1. Tom Magee
Believe it or not, in 1986, Vince McMahon was already looking for the man who would be the next Hulk Hogan. He thought he had found him in "MegaMan" Tom Magee, a former bodybuilder with amazing athleticism and quite the pedigree (he was trained by Stu Hart and made his pro debut in the main event of an All Japan Pro Wrestling show). Even Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter lauded Magee, saying, "He was the greatest combination of strength and agility the business had ever seen." Magee wrestled Bret Hart in a dark match that drew rave reviewsaccording to Hart's autobiography, after the match, Tom "Dynamite Kid" Billington told him that Vince screamed "That's my next champion!" as he watched on the monitor. The wheels were in motion. Magee was put up against a series of jobbers for squash matches, but it wasn't the same as the match with Hart -- these bouts were terrible, getting progressively worse. Though the fervor surrounding Magee led to him finishing third in PWI's Rookie of the Year voting, WWE began to realize they would have to cut bait. By 1988, he was wrestling awful matches in Japan, and a return to WWE in 1989 saw him lose cleanly to Tim Horner and Barry Horowitz. After that, Magee retired from wrestling altogether, an inauspicious ending to a strange career.