Wasted Potential

[Chemist45]

I would like to touch on Titus O'Neil. I find him to be a great in ring worker, he has had some great promos as well, but this booking is terrible. I see Titus being upper mid-card potential, but sadly, WWE will never book him this way. Would the WWE be better with Vince McMahon dead? He's keeping it this way, it's absolutely horrendous.

 

[seabs]

For the current roster there are so many names it's unreal Zack Ryder was a strong seller in 2011/12 but they seem determined to push him down the toilet, Dolph Ziggler will be mentioned over and over again in this thread, Jack Swagger also could have been a strong uppermidcard heel but they went nowhere with him post MITB and a similar situation with Drew. Aside from DZ none of these guys are close to being mainevent talent but they all were in a good spot then dropped of the face of the earth.

 

[Chemist45]

For the current roster there are so many names it's unreal Zack Ryder was a strong seller in 2011/12 but they seem determined to push him down the toilet, Dolph Ziggler will be mentioned over and over again in this thread, Jack Swagger also could have been a strong uppermidcard heel but they went nowhere with him post MITB and a similar situation with Drew. Aside from DZ none of these guys are close to being mainevent talent but they all were in a good spot then dropped of the face of the earth.

I totally agree.

 

[Lockard 23]

Zack Ryder and Dolph Ziggler are the obvious ones that come to mind.

I never saw either guy as a headliner, but they could have been utilized better as strong midcarders/upper-midcarders but instead have been reduced to nobodies floundering about doing jobs for people with what air time they do manage to get. It doesn't make a lick of sense for guys who are popular as they are/were (Ziggler is actually #5 on the list of total merchandise sellers, if you can believe that... That's just right below Cena/Punk/Orton/Bryan, in that order) to be treated this way but meh.

What's funny is that the hottest feud in the past 3-4 years or more that involved either of the midcard belts was when Ryder and Ziggler competed with each other for the United States Championship at TLC 2011.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

(Ziggler is actually #5 on the list of total merchandise sellers, if you can believe that...

WHAT'S THIS SUPPOSED TO MEAN

 

[OverratedHeelIndyWrestler]

Brodus Clay comes to mind. Not buried, just utilized very poorly. Now they have him turning heel, but like how am I supposed to take this dude seriously as a bad guy when he pretended to be a dancing dinosaur for a year and a half? Coulda been a solid mid card heel. Now look at him. Just a lower card laughing stock.

 

[THG?]

Ziggler, Ryder, Ryback, etc. for sure. Not exactly wasted potential, but a shame Regal never became World champ.

 

[Grams and Ounces]

Brodus Clay comes to mind. Not buried, just utilized very poorly. Now they have him turning heel, but like how am I supposed to take this dude seriously as a bad guy when he pretended to be a dancing dinosaur for a year and a half? Coulda been a solid mid card heel. Now look at him. Just a lower card laughing stock.

All he has to do is say he did it for the little kids parents $'s and to bang the two birds but now he wants to be himself.

 

[Farooq]

Zach Ryder, not to be the WWE or World Heavyweight Champion, but at least the Intercontinental champion. He had a huge fanbase before, not to mention I think people cheered for him at his home city when he wasn't there. WWE could have worked off of that really.

 

[Wacokid27]

I mentioned in another thread that once Ryder became popular, his character just stopped developing and I stopped caring about him. I could easily see that as a waste of his potential. When he carried the US Title alongside Punk as WWE Champion and Bryan as WHC, there were a lot of people yelling that those three were the future. Well, Punk and Bryan have carried their end of the bargain, but I'm not seeing Ryder do the same.

As for Ziggler, I have to disagree with the people saying he's not main-event level talent. I believe that Ziggler is built more in the mold of Shawn Michaels than Bryan is (even though Bryan's the one that constantly gets the HBK comparisons) and I think Ziggler has both the talent and charisma to play that role and be a huge star in the WWE. I firmly believe that if it was not for one tremendously bad concussion, he would be a top-level heel right now. I can see them building The Authority's in-ring capability around Orton and Ziggler and comparing them to Helmsley and Michaels from the past. Having said that, I don't know that his current troubles are a waste of his potential as much as they are a delaying of his potential's realization. At least that's what I tell myself.

The biggest wastes of potential I see are Brodus Clay and Ryback. These two guys should have had the monster feud of 2013, but they couldn't work it around to make it happen. Both of these guys have tremendous looks and the right movesets, plus both of them are incredibly strong by all reports. Face Clay vs. Heel Ryback would have been massive. Instead, we got what we got from them: Clay in Tons of Funk and Ryback in...whatever the hell Ryback's doing now.

wk

 

[Action Jackson]

I would like to touch on Titus O'Neil. I find him to be a great in ring worker, he has had some great promos as well, but this booking is terrible. I see Titus being upper mid-card potential, but sadly, WWE will never book him this way. Would the WWE be better with Vince McMahon dead? He's keeping it this way, it's absolutely horrendous.

Trollolololol

 

[Toto]

think Justin Gabriel has a lot of potential too