10 Wrestlers Too Big To Fail (That Failed Anyway)
8. Sin Cara (WWE: 2011-2014)
The original Sin Cara was once one of the biggest draws in wrestling.
Tell this to a younger fan and they may well laugh in your face, but it's true. As Mistico, Luis Alvirde was his native Mexico's most bankable star for many years, winning the Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Best Box Office Draw over the UFC's Tito Ortiz and Matt Hughes and WWE's John Cena in 2006. Selling out CMLL's 15,000-capacity Arena Mexico became habitual for him.
Five years later, Alvirde became one of the first wrestlers to fall in WWE's quest to find "the next Rey Mysterio." Thrust onto television without a developmental run, thus giving him no time to prepare for the adjustment from Lucha Libre to WWE's vastly different house style, he debuted as Sin Cara in March 2011 - and promptly flopped. Occasionally spectacular (but never to the extent he was in CMLL), Alvride was buried under a mountain of botches, bad booking decisions, and reported backstage issues, until he was let go three years later.
The former Hunico, Jose Rodriguez, inherited the Sin Cara gimmick following Alvirde's departure, but the character was irreparably damaged - and Rodriguez was never a draw (or a wrestler) on his predecessor's level.