10 WWE Main Eventers Fans Rejected
5. Rikishi
It’s easy to forget that Rikishi was a white-hot upper-midcard babyface at the turn of the century. His alignment with Too Cool made him one of the most popular guys on the roster, and after years of obscurity as Fatu and The Sultan, Rikishi had finally found his place as a fun-loving pseudo sumo blessed with surprising skill levels for a man of his size.
Unfortunately, Rikishi’s popularity came screeching to a halt in 2000. In a move designed to install him as WWE’s next big main event heel, the company revealed him as the man who ran down Stone Cold Steve Austin at Survivor Series ‘99, and nobody bought into it. One week prior, Rikishi was a happy go lucky hip-hop dancer with a fondness for rubbing his ample posterior in people’s faces: now, he was being painted as an attempted murderer.
Nobody took to Rikishi as a villain, and his turn was a total disaster. The angle soon ran out of steam, and WWE abandoned it quickly, unveiling Triple H as the real mastermind behind the incident. Rikishi’s reactions had gone from explosive face pops to complete silence, and he was never able to regain his lost popularity.