If anything is to be gleaned from the Stone Cold Steve Austin podcasts with Vince McMahon and Triple H, its that there is no magic wand that can be waved to make someone a massive star overnight. The way a wrestler becomes a superstar varies in each executives eyes Vince references reaching for the brass ring, while Triple H talks about the X or It factor so its clear that there is an intangible quality that WWE looks for in tapping its next big stars. Conversely, there sometimes are situations that pop up that derail a wrestlers career. For whatever reason, a WWE superstar was at the top of his or her game or on their way up the ladder when something halted their push, whether it was an injury, a wellness violation, a backstage incident or other unforeseen situation. Once they were sidetracked, it became difficult for them to recover. With 2015 boasting three months with a Friday the 13th, lets explore some of the unluckiest WWE wrestlers who saw their careers drastically altered from where they appeared to be heading. Part of what determines how unlucky they were is how big the plans/push for them was and how far they fell. Some recovered, but never made it back to that level again.
Honorable Mention: Triple H
It seems really odd to consider 13-time world champion and current storyline WWE COO Triple H as unlucky, but for a period of time earlier in his career, The Game was the recipient of a pretty serious punishment that could have derailed his career for good. In 1996, Triple H participated in the Madison Square Garden Incident with Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Shawn Michaels. The kayfabe-breaking incident was a major no-no in professional wrestling, and with Nash and Hall departed for WCW and Michaels holding the WWF Championship, the punishment fell squarely on Helmsley. Originally slated to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, Triple H would lose that spot to Steve Austin and go on to lose most of his matches for several months. Triple H would go on to win the 1997 KOTR tournament, so it was merely a delaying of his push. But seeing how he bore the brunt of the punishment for the MSG incident, it was a pretty notable situation.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
