7 Amazing Wrestlers WWE Had No Plan For

5. Blake Monroe

Blake Monroe WWE
WWE

When Mariah May left All Elite Wrestling, many were quick to note that her time in the company might have been the platonic ideal of what a short stint in a 52-week-a-year company can be. 

Comparisons were made to territory spells for the hottest stars of the 1980s, and they rang true. May arrived on a November 2023 edition of Dynamite as if from nowhere unless you happened to be up on her priors elsewhere. This character was brand new though, as she marauded backstage looking for then-Champion Timeless Toni Storm. She explained that she had followed in Storm's footsteps from Japan was now here in AEW to do the same. Interviewer RJ City noted that she wasn't in attendance that night, but that he could introduce the pair, and May was delighted. This began what was effectively her lone storyline in the company.

Over the course of a run that culminated at Revolution 2025 just 16 months later, they paired up, violently split via May's brilliantly brutal heel turn, wrestled each other at Wembley Stadium, enjoyed character shifts to facilitate unique twists in the absorbing tale, and paid the whole story off with a "Hollywood Ending"; a brawl that remains one of the company's best ever matches.

It was perfect, but perhaps too perfect. Like a portfolio of the soon-to-be-renamed Blake Monroe operating at her peak, it was ideal for landing her dream job in WWE, but less so for what followed. Exposing the organisational failings of NXT and WWE, arriving with only her immediate programme (an only-okay mini-run against Jordynne Grace) didn't inspire anything close to the excitement around her All Elite run. Her main roster call-up was even more listless - odd appearances live felt like cameos, interspersed with cheaply-assembled vignettes that featured her making vague threats to the women's roster with no real sense of deeper direction. A post-WrestleMania call-up resulted in her working just twice in six months, with one of those being a dark match yet again against Grace - a fellow blue brand busted flush.

Cream rises to the top and things will likely get better going into 2027 for Monroe, but WWE's never been more unstable a place for those not spiking a graph somewhere in a TKO boardroom. The sooner she lands on even an abbreviated version of the Storm saga, the better. 

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 70,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.