10 Times WWE Picked The RIGHT Wrestler At The WRONG Time

Vader must go down as one of the WWE's biggest ever missed opportunities. How did the company take one of professional wrestling's most legitimately feared, respected wrestlers and, in the span of two years, reduce his aura to the point he was getting squashed by Mark Henry and calling himself "a fat piece of sh*t" on live TV?

In this case, timing was everything.

WWE was desperate for star power at the start of 1996, and the internationally-renowned Vader seemed to fit the bill perfectly. However, there was a problem - Vader required shoulder surgery, which would take him months to recover from.

Although WWE Creative came up with an excellent angle to write Vader off almost immediately after he debuted (he assaulted the beloved Gorilla Monsoon on his second night in the company), it was decided to rush Vader back from surgery to capitalize on his star power.

Vader, understandably, was not fit for purpose when WWE brought him back less than two months after shoulder surgery. It meant his first big PPV match was an utterly inessential six-man tag at WrestleMania, and his work was obviously limited due to his still being in recovery.

Other events soon curtailed Vader's rise as well - Shawn Michaels' throwing an all-time hissy fit during their SummerSlam match; Stone Cold's meteroic ascent; the Attitude Era inadvertently making him seem like a throwback - but Vader's time in the WWE was cursed from the start.