12 Bad Wrestling Stories That Wasted Great SWERVE Ideas
11. Grayson Waller's "Pipe Bomb"
On July 28th 2026, former NXT star Grayson Waller made his return to the developmental brand after several years trying and failing to gain a foothold on the main roster beyond an unremarkable Tag Team Championship run alongside blowhard smug-a-like Austin Theory. Or as he called him, "240 pounds of idiot".
"A-Town Down Under" as an act had nothing going for it beyond the aforementioned WrestleMania XL title win, and Waller admitted as much when he turned up with fighting words for his Raw and SmackDown bosses, the current NXT roster, and the viewing audience. His latest doomed run was alongside The New Day before they decided to bet on themselves and leave for pastures new, and with nothing left to lose, he went somewhere where he could at long last be booked to get a win.
That's where this "Pipe Bomb" (their words) went wrong. Yes, Waller performatively raged against the machine from within it, echoing just enough of CM Punk's famous missive (more on that later) that he scanned as a guy that could be considered enough of a wronged party to earn a second chance. But he'd not really done quite enough with his first one for the rant to feel real.
The speech had made all the right noises in all the right order, and some of the barbs towards allegedly complacent talent were sharp enough to pop the NXT locals. But the promo never once felt transgressive.
Quite the opposite in fact - Waller felt as though he was simply introducing a new page of his character's script rather than tearing one up. Because he was - the Aussie became NXT Champion and settled into the same structure of over-familiar, matches, skits and promos as always within weeks of supposedly shocking rebrand.