10 Breakout Wrestling Performances That Went Nowhere

Despite most well-known, talented folks seen bumping for a living often spending years bleeding, sweating, and crying their way to prominence, more often than not, a wrestler's transformation from potential sensation to bona fide superstar can be found within one specific and rather impressive in-ring showing.

However, not every worker to light the world on fire with a truly stunning performance in-between the ropes has been lucky enough to receive the genuine Next Big Thing treatment shortly after. And in the case of some of the following faces and heels, instead of doubling down on these newly forged breakout crowd-poppers, their chosen promotion decided to either let their momentum depressingly fizzle out - or completely pulverised their newly realised aura in next to no time.

Simply put, emphatically stealing one particular show or absolutely obliterating the field in a multi-person spectacle sometimes isn't enough to guarantee a wrestler will be the name on fans' lips in the coming years.

From NXT darlings getting lost in the shuffle after dramatically putting down the Face, to multi-year projects being completely fumbled after their crowning moment, these are those star-making moments that ultimately hit a baffling dead end.

Catching just about every single soul inside of MetLife Stadium off-guard on the night, and Chris Jericho himself upon being told the plan heading into the Show of Shows, Fandango toppling Y2J at WrestleMania 29 in what was his debut match on the main roster seemingly created a legitimately over persona overnight.

Yet, before long, it soon became clear that folks were perhaps a little more engaged with the idea of throwing their hands in the air and dancing along to the ballroom dancer's theme tune than Johnny Curtis himself.

Despite playing his part in catapulting the theme song to #11 in the UK iTunes charts at one point, and clearly inspiring the sort of party atmosphere usually reserved for the faces of this barmy wrestling world, 'Dango continued fighting the bad fight and soon wound up being dispatched by Le Champion a few weeks later at Extreme Rules.

Then, in a cruel twist of fate, instead of strapping up the hip-shaking villain with the IC title soon after, a concussion resulted in Fandango being pulled from TV.

Vince McMahon's one-time pet project never really found a way to rediscover his musical mojo in the years that followed.