WWE Release Big Cass... Where Did It All Go Wrong?
10th of December 2015, I'm sat in the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle for the first night of NXT’s UK Takeover Tour. First out that night is Enzo and Cass and the place goes absolutely f****** nuts.
It’s honestly no overstatement to say that, on a roster with Bálor, Joe, Asuka, Bayley and Sami Zayn, they were the most over by a mile. They were even more over than Neville, who was born about five miles down the road from the venue.
Fast forward to their main roster debut and an introduction that I was told, by those in attendance, was the best part of the Raw after WrestleMania 33 by a country mile. They rode into the company that night on an absolute tidal wave of support. Gift of gab, gift of jab, they had the world at their feet and (more importantly) the company at their backs.
But a few nights later, specifically the night they just fell short against the Revival at Roadblock, who would have looked at that scene of them taking the applause from the crowd and predicted Carmella would comfortably be the biggest success of the three away from NXT?
Things started to go wrong very quickly for the pair. Their entrance schtick, which was sparingly used and thus more effective on an occasional NXT shows, had to get trotted out twice a week on Raw and Smackdown. It got old fast.
Then the matches started to roll in and, shock and awe, the pair just didn’t look as good in contests opposite The Ascension and Shining Stars as they had done against The Revival and American Alpha. Enzo injuring himself in matches didn’t help either.
With their support waining in the crowd and WWE starting to get itchy feet about pushing the big lad of the two, a split with Enzo and Cass represented a huge chance to establish them both as singles stars but their feud was… weird.
Neither of them are to blame for how badly it was booked but the story was that someone had mysteriously beaten up Enzo, which turned out to be Cass, except Enzo randomly decided he wasn’t bothered, and then Cass just beat him up again.
If the build-up was bad then the big payoff SummerSlam match was worse. What was the big breakout singles bout WWE wanted to launch Cass on? Him vs. Big Show, with Enzo Amore oiling himself up in a shark-cage above the ring.