10 Next Big Things In Wrestling That Totally Flopped
8. Alberto Del Rio
Much like Sin Cara, Alberto Del Rio was meant to be WWE's next great inroad into the Hispanic market in 2010. Instead, he failed to grab the attention of the wider WWE fanbase on two separate occasions.
His is surely the most puzzling story of an act working so bloody well on paper, but failing to translate his qualities to the screen. The gimmick was certain to work. It was expertly calibrated to work. Del Rio was the 1%. Del Rio was so above the rest of us mere mortals that he hired his own personal ring announcer. He had a different car in every city - a perfect PG update on Ric Flair's womaniser bit, with a potent visual signifier presented to us on every episode of WWE programming. What's more, he could work. His striking and submission savvy cast him as an intense killer, but for reasons that continue to baffle, none of this really resonated. Short of any right answer to a tricky conundrum, only the most basic of takes applies: he just didn't have "it". He could buy a fleet of cars, but not charisma.
His next gimmick, as a citizen of MexAmerica, was expertly calibrated to fail because what the f*ck was it? A latin-flavoured racist-but-not-racist Muhammad Hassan? A babyface act, a heel act? The only thing we know for certain is that WWE somehow contrived to lumber him with something worse: the League of Nations - a more marketable name than "Miscellaneous Evil Foreigners" for a more DOA stable than, erm, DOA.