10 Wrestlers WWE Fans Were Convinced Would Become Megastars (But Didn't)

10. Derrick Bateman

Derrick Bateman WWE EC3
WWE.com

Daniel Bryan's rookie on the much maligned fourth season of NXT, Derrick Bateman, stood out like the sorest of thumbs back in 2010 & 2011.

Johnny Curtis was talented but bland, Brodus Clay was big but limited, and the less said about Jacob Novak the better. If one was putting money on a member of the fourth season of NXT going on to become a major star, Derrick Bateman was the only option.

Bateman would go on to become a world champion, but he would have to leave WWE in order to do so. After surprisingly only finishing third in that season of NXT, Bateman did a whole lot of nothing on the main roster before returning to NXT for the even-more-maligned NXT Redemption season. Bateman would become one of the highlights of that show, but it was all for nought.

Despite the possibility of becoming 'That USA Guy', Bateman was released from his contract in May 2013, and whilst his release was lamented by many it didn't really come as a huge surprise.

Less than six months after his WWE departure Bateman turned up in TNA as Ethan Carter III, and EC3 became one of the few former WWE guys that TNA actually managed to use better.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.