5 Biggest Winners & Losers From WWE SmackDown Live (23 Aug)

5. Loser: Curt Hawkins

All due respect to Curt Hawkins, who is a talented wrestler in his own right, but he likely wasn’t top of anyone’s wish list when WWE started looking for old faces to return for the New Era. Hawkins is a perfectly serviceable worker with a handful of tag title reigns under his belt, but he was never given a chance to develop his personality on WWE television, and he struggled to get over once separated from Edge.

His impending return is similar to Jinder Mahal’s reappearance on Raw, and while the Split had fans dreaming of Kurt Angle and MVP, it looks like they’re getting a couple of enhancement talents instead. Every roster needs a few of those, but they don't get the pulse racing, and it’s hard to see where Hawkins fits on SmackDown’s new-look roster.

Hawkins is yet to appear on WWE television, but his return has been advertised through a series of throwaway vignettes. They’re trying to get the guy over by copy/pasting a handful of Chuck Norris Facts (a meme that died close to 10 years ago… good job, Vince) and substituting Hawkins’ name in there, but there’s no hype, and no reason for the fans to get invested. When you’re relying on such an antiquated joke to get a wrestler over, you should probably rethink your creative strategy.