10 Wrestlers Who DESTROYED Their Career In A Single Moment
5. Alex Riley
Alex Riley really had something, and in an alternate universe might have used it.
Athletic and cocky, he learned the bland cookie cutter WWE developmental style very quickly, and his achievement on season two of the original NXT can be described, with no hyperbole, as towering. Everybody else on that show looked like a complete geek when Matt Striker smugly asked them to talk off the cuff about irrelevant topics. Riley took it in his stride. This is a searingly 2010 take, but the standard of the time was what it was (dog sh*t): Alex Riley seemed destined for stardom.
And then, apparently, he ran into John Cena.
Now, Riley might not be the most reliable of narrators - looking at his Instagram page, the plot appears to have been lost a bit - but former WWE wrestler Gabbi Tuft revealed that Cena tried to get Riley fired over an incident in which Riley was alleged to have failed to follow Cena's advice. Riley didn't do what was asked of him in a six-person tag, apparently, and from that moment on, his name was sh*t. Arn Anderson has been asked and, tellingly, never outright denied it.
Tuft herself may have motive to sully Cena's name - Cena apparently told her not to use the Burning Hammer when a botched attempt looked too much like his AA - but Riley's demotion was sudden even for the stop/start era of WWE booking.