10 Wrestlers Whose Careers Tanked After Winning Big
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00:00The follow-up is the most important part of wrestling. You'll hear annoying people like me
00:04talk about this all the time, but it's true. Doesn't matter how good the build is,
00:08if you pull the trigger and then don't stick the landing, it all goes downhill.
00:12My name is Simon Miller, and it's 10 wrestlers whose career went the wrong way
00:16after they'd smashed a home run.
00:1810. Bart Gunn
00:19This one always gets me, as it wasn't even Bart Gunn's fault,
00:22he just accidentally ran afoul of the office. It all goes back to the Brawl for All,
00:26which is so long ago, some people don't know. Happening in 1998, however, we had the grand
00:31idea to have shoot fights on Raw, which yep, meant by proxy, you were telling the audience
00:36that the rest of the matches were predetermined. Oh dear.
00:39It was all put together so that Dr. Des Steve Williams could win,
00:42get the rub and challenge Steve Austin. But if you want that,
00:45just have Williams win a bunch of worked scraps. That's the whole point. You're then in control.
00:50The then-WWF gave this up though, and of course it went bad. Steve got absolutely
00:55smashed by Bart, who did indeed prove he was pretty damn tough. Good for him.
00:59Of course this spot wasn't meant for he, so management was super mad,
01:02hence why come WrestleMania 15, they put him in a real boxing fight with pro fighter Butterbean,
01:08and he knocked Gunn out in seconds, and the final blow was sick.
01:12The WWF must have known this was a possibility, so essentially it was a punishment for messing
01:16up their plans. As you can imagine, Bart never recovered from this, and was soon let go.
01:22This was so horrible and dumb, just give him a proper go and see.
01:25But nope, we did this instead. Not sure Gunn ever got back to where he was.
01:299. Vader
01:31Before his WWF run and after his WWF run, Vader ruled. He would just wreck people and
01:36was a believable champion. There's a reason individuals consider him one of the best big
01:41men ever. Maybe it was due to this success that Vince McMahon was mad at Vader when he
01:44did get brought in, cause yeah, as we've heard time and time again, McMahon didn't like that.
01:50What you did elsewhere didn't count in the WWF, sure.
01:54It was still major news when he did join on in 1996 and was thrown in the deep end.
01:58He had a full on war with Shawn Michaels, and that was kind of the issue.
02:02It seems like Vader whacked HBK a little bit too hard,
02:04leaving Michaels to tell anybody who would listen he was done with that guy,
02:08and I suppose everyone agreed.
02:10There was also problems with Vince McMahon, as Vader always claimed he was forced to compete
02:13in the Royal Rumble that year before he was 100%, so it all fell apart. Then Vince Russo
02:19had him go on TV and call himself a fat piece of shit. Ugh.
02:23As soon as he was out the door, things got better for him, but in terms of the WWF,
02:27it was not a touch on what he'd done before.
02:308. Otis
02:31The man is just so likeable, hence why back in 2020 he got his story with Mandy
02:35Rose over like no one's business. People were desperate for them to get together.
02:39They eventually did, but good grief did he get dealt a bad hand.
02:42This all came to its grand conclusion during the pandemic.
02:46It was never gonna work. You can't unite two people and expect it to go well when there are
02:50no fans. That was the joy of the angle. We still tried, as he was given the money and the bank
02:55briefcase, but all of the above plied there too, and somebody made the great call for then-partner
02:59Tucker to turn on him as The Miz stole his world title opportunity. It was just bad.
03:05It did send Otis off into the doldrums for a while, but thankfully his association with
03:08Chad Gable and the Alpha Academy had put him back in the limelight.
03:11It may have already happened by the time you see this, but I would make him Intercontinental
03:15Champion at some point, and if we're gonna go big, let's go big, and it's the only way
03:20we will truly ever know. 7. The Great Khali
03:23This is an interesting one, but look, whether you thought much of Khali's wrestling or not,
03:27the office did get behind him. He was the flippin' world heavyweight champion.
03:31This was 2007, so Vince McMahon just wanted big guys doing big guy things,
03:36and who bigger than The Great One? I think he was the legitimate 7 feet tall,
03:40which explains why his knees stopped working. No way you can get away with that.
03:44He did work with the likes of Batista and Triple H, though, before everybody realised his limitations.
03:49Well, that's right, he became the Punjabi Playboy. He thinks the name came before the idea.
03:55He was also doing the Kiss Cam before long, and for context,
03:58that would be like Steve Austin turning up and doing the Hug Hour.
04:01I mean, he was WWE Champion too. The very last thing we saw him do was smooch Natalya,
04:06who at the time had a farting gimmick, so I'd try and be a positive guy,
04:10but this was quite the drop. 6. Queen Zelina
04:13This one sucks, because Zelina Vega did nothing wrong. I don't get it. It was Nia Jax who won the
04:18most recent Queen of the Ring, and that did rule, but in terms of the person who got this rolling,
04:22yeah, it's Vega, fresh from the Street Fire tournament. It was called the Queen's Crown
04:27then for some reason, but it is the same thing, and she even beat Piper Niven in the finals.
04:31The rumour mill says this was a make good after Vince McMahon had cancelled her 9-11 Smackdown
04:36appearance where Vega had a fitting tribute to her father. And yeah, why we did that anyway I
04:40don't know, but you're damn right she deserves something. The problem was, while she did get
04:44this moment, afterwards, nothing. It just meant there were no plans, and that sucks. If anything
04:50actually harmed her because she vanished from TV entirely, it was like she didn't exist.
04:54Eventually she was back in a random tag team with Carmella, which never works,
04:58before she got ruined by Rhea Ripley at Backlash 2023. I do hope we sort this soon.
05:03I like Zelina Vega, she just needs a proper chance.
05:075. Rob Van Dam
05:08Do you want to know how popular RVD was? When he was brought into the WWE, nobody cared what
05:13sort of story he was involved with. It wasn't the same for the other invaders, but the crowd loved
05:18Rob so much, he was instantly over. Even in 2002, some thought he was ready for a world title run,
05:24but that's never how it works. He had to pay his dues, so he did. That brought us to 2006 when
05:29Finding The Powers That Be did pull the trigger at the iconic One Night Stand PPV. He did have a
05:34lot of help to do this, but still. Van Dam defeated John Cena, and it was awesome.
05:39It also meant he was the WWE and ECW champion simultaneously,
05:43and it felt like he'd finally arrived. And then my word, it went bad.
05:47Just one month later, Robert got busted in a drugs charge, and WWE didn't like that.
05:52He swiftly lost his belt, and I presume had to be punished, so also lost his momentum.
05:57Certainly felt like his WWE career was never the same again,
06:00as I suppose whatever trust he had was gone. RVD had everything needed to be the man,
06:05but he never really kept it up.
06:09On paper, this should have never worked. Two, I suppose, narcissists and a giant Samoan man.
06:14The whole thing was mad because Too Cool were never meant to get over as much as they did,
06:18and even the original idea was that they were going to be the uncool hardy boys.
06:22That's how Vince Russo pitched it. It all blew up in 2000 because of how popular Big Kesh got,
06:26because we applied the usual sound wrestling logic.
06:29If he's getting these kinds of reactions, imagine if he was a bad guy.
06:33Hence why he was soon responsible for running over Stone Cold Steve Austin,
06:37and of course he did it for Da Rock.
06:39By then, Too Cool had fallen off because they'd lost their third friend.
06:42Grandmaster Sexay was then released in 2001 when he got into drug trouble.
06:46What a nightmare this turned out to be. It ruined all of them.
06:49Even then, though, people are still nostalgic about this. That's how much it was beloved.
06:54Number three, Mr. Kennedy.
06:55Kennedy. This one was wild.
06:57Because not only was Ken the chosen one,
06:59Vince McMahon was such a fan, he was going to make him his son.
07:03That's right.
07:04He also won the Money in the Bank briefcase at Wrestlemania 23,
07:07and almost instantly said he'd wait until next year and cash it in.
07:10He was so ballsy.
07:11Sadly, he then injured his shoulder, meaning Edge won the case of him,
07:14but this must have stung.
07:16What was thought to be a proper problem turned out to be something he fixed quite quickly.
07:20There was no need for him to lose his lovely contract.
07:23It was too late to change that, and before long, Kennedy got tied up in a steroid scandal,
07:27and after he caught the ire of John Cena and Randy Orton, he then got released.
07:32It was properly crazy.
07:33We all still thought he'd get a round two in WWE, because everybody does,
07:37and yet here we are in 2024, and it's never happened.
07:41Ken was most definitely the guy at one point.
07:44The turnaround was absolutely bonkers.
07:46Number two, King Mabel.
07:48A lovely guy by all accounts, but also somebody who would tag his opponents a lot.
07:52Mabel was also an odd choice to win the King of the Ring,
07:54given Bret and Owen Harder come before it, and yeah,
07:57in 1995 he kept injuring people by accident.
08:01He still got his world title match against Kevin Nash at SummerSlam though,
08:04when it went super bad.
08:05Mabel slammed his full weight down onto the Diesel, and it was so poor he almost got fired.
08:11Then months later, Taker did get it, because Mabel broke that guy's audible bone.
08:15My gosh.
08:16The big guy then did get his release, although of course he was brought back in 1999,
08:20before he went again.
08:22Then he was back as Big Daddy V.
08:24Just such odd gimmicks.
08:25It does go to show though that becoming King even back then didn't mean you were gonna fly,
08:30because when it came to Mabel, he went in completely the opposite direction.
08:33Number one, Damien Sandow.
08:36The intellectual saviour of the masses was just a joy as an asshole heel,
08:40and it worked so well, WWE management agreed.
08:43They decided in 2013 to have Damien Sandow win the money in the bank.
08:47As ever, WWE did their whole,
08:49well, you're going to lose until then, because the big victory will erase all that,
08:53when he got beaten by John Cena and failed to capitalise.
08:57It really did ruin this gimmick, but Sandow actually had more in his back pocket.
09:01He transformed into Damien Mizdow, or the Miz's stunt double, and it was wonderful.
09:05All WWE needed to do was have him eliminate his cruel boss,
09:09drawing the Andre the Giant Battle Royal, which he did do,
09:12and then right away the big show grabbed him and threw him to the floor.
09:16For goodness sake, just give him something.
09:18In 2016, they then released him, and all of this was ridiculous.
09:22You could do exactly what you were asked, and it didn't make a damn difference.
09:26Know of anybody else who hit the tippity top before falling back to the bottom?
09:29Please do let me know in the comments below.
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