6. Lord Tensai
The massive Matt Bloom was with the WWF/E for five years during the Attitude Era, first as Prince Albert, then just Albert, then A-Train. He had a ton of potential, but it took travelling to Japan in 2004 and working as a top level star against top level talent, first in All Japan and then in New Japan Pro Wrestling, for that potential to be realised. When he returned to WWE in 2012 as the Japanese-inspired monster heel Lord Tensai, Bloom was on fire. The gimmick was solid, and hed score a winning streak angle upon his re-debut whose victims included no less than John Cena and CM Punk. Unfortunately for Bloom, these days the WWE Universe had a much longer memory and chants of ALLLBERT would fill every arena the company toured for months. Bray Wyatt would find himself saddled with the same problem (HUSKY HARRIS HUSKY HARRIS) the following year, but was able to climb out of the hole and get his new character over through the sheer force of his verbose charisma and the strength of the gimmick. Blooms reticent monster gimmick didnt have that cache to it. His push downgraded from main event to midcard, Tensai dropped the Lord, then the winning streak, losing to first Cena and then Sheamus. This developed into a losing streak angle - never a positive step, but especially not after debuting with the opposite gimmick. By December, Tensai was being jobbed out to comedy act Santino Marella. The following month, he was engaging in dance-offs and being forced to wear lingerie in the ring. Theres nothing wrong with being a dancing comedy act, especially given Blooms hitherto undiscovered talent for it, but its not exactly a main event spot. The following year, Bloom made the decision to retire as an active wrestler, moving into a commentators role in NXT, and then into a trainers position in the WWE Performance Centre. Hes now head coach for NXT, and the man in charge of shepherding the next generation of WWE superstars to the main roster.
Jack Morrell
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Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
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