6. Damien Sandow
Hired, fired, and hired again before finally landing on the gimmick that earned him a promotion to the main roster, the man now known as Damien Sandow has carved an entertaining niche for himself on the Monday and Friday night line-up. Encouraged to develop his intellectual ass act itself nothing new, The Genius, Bob Backlund, and Dean Douglas all previously having played on the anti-intellectualism of WWEs largely working-class audience and permitted time to grow in the role rather than receive the pressure-heavy and pitfall-laden mega-push of a Ryback, Sandow has evolved into a reliably entertaining attraction in the mid-card scene. That said, the cheap heat generated by inflaming audience insecurities has traditionally failed to elevate a practitioner beyond an under-card ass-kicking from a popular audience proxy, as The Bodydonnas and Simon Dean can readily attest. Equally dispiriting is the fact that Sandows Money In The Bank win was clearly conceived for shock value more than anything else, and despite holding the briefcase hes played second fiddle to former partner Cody Rhodes since their split. In order to recover any sense of sharing a similar trajectory with his upwardly-mobile former partner, Sandow needs to drop those comic-relief pratfalls that scream opening act and embrace a more ruthless and aggressive attitude in much the same way Alberto Del Rio did following his reversion to the dark side. Only when WWE has rehabilitated the character and served him a series of mid-card victories will audiences accept his credentials to join Cody in the queue that begins at the doors to the main-event elevator. His time will come, but not just yet.