10 Wrestlers Who Changed The Business Forever
3. Colt Cabana
Colt Cabana was left with few mainstream options following his WWE release in 2009.
He could flat-out go to a level he never received due credit for, but as a comedy wrestler and sentimental figure, no promoter was ever going to strap the rocket to him. The style at which he excelled lowered his earnings ceiling, too, and so Cabana used his creativity to build both himself and several cottage industries.
His 'Creative Has Nothing For You' YouTube series was a cult sensation - an expert satire of WWE's rotten system populated by men with no knowledge of professional wrestling. Much like the best satire, there is no longer any use for it; the material was so precise and prescient that it has come to write itself. With this web series, Cabana created a new outlet for wrestling content production, indirectly platforming the endless YouTube channels that used his influence to move critique forward from the death of print media.
The DIY entrepreneur also built the wrestling podcast industry (Bryan Alvarez must also be credited for this), swamped now by legions of fans, critics and wrestlers themselves. Replacing the shoot interview as the platform for fascinating industry revelations, were it not for Cabana, "Such good sh*t!" may not have entered the wrestling lexicon.
A famously easygoing man, Cabana will surely smile wryly at the idea of steadily turning the company that spurned him heel.