9 Times WWE Killed A Popular Star In Less Than 60 Days
Whaddaya mean you're getting over? No chance. No chance in hell.
For years, one of WWE’s biggest issues has been with building stars. The control freaks insist on having it happen their way, refusing to capitalise on moments when characters become successful organically. Worse, they actively sabotage that success.
It's perhaps the most a*se-backwards way of operating a company imaginable. Finding success is tough at the best of times - to destroy it out of spite when it falls into your lap is beyond asinine. The fact it's a repeated trait makes you wonder just how the promotion is about to enter their most profitable year on record. Perhaps there's method to the absolute madness.
In recent years, WWE have done their damndest to destroy all manner of superstars - even sure-fire hits such as Asuka and Shinsuke Nakamura (what's the connection there?). Sometimes though, the company manages to do it in record time. It's almost like there's some sort of office sweepstakes resting on it.
9. The Authors Of Pain
Somehow, the Authors of Pain just worked in NXT. Despite Akam and Rezar, greener than Gaddafi's manifesto, being inexplicably paired with wrestling relic Paul Ellering and given a painfully puntastic name, the team managed to become greater than the sum of their parts, gradually drawing plaudits from even the most cynical of NXT's commentators.
A move to the main roster seemed the easiest thing in the world. Make the jump, crush some jobbers, and then continue where they left off. But for no apparent reason, after the duo's Raw debut - a decisive victory over Heath Slater and Rhyno - they binned off Ellering, with no explanation given. Externally, it seemed to be a case of the veteran manager not wishing to take on the main-roster schedule. Ellering refuted the claims. WWE simply felt he was too old to be on TV.
Without their mouthpiece, the Authors ran into writers' block. Unable to express themselves, they were just a pair of directionless bruisers lost amidst the mix. It took six months for WWE to realise their mistake, and align them with a new advocate, a ridiculous looking Drake Maverick in AoP cosplay.