlikely that we'll ever see him back under Vince McMahon's employ.