10 Wrestlers EVERYBODY Was Wrong About
4. Damien Sandow
When Damien Sandow was unceremoniously dumped by WWE in May 2016, it caused oodles of eyes to roll across the wrestling commentariat. Here was a man who had fought through a frankly dreadful stunt double gimmick to become one of the company's most popular acts, only to see his efforts rather desperately dismissed, literally thrown out the ring like trash by the Big Show at WrestleMania 31's Andre Battle Royal. A year on, Sandow was his own stunt double, the trick repeated this time at the hands of basketballer Shaq O'Neal. Nobody could save the Intellectual Saviour, and shortly afterwards, he was fired.
It seemed inexplicable at the time, but in the three years since, Sandow has accomplished the sum total of bugger all despite the parallel boom of the independent scene. The man who 'should have been a WWE world champion' first resurfaced in the doomed Global Force Wrestling, under his prior Aron Stevens guise. He was ready to embark on a fruitful post-WWE career, and his next step was to become Impact's top dog.
Which he did: Stevens - or Aron Rex, as he was now known - claimed the TNA Grand Championship just two months after debuting in the company. It wasn't to be the start of a grand revival; by January, he was out of the company, and seemingly out of the industry entirely, his interest having turned to acting. It seemed that what Sandow could achieve without WWE holding him back was just about nothing. The Kentucky native returned to the ring this past July - hopefully he can make a better stab of it this time.