10 Times WWE Failed To Replace Wrestlers
3. John Cena (with Drew McIntyre)
Reports from the time suggested that Drew McIntyre was one of two choices to win the 2020 Royal Rumble, with the other - Aleister Black - only missing out because nothing he'd done had been quite as immediately infectious as McIntyre's countdown schtick before hitting his Claymore.
After eliminating Brock Lesnar from the January Battle Royal then defeating him for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania, McIntyre was a made man and was able to remain that way for the bulk of a pandemic product he found himself the steward of. What he never was - and eventually this became his undoing - was John Cena.
'The Champ' was the successor to The Rock Triple H never could be, but that brought with it a consistent pattern of the person on top being part-wrestler part-game show host. All gags and winks and welcome-to-Monday-Night-Raws thanks to how stuck in one specific chapter of their past WWE are.
McIntyre without the belt is still a peripheral headliner, but he was just one more to ever so slightly underdeliver in a job that looks increasingly impossible.