10 Wrestlers WWE Pushed At Exactly The Wrong Time
Pushing Bob Backlund in 1993 was like pushing Bob Backlund in 2023.
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00:0010. Bob Backlund
00:23So Bob Backlund is a legend, let's not pretend otherwise, but deciding to push him in 1993
00:29is the equivalent of bringing back a Golden Star from yesteryear and giving them the rub
00:33today. I suppose times were just different and to be fair, Bob was only 43 years old
00:39when he did make his surprise return. That's younger than Seamus, AJ Styles and Bobby Lashley
00:44and yet for some reason this felt like your grandad being booked. Made no sense. He just
00:49wasn't connecting with a new fanbase even though Vince McMahon allowed him to break
00:52the record for the longest time spent in a single or all rumble. So do you want to know
00:56what we did? We turned him into a lunatic. Yep. I mean we basically tied all the loose
01:00ends together as Backlund openly talked about being a man out of time and not being able
01:05to adjust to the modern world. Weird stuff. Let's give Bob his due too, he was very good
01:10at this, but the feeling remained that the new generation which the then WWF was pushing
01:15didn't really have a place for Backlund, even if he was a former world champion. Just didn't
01:21click.
01:229. Austin Theory
01:23So I actually think this one is a little too early to call. If we don't treat our future
01:27stars like stars, nobody is going to think they're a star. That's called wrestling
01:31logic. But I do get it. People have this conversation a lot especially after John Cena returned
01:36to Raw and eviscerated this man on the microphone. They felt that he said what we were thinking,
01:41and he likely did. Because Cena's whole point was that win or lose during their WrestleMania
01:46match, Austin hasn't unlocked the magic yet so he will continue to struggle to connect.
01:51To use proper wrestling vernacular, Theory isn't clicking. There's that word again.
01:55And I do think that's key because he should beat John at the show of shows and then we
01:59can take stock. It's a reason both Triple H and Vince McMahon have seen something in
02:03him. That's not an accident, we just need to expose it on a wider scale.
02:07If he did become the WWE Champion tomorrow though there would still be work to do, and
02:12it's within this area we must operate. So sure, Austin Theory may be the future of the
02:17company, but that doesn't make him the now, and this really is going to be an interesting
02:22case study to see play out.
02:248. Dolph Ziggler
02:25So this is the forever conversation. Should Dolph Ziggler have been pushed in a different
02:29way to how he was? Yes. Yes he should have been. The reason I use such a term is because
02:34he still had huge moments. He was the world champion and had the occasional main event,
02:39but he was and is so good you have to figure that more could have been done. The dude could
02:43do it all.
02:44So back to the 2010s especially, everybody wanted to see Ziggler get his, apart from
02:49seemingly Vince McMahon. The boss felt like he knew better, so while Dolph got thrown
02:54a bone here and there, it wasn't the all-encompassing madness we desired. It was strange.
02:59The issue that arose is Ziggler was so talented he started to become a main roster gatekeeper,
03:03meaning he lost all the time. Even though wrestling is predetermined, it's still watched
03:08by human beings, so consciously after a while you just decide, well this guy never wins,
03:13I'll go and focus on somebody else.
03:15By the time we tried to do something in 2019 it was way too late, and none of this was
03:19his fault. Dolph has still had a great career and an enviable one, but is it what it should
03:25have been? I don't think so. But that's the point. Wrong place, wrong time.
03:307. Big E
03:31Big E deserved so much better than this. I loved it when he became the WWE champion,
03:36but much like stable mate Kofi Kingston, for some reason the company did not do right by
03:40them at all. Because even though the powerhouse did cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase
03:45to rise the ranks, at no point was he ever treated like the man. Instead he kind of fluked
03:50his way to wins, which is nuts. Have you seen Big E? He could crush us all.
03:54It all took off in September 2001, which I would still argue was too late as he had connected
03:59years prior, when we limped through to the Survivor Series and Roman Reigns just beat
04:04him. That's right, he didn't even involve the Usos. So maybe this isn't about it being
04:08the wrong time, management just didn't know what they were doing. On the flip side, the
04:12whole focus wasn't the Tribal Chief, so whatever we did was always going to put Big E in second
04:17place but still. This was stupid. That's right, I said it.
04:21Big E had and has all it takes to be a great babyface champion, you just needed to support
04:26him as such.
04:276. Mr. Ass
04:29I always enjoy it when we go back to this era and talk about Mr. Ass, because that was
04:33his name. Billy Gum was gone, and if anybody walked into the room, you'd have to tell
04:38them you were watching Mr. Ass. So that's the end of that relationship.
04:42It is important to remember that in 2023 AEW have done a terrific job with him, and he
04:47is mega over, but when the WWF tried to push him in 1999, they weren't really reading
04:52the room. For whatever reason, the adjut era fans didn't see Billy Gum as a main eventer,
04:57likely because he'd spent his whole career being a tag team guy. With the Road Dogg especially,
05:01he had done a lot of goofy stuff, and while it's always goofy wrestling for life as far
05:05as I'm concerned, you can't just try and be serious, you need some sort of evolution.
05:10We just chose to name him even more after his rectum.
05:13The real nail in the coffin is when he went head to head with The Rock and Man. This was
05:17death in the ring. The rumour has always been that Dwayne Johnson didn't really want to
05:20work with a dude obsessed with his bum, so walked out onto Raw and just killed him with
05:24a microphone in his hand. Gum wasn't ready for that, and he never really recovered, at
05:29least not in this role.
05:30I remember all of this, and the problem really was that we went too fast. The powers that
05:34be just woke up one day and screamed Billy can do it, rather than figure out how to get
05:39him there. Because sure, he could have done, but without the right pathway, nope, didn't
05:44work.
05:455. Lord Tensai
05:47I still do not get this one, at all. Somebody saw that Matt Bloom was doing excellent work
05:52in Japan, but rather than bring him back to WWE and let him be that guy, they drew symbols
05:58all over his face and called him Lord Tensai. This wasn't 1987 either, it was 2012, and
06:06he was put into a feud with John Cena.
06:08Fans weren't having this at all and started to chant Albert for obvious reasons, and given
06:11that Brock Lesnar soon returned in the role that Tensai should have had, forget about
06:16it, he was done.
06:17It didn't last long either as even WWE realised they'd made an error. Poor Mr. Bloom. Rather
06:23than try and fix it, they made him the hip-hop hippo, which yes, was him dancing around
06:29with the Funkasaurus. Only in wrestling you can say that sentence.
06:32Why the hell do we watch this?
06:354. Triple H Rehires
06:36So once again we do have to wait and see. It's too early to tell because things can
06:40change in an instant, but at the moment a lot of the wrestlers Triple H rightfully hired
06:44back to WWE haven't found their feet yet. In fact, most have vanished from TV.
06:49Hit Row were all over the place before going heel, and then they were no longer being featured.
06:54After a decent feud with Drew McIntyre, Karrion Kross feels lost in the shuffle. I mean, in
06:58the lead-up to WrestleMania 39 he was barely seen.
07:01Tegan Nox hasn't done much of anything so far, which is the same for Candice LeRae and
07:05Mia Yim. Not even sure any of them has had a proper feud yet.
07:09Dakota Kai has done better, but Damage Control too were slightly misplaced. We're still
07:13waiting on Bronson Reed. He's been having some great squash matches, but you can't
07:17do that forever. You need some meat on the bones.
07:20So we do need to give a shout out to Braun Strowman, who did return and picked up exactly
07:23where he left off, but a lot of the mentioned folk are going to need some rehab eventually.
07:28Let's not get it wrong though, I'm glad they have jobs. I'm not one of those crazies
07:32on Twitter. They shouldn't have been fired in the first place.
07:353. Batista
07:36So as far as I'm concerned, Batista is one of the most underrated wrestlers ever. The
07:41vibe was always that he was a one-trick pony, but he wasn't. The dude had nuance and layers
07:45for days, hence why he's smashing it in acting. He gets it.
07:49When he decided to return in 2014, WWE got it totally wrong. And do you know who called
07:55this before it even kicked off? Big Dave. As soon as he was told his plans, the Animal
08:00fired back this was a bad idea. He was right.
08:03Vince McMahon was adamant that Batista came back as a good guy and win the Royal Rumble,
08:07even though we all knew that would get him booed. This was a time where it was Daniel
08:11Bryan or bust, and it took watching the show for 10 seconds to see that.
08:15It was also in this period where CM Punk walked out, which heightened the cause, and poor
08:19Batista got caught in the crosshairs. If we had just brought him back as an evil man,
08:24none of this would have been an issue. That's why sometimes you should listen to your wrestlers,
08:29almost like they know what they're doing.
08:312. Braun Strowman
08:32So as said earlier, Braun Strowman is smashing it right now. Whoever is responsible for his
08:37current placement and booking, bravo. It's great.
08:39This was kind of the same back in 2017 when the Monster Among Men was the most over the
08:43top thing in wrestling, but man it rocked. He was flipping cars and making Roman Reigns'
08:49life a living hell. There was a problem, during the time where we pushed the big dog and nobody
08:54else. It got really stupid as you could tell WWE knew this, and figured out ways to give
08:58Strowman a little something while never letting him properly beat Roman, and that's why it
09:02was dumb. All the fans wanted it, just pull the trigger.
09:06It really was frustrating because it wouldn't have affected anything in the long run. Braun
09:10could have had his 5 minutes and then sure, go back to Reigns as and when, but give us
09:14something. You know what all this means, sometimes you're just not allowed to have nice things.
09:191. Roman Reigns
09:20And speaking of all of this, yeah, who else? For if you watched the Roman Reigns experiment
09:25in real time, you know it was insane. Every week for years Vince McMahon demanded that
09:30Roman was treated as a megastar, even though fans constantly called for somebody else.
09:35My Nan could have figured this out, and she doesn't even know what wrestling is, and
09:38she's dead.
09:39It's not like Reigns hadn't connected before this because the Shield were excellent, but
09:42it was the insistence to not even play around with this that sent people nuts. And lo and
09:46behold, what happened when we got to the head of the table character? He turned into one
09:51of the best performers of modern times. I tell you, I am shocked. We did so much here
09:56too with Roman winning multiple world titles and even beating The Undertaker for only the
10:00second time in Mania history. But yeah, if we had just turned him heel, forget all this
10:05right place right time nonsense, it wouldn't have mattered. We didn't know, and as ever,
10:10we ignored it for as long as we possibly could.
10:15Know of any other wrestlers WWE pushed at exactly the wrong time? Make sure you let
10:19us know in the comments below and then don't forget to like the video, share the video
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10:36My name is Simon from WhatCulture, thank you very much for joining me as always. You take
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