10 Specific Ways WWE Stars Can Recover From Awful Booking

5. Karl Anderson

Charlotte Flair Upset
WWE.com

If you aren't familiar with his work in New Japan Pro Wrestling, you'd be forgiven for thinking Karl Anderson was the Brutus Beefcake to AJ Styles' Hulk Hogan: a hanger-on drafted in to appease the star signing. This isn't the case. Anderson was a dynamite performer when left to his own devices following Giant Bernard's departure, as evidenced by this recent SquaredCircle post. Crafting a gripping finishing sequence through the desperate avoidance and thus protection of finishing moves, Anderson elevated himself to Okada's level on the night of the 2012 G1 Climax Final. He is nowhere near that level now, instead occupying the jobber reaches of a brand your writer had to double check he actually wrestled on.

Anderson is a p*ss-funny wind-up merchant in addition to being a superb in-ring talent - so emphasise this by disassociating fans from the DOA Club tandem, stigmatised as rotten failures, by removing him from it altogether. There is money in Anderson as a singles heel performer, especially since, unlike some of his old New Japan peers, he can't be close to finished by virtue of wrestling so little in shared performances.

With the right opponent in the right context - AJ Styles in a marquee PPV bout, supported by their implicit history - Anderson will get over through the sheer revelation that he is anything but an anonymous dud.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!