10 WWE Careers That Flatlined After WrestleMania

1. Bart Gunn - WrestleMania XV

For poor Bart Gunn, he was absolutely set up to fail at WrestleMania XV.

Having shocked WWE management by winning the infamous Brawl for All, Gunn's prize was a boxing match against legendary knockout artist Butterbean at the 1999 edition of the Showcase of the Immortals.

Of course, Butterbean is someone whose professional boxing record nowadays features a stagger 58 knockout victories. While Bart had shown his own knockout power against Bob Holly, Steve Williams, the Godfather and Bradshaw during the Brawl for All, putting him up against Butterbean was never going to end well for the former Smoking Gunn.

Many have claimed that Gunn was paired up with Butterbean as punishment for winning a tournament WWE never intended for him to win, with the company instead presuming that Steve Williams would win the tourney and then move into a feud with 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. When Bart sparked out Dr. Death, that put an immediate halt to such plans.

Regardless of whether the Butterbean bout was indeed punishment or not, the result was Bart Gunn being KO'd after just 35 seconds.

In terms of the impact this 'Mania outing had for the WWE career of Bart Gunn, it would bring it to an immediate halt, with Bart soon departing the promotion and returning to All Japan Pro Wrestling.

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Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.

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