10 Wrestlers Who Became Amazing After Heavy Criticism
4. Adam Cole
In certain circles of the internet, old jokes aimed at Adam Cole are regurgitated through an ironic lens - "How can that fat f*ck do the Panama Sunrise," etc. - but they were once delivered with genuine, earnest cruelty. An in-joke ran by Chuck Taylor mutated into a meme.
Adam Cole, the handsome, telegenic, charismatic, state-of-the-art super-worker was once known as 'Fat King Cole'.
It's unclear why Cole put on weight - his appearance was redolent of OVW-era CM Punk, so perhaps it was an ill-fated attempt to get into a shape traditionally imposed by WWE in a different era - but regardless, his size and relative lack of the clinics put on by his ROH antecedents saw him savaged among hardcore fans.
He emerged from this chrysalis period to answer those criticisms almost overnight; he arrived in NXT in 2017 a far slighter performer, a physique that lent itself superbly to his role as the modern-day Edge for this incredible generation: an escapologist boasting sublime facial expressions with which to project high drama in his stunning main events.