10 Wrestlers Who Couldn’t Come Up With A Comeback

3. X-Pac

AJ Lee
WWE.com

Obligatory "Yes X-Pac got boring, but the 123 Kid was better than your favourite wrestler so shut up" niceties out of the way, yes, X-Pac did get a bit boring there. The Attitude Era was a beast of constant advancement, a tinderbox in which endless characters and developments caught fire. X-Pac was passé and stale for all of a year.

Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler are getting away with murder and must replace X-Pac in the wrestling lexicon posthaste.

X-Pac was sort of f*cked multifariously by the year 2000. The sweeping brawling style didn't exploit his strengths, the new world he opened up years earlier had spat out technical wrestling demigods inbound from WCW, and the lowbrow comedy stylings of D-Generation X were now cringeworthy in comparison to the genuine joshing wit exhibited by Kurt Angle, Edge and Christian and the like. He was in danger of extinction, and Edge let him have it. These were ruthless times.

Edge in an infamous 2001 RAW segment told the former 123 Kid and Syxx that he had discovered something called "character development," as a rueful X-Pac remembered what that was.

"1998 called," he continued, and they're sick and tired of you."

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!