18 Ups & 15 Downs For WWE In 2023

5. Waste Of Space

Austin Theory
WWE.com

There is a plethora of arguments one could make to illustrate how big of a waste Austin Theory has been, but one fact might stick out more than the others:

Theory held the United States Championship for more than seven months this year.

Got that? Theory was a secondary champ for the entire first half of the year, including four months on SmackDown at a time when Roman Reigns was all but invisible, making Austin the only men’s singles champion on the blue brand week in and week out.

His WrestleMania 39 win over John Cena should have been a career-defining moment, and instead it shone a spotlight on how inadequate he was, gaining absolutely nothing from it and coming out of Mania with even less momentum.

It wasn’t until he lost the title and partnered with the more talented and entertaining Grayson Waller that Theory became somewhat bearable, which in incongruous with how WWE presented him upon his call-up in 2021.

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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.