The Problem With Andrade That No One Wants To Talk About

Creating stars intended to pop his humungous but underrepresented television demographic is something WWE has been trying to do for years, with countless wrestlers of Latino and Hispanic backgrounds trialled near the top.

The success of Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, and others in American wrestling drives this, but labelling a wrestler "the new Guerrero/Mysterio" is as big a curse as calling somebody that "next Undertaker." It places immeasurable expectations on the performer's shoulders, whether it comes from the media or WWE itself, and nobody has ever lived up to it.

Luis Alvirde, the original Sin Cara, was a huge star in his native Mexico, to the extent that he rightfully won the Wrestling Observer's Best Box Office Draw award in 2006, sandwiched between Kenta Kobashi the previous year and John Cena in 2007. He remains an elite high-flyer to this date but ultimately failed in a promotion that thrust him onto American television without adequate preparation, forcing the difficult adaptation from Lucha Libre to Sports Entertainment on the job, spawning the botches that killed his credibility. Reported attitude issues played a similar role in his demise, and Alvirde was gone within three years.

Alberto Del Rio had the size, technique, and for a long time, the office support, but was an unengaging performer for long periods and suffered from his own behavioural problems. Kalisto was once labelled the next Rey and Eddie but has never broken out of the undercard.

Andrade would have been in a better position to succeed had WWE learned from these failures, but they didn't, and unlike Del Rio, Kalisto, and Sin Cara, he didn't have the botches, reported bad attitude, or lack of size. With Vega, he was the total package.

There are no excuses. The system failed him.

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