10 WWE Stars Who Should Be WAY More Over Than They Actually Are
We're going underground.
Major-scale North American arenas are all too often confused for libraries in 2017.
WWE has so much talent that it often produces in spite of itself. The thing is, there is so much wonderful wrestling out there that stakes-free exhibition matches with oft-retconned results aren't enough, regardless of how exciting they are. You can watch superb wrestling anywhere. If that's all that mattered, New Japan would be far bigger than WWE. The frequency with which that promotion is putting on classics is as frightening as the lunatic bumps slowly defining them.
Why are WWE crowds so dead outside of known hotspots?
Fundamentally, there aren't enough unique, compelling characters because all bar a select few (John Cena, Chris Jericho and on occasion, The New Day) performers have any noticeable creative input on their personas and promos. What's depressing is that many of them have proven capable of elevating themselves well above the cornball material forced upon them.
More dispiriting still, some have proven capable of elevating themselves well above the cornball material forced upon them when appearing in a different arm of the same bloody company...
10. Neville
Neville was always an awesome wrestler, and is growing into an an awesome all-round performer.
He's unbelievably crisp and exciting. Perhaps more so than any performer of his ilk, you can buy his matches (when not hampered by nonsensical rules, as they were at Extreme Rules on Sunday) as something realistic. Much of that has to do with his awesome facial expressions; he transmits the aura of a killer when he cinches in the Rings of Saturn. It's a travesty that he is marooned on the 205 Live island. If Neville can't rescue that sinking ship, it's difficult to envisage anybody recovering the buzz generated by the Cruiserweight Classic.
It's up against everything. The time slot, even more so than scaled-back ring style, is inscrutable. It's on the Network; there is nothing to stop WWE other than WWE itself from airing the show before SmackDown, before crowds have already seen the top stars. There's also nothing to stop WWE from continuing with the Noam Dar/Alicia Fox/Cedric Alexander love triangle other than WWE itself. It was a terrible idea then, and it's a tedious idea now.
Even on RAW, Neville's appearances are met with something approaching apathy because those purple ropes have become a symbol of inconsequential, unspectacular Network filler.
He needs and has earned a promotion to the heavyweight ranks.