10 Wrestlers Too Big To Fail (That Failed Anyway)
9. Mike Awesome (WCW/WWE: 2000-2002)
WWE's maddening obsession with forcing uniquely captivating wrestlers to abandon that which made them special and shoehorn them into wrestling's most restrictive house style has dulled many a potential stud, from Vader to Shinsuke Nakamura. Former ECW Champion Mike Awesome suffered this in Stamford and Atlanta.
Awesome blew minds in ECW. It doesn't sound as impressive in 2021, when it feels like every 300lb-ish big man can dash and dive like an athlete half their size, but Awesome's combination of power, size, speed, and agility was eyeball-popping. He was risky, too, dishing out and absorbing stiff head-drops and chair shots in a promotion perfectly calibrated to make him look godlike, particularly in his feud with Masato Tanaka.
It was inevitable that he'd have to tone things down in WCW, but the promotion botched the chance to make him a night-one megastar after flubbing the follow-up on his debut assault on Kevin Nash. Later, the Fat Chick Thriller and That 70s Guy characters consigned him to bad gimmick hell.
He then fell afoul of The Undertaker in WWE, sliding down the card after a particularly brutal backstage burial. Awesome never returned to the major leagues after that.