10 Moments Wrestlers NEVER Recovered From
Career-halting nightmares from WWE, AEW and more. These wrestlers NEVER recovered.
Pro wrestlers are often at the mercy of overworked creative teams who can make or break their careers. Of course, the folks actually on TV doing this stuff take some responsibility too, but sometimes they're fighting an impossible battle to make what's on the booking sheets work.
For example, it's anyone's guess why those who write WWE television would think outright calling a wrestler rubbish is the best way to make money. That happened though. The same could be said for AEW penning one of the worst segments in living memory - even a relative rookie told Cody Rhodes it'd be a bad idea, and figured fans would dump all over it.
He was right, and yet he's the one who suffered most.
These moments totally tanked careers. Some never had the chance to recover before retiring from the ring. Others have a shot at redemption, but things are looking less and less likely on that front the longer time rolls on.
Prepare for dreaded on-screen burials, gimmicks workers blatantly didn't fancy, and more creative misery than an episode of WCW Nitro under Vince Russo's pen.
10. Lance Storm Is “Boring”
Steve Austin had the power to veto this woeful creative.
He didn't. So, on the 16 June 2003 edition of Raw, then-GM 'Stone Cold' literally brought out a pillow and snored during Lance Storm's match vs. Garrison Cade. This was all part of a campaign to encourage fans to view Storm as painfully snooze-worthy, and nobody's quite sure why it was booked at all.
Lance might not have been The Rock verbally, but he was a rock solid technician between the ropes. Surely leaning on his strengths rather than any weaknesses would've been the way to go, but no - WWE campaigned to have fans change the channel from their own show whenever Storm was on air.
Unsurprisingly, this failed to do anything for Lance or authority figure Austin. It was a complete waste of TV time. Storm didn't get the chance to put things right either, because he retired as a WWE full-timer in 2004. Let's hope he hurled abuse at creative on the way out.