10 WWE Disasters That Saved Themselves
9. Kassius Ohno
Kassius Ohno's promising first NXT run peaked during an awesome feud against William Regal which concluded following an acclaimed April 2013 bout with the veteran scoring the victory, leading to an Ohno face turn. Things started going wrong for him shortly after. Pulled from TV amidst reports that he wasn't committed to his conditioning training, Kassius was released by November.
A stellar independent run followed. When people call him the greatest indie wrestler of all time, the period he spent grafting around the globe between 2013 and 2016 is the argument-winning cherry on top, as promotions like PWG, EVOLVE, and Beyond played rost to Chris Hero's staggering rebirth. The Ohioan's in-ring creativity had been turned loose once more. He was delivering big at almost every time of asking, and barely weekend passed without him making indie headlines.
This buzz led directly to his WWE return in December 2016. Some may point to his lack of NXT focus since then as a downer here, but Ohno likely secured his long-term financial future by rejoining WWE. He's a walking wrestling encyclopedia who'd make a great Performance Center coach after hanging them up. He didn't come back to be a TakeOver headliner, either; he came back to give back in a complimentary midcard role putting younger wrestlers over, and to finally rest after grinding himself to dust on the indies.