10 Wrestlers WWE Pushed At The EXACT Wrong Time
3. Batista
WWE made it so easy to be a reductive cynic in the early to mid-2010s.
The programming was just brutally transparent and insulting, and the fans let Vince McMahon have it. This incited a ripple effect that indirectly led to the formation of All Elite Wrestling in 2019. Many events converged to create a mainstream alternative.
One was the push of a returning Batista in 2014, who entered, wheezed his way through and won the Royal Rumble match. He was jeered mercilessly. He was entitled. It was the exact opposite of a hero's journey. It wasn't even an unpopular story; it was a sudden and sh*tty one.
Daniel Bryan was white-hot at the time despite WWE telling the audience that he was a B+ player and then actually booking him as one in a programme with the Wyatt Family. It was beneath him, but his star power was so incandescent that he actually elevated it. Daniel Bryan could have worked David Otunga and tore the house down.
He was, in no uncertain terms, the man.
In another ripple effect, CM Punk walked out of WWE and Vince McMahon, through gritted teeth, had to accept that the pitched match of Batista Vs. Randy Orton was a disaster waiting to happen without one of his two internet darling consolation prizes to satisfy the insolent nerds.