10 Times WWE Was Categorically Worse Than It Is Right Now
3. 2007: Post-Benoit
The rise and fall of Ken Kennedy in WWE perhaps best reflects the carnage caused in the wake of Chris Benoit's 2007 double murder-suicide. For all the wrong reasons, the staggering of his momentum along with that of numerous colleagues was something quite remarkable for those still watching week-to-week.
His main event push looked an absolute certainty until the post-Benoit media pile-on knackered the blundering company man. Kennedy made some ill-advised comments about reduced drug use in modern day WWE, with some ludicrous sweeping generalisations about "those big guys in the 80s" that should have been nowhere near live television.
The slippery slope steepened when he failed a Wellness Test mere weeks after his latest press junket. You could almost hear the sounds of millions of palms hitting faces the world over when that news broke. The reality was setting in that the threat of an actual test failure was real, rather than a virtual impossibility.
Names were disappearing from view entirely quicker than the veins and muscles from most of the midcard, with various other legal issues catching those yet to find themselves with polluted p*ss. Suspensions hijacked countless programmes and trajectories, with Kennedy's perhaps the most devastating of the bunch. He lost his slot as Mr McMahon's son to Hornswoggle - one of the few performers unlikely to be caught with steroids in his system. That it landed them in a creative cul-de-sac with one of the biggest angles of the year was suddenly of lesser importance.