10 Times Vince McMahon's WWE Pet Projects Failed Him

Squash matches do have a place in pro wrestling, even now, but surely the wrestler chosen to benefit from them has to be worthwhile. With Vladimir Kozlov, that wasn't the case, as he was ill-equipped to cope with the high expectations WWE had for him in 2008. Such misplaced faith would lead to one of the year's worst title matches.

At the Survivor Series in November '08, Kozlov awkwardly tried to follow the lead of Triple H. Before Edge interrupted and bagged the title, the match was failing badly. For anyone complaining about the pushes of guys like Roman Reigns now, at least Reigns can work lengthy matches.

Kozlov couldn't, and didn't really take to pro wrestling despite a genuine combat background. He was another WWE tried repeatedly to get over, even having him defeat The Undertaker cleanly on an episode of SmackDown. That exercise proved fruitless, because people just didn't buy into the guy.

A comedy tag-team with Santino Marella was the best part of his entire WWE run, one that ended in 2011. WWE really tried to push Kozlov, but either he wasn't ready or good enough to succeed.