10 Wrestlers Too Good To Be Ruined By WWE's Bad Booking

You can't keep a good underdog down.

Bayley Sasha Banks
WWE

In Bret Hart's seminal biography 'Hitman', the Excellence of Execution discusses a lesson taught to him by '70's wrestling icon Pedro Morales. Hart was frustrated by his relatively low position on the card at the time when Morales took him aside and told him:

"You cannot stop talent! No matter what, sooner or later, it proves itself. You, my friend, have talent! Someday you're gonna be a big star in this business".

Morales was right on both counts - Bret Hart became a big star, and the best talent finds a way to shine.

Each entrant on this list has, at some point in their WWE career, been saddled with booking that was questionable at best, outright counterproductive at worst. Yet each of them has managed to rise above the dirt WWE creative buried them in and resurrected their careers off their own back. Whether it was through a total character reinvention or simply being too damn good to be ignored, each wrestler here managed to get themselves over in spite of booking that would have permanently sunk lesser talents.

10. Chris Jericho

Bayley Sasha Banks
AEW/WWE

Kicking off the list we have a wrestler whose WWE career embodied the adage "You have to leave to come back".

Jericho's first run in the WWE could hardly be called disastrous, but it was hugely frustrating for the former Y2J. Despite becoming professional wrestling's first ever Undisputed Champion, Jericho's reign was booked in a way that made him look utterly pathetic. He became little more than Stephanie McMahon's lapdog, a spineless toady unable to stand up to the boss' daughter and he looked every inch the place-holder champion.

So poor was his booking that Jericho spent the next three years circling the midcard, getting increasingly frustrated at staring through the glass ceiling WWE Creative built over his head. A burnt-out Jericho would leave the company in 2005 and not return until 2007. Even then it took a few months before he reinvented himself as a smug, self-righteous heel, a character that finally took him back to the mountaintop when he won his second World Championship seven years after his first.

Jericho's WWE career then settled into a pattern of lengthy absences and eagerly awaited returns, each comeback heralding a new twist to his character. This routine worked so well it made the wrestling world outside the WWE take notice and eventually led to him becoming the biggest star in WWE's latest rival, AEW.

Jericho definitely had to take the rough with the smooth in his WWE career, but right now it looks like he's had the last laugh on his old company.

Contributor
Contributor

Hello! My name's Iain Tayor. I write about video games, wrestling and comic books, and I apparently can't figure out how to set my profile picture correctly.