10 ROH Stars Who Made It Big In WWE

After popping up at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III last month, the hugely talented Adam Cole became the latest in a long line of former ROH mega-stars to make the jump to WWE.

As the undisputed number one wrestling promotion in the world, Vince McMahon and co. have their pick of the best up-and-coming talent, and it is with increasing regularity these days that they look to the likes of Ring of Honor and NJPW, instead of nurturing their own performers from scratch.

This approach has a few obvious advantages. Their new recruits already understand the basics of wrestling and, most of the time, have years of experience performing in front of live crowds, meaning they know how to draw a reaction from the fans and are capable of calling things on the fly.

If Cole is searching for inspiration as he embarks on what is expected to be a long and fruitful career in WWE, then he could do much worse than look at the wrestlers whose well-worn path he will be treading - some of whom rank among the biggest stars in both companies' histories.

To most fans, Austin Aries' WWE career ended just as it was beginning to take off (hence his lowly position on the list), but the 39-year-old was apparently unhappy with a walk-on role in the Cruiserweight division, and decided life was too short to stick around somewhere his talents weren't being appreciated.

Successive pay-per-view defeats to Neville - including one on the WrestleMania 33 pre-show - were the highlight of his time working for Vince McMahon, but he had plenty more to shout about during three different stints with Ring of Honor.

Despite a relatively slight build (in wrestling terms, obviously), he won the ROH World Championship on two occasions, and was responsible for perhaps the promotion's best match of 2007 when he came up short against Nigel McGuinness at Rising Above in December.