10 Potential Megastars That Never Recovered From WWE Burials
6. Damien Sandow
The type of main roster failure that occurred with alarming regularity before WWE's aggressive injection of pre-established NXT talents from 2014 onwards, Damien Sandow truly did his best with everything the company gave him, and still went largely unrewarded for the effort.
Escaping the worst of some early missteps with his excellent 'Intellectual Saviour Of The Masses' persona, Sandow was an excellent sneering heel, but lost virtually all of his momentum as a scholarly threat after foolishly cashing in his Money In The Bank contract against a relatively fresh John Cena during an October 2013 edition of Monday Night Raw.
Having feuded extensively with former tag team partner Cody Rhodes to win and remain in possession of the valued shot, it was a needless and destructive sucker punch that the character never recovered from. Slumping after the defeat, Sandow was the company's biggest loser for months (and months) following the defeat, before gaining unlikely steam as a 'stunt double' for Hollywood douchebag The Miz.
The pair had world class chemistry, with the rechristened 'Mizdow' becoming a vital cog in The Miz machine as the pair scooped tag title glory en route to becoming the most entertaining act on the show. WWE let them both down. Paying off a long-running abuse storyline with a listless turn on Miz by Mizdow in WrestleMania 31's pre-show battle royal, Sandow was back to pure soulless parody as a Macho Man parody before sliding further down the card to obscurity ahead of his fiercely protested 2016 release.