10 Wrestlers WWE Wished They’d Debuted Differently

Joining FCW in 2009, Windham Rotunda was a third generation star with a sizable upside. A cracking promo, he had heft and a burst of speed (remember that ‘tank with a Ferrari engine’ line they used to use?) and a commitment to character that bordered on method acting.

But this was the era of the game show version of NXT - a badly written reality TV competition written on the fly that drained the life and potential from everyone involved with it.

The main roster’s creative team had no plans whatsoever for the individuals on the FCW roster: giving them the cheesiest names possible, it simply threw them against the wall to see which one would stick. Rotunda was stuck with ‘Husky Harris’, which screamed 1980S UNDERCARD TALENT! at anyone who was still bothering to listen.

Then, in a rare moment of creative inspiration, NXT became heel super-stable The Nexus… only for McMahon to job out the entire faction to John Cena. Husky Harris joined the group just as it was neutered and handed to CM Punk to give him something to do - he lasted three months in the role, most of which was spent competing to become a member or competing to remain a member.

Sent back to developmental, Rotunda would finally hit gold with the Bray Wyatt character, which was brought to the main roster a year later. Even then, audiences did their best to derail his sinister malevolence by chanting HUSKY HARRIS at the man...