For every guy who is pushed in WWE there seems to be at least 5 or 6 guys who get neglected. Not every guy can be a main event guy but the WWE has a roster of guys that for most part are immensely talented and under used. Below is a list of the guys currently being mishandled on the WWE main roster:
Cesaro
The former Claudio Castagnoli is probably the most obvious choice on the list. WWE have on paper a guy that surely has all the tools the look for in a top star. He’s got the look, he’s a tall muscular guy and he can talk well when allowed to. And most of all, the guy can wrestle. Many forget that Cesaro is on the main roster 3 years now. In that time, he has been lumbering through roles that weren’t for him (the real American role, the yodelling role) and was simply just given stuff to keep him busy on the mid card rather than actually pushing him.
Despite having great matches over his 3 years with a variety of different styled opponents, Cesaro has never really been given a proper feud, well not one that he can really sink his teeth into. His only real push was when he aligned himself with Paul Heyman only to unintentionally play second fiddle to Heymans character. WWE is missing the boat with Cesaro, a man who has what it takes to be at the top.
How could they easily rectify this mistake? Its a simple as getting rid of Kane and aligning Cesaro with the Authority in his place. Straight away he’s elevated and improving the product. Sadly WWE don’t see it my way.
Luke Harper
For anyone who seen Brodie Lee on the Indy scene, they know he can put on quite a show. Hell, just look at some of his matches in WWE and you can see that. In his frame and his in ring work, Harper reminds me of a young Mark Calloway. Sadly when he went solo, WWE didn’t know what to do with him creatively. Even though he did have an Intercontinental championship reign, it did nothing to enhance Harper character. Luke’s character stalled big time and soon enough he was paired back with Rowan. Now with Rowan injured, its like faith is telling WWE to push Harper as a singles guy.
I always envisioned Harper being paired with a mouth piece, similar to Don Callis. Brodie can continue to be the strong silent type with his mouthpiece manager being his voice akin to The Undertaker and Paul Bearer. It’s not hard to find a decent set of lungs to direct Harper and with a decent creative direction he could be a solid upper mid carder at the very least if used correctly.
Adam Rose
Here’s the thing with him, I never liked the Adam Rose gimmick after the 2nd week of him on the main roster. It got old fast and I always felt he should have been introduced as a heel instead. Now he is a heel but a jobber one at that and he isn’t given any time to really develop his character. I didn’t care about Adam Rose.
But a few weeks back, when his E60 doc, I saw the man behind the gimmick and I instantly warmed to him. This behind the scenes look did more for Adam Rose than any of his time spent on the main roster. Now Why WWE didn’t capitalise on this is beyond me! It was a great documentary and it really gave a great insight to Adam Rose the man and gave me a reason to care, something WWE have never done. It humanised him and made him likeable, something he hasn’t been ever on WWE TV since arriving on the main roster. All creative had to do was in the weeks following this doc, show a few more bits of this kind of footage on Raw over the coming weeks. He could of worked a good plucky underdog persona, yet we still get the same lame Adam Rose “don’t be a lemon” jobber character. WWE truly missed the boat with this one.
The Ascension.
Now I’m not going to preach that the Accession are great in ring masters in the same vein as Benoit, Okada or Tanahashi. They will never be match of the year contenders, that I’m certain. But it didn’t mean that they couldn’t have been a decent power/brawl tag team.
In NXT, they played to their strengths, built them up and made them look powerful, dominant and tough to beat. In about 3 weeks on the main roster, they were cannon fodder for old timers and over the hill buddies of HHH. It was essentially “how to bury a new tag team in as quick a time as possible”.
I reckon they might have been promoted too early from NXT, but they should have never been booked this way and they haven’t recovered. On the flip side of this angle, they should have looked strong by destroying all the legends in the ring on that night at the old school Raw episode. It would have solidified their mark on in the tag team division; instead they are just another jobber team now.
Damien Sandow
In the months that lead up to Wrestlemania, Sandow, or at the time Mizdow, was in a decent program with The Miz. The stunt double gimmick happened organically and the fans took to it. The build up to Mizdow breaking away from his “mentor” and giving The Miz his comeuppance was fairly well anticipated in the weeks that lead up to Mania. How ever, when Mizdow finally got his freedom and broke away from The Miz’s side, WWE had no clue how to follow up on this.
Here they had a fairly over guy in Sandow, who is fairly gifted on the mic and in the ring, yet they just had nothing for him. They paired him with Curtis Axel in a weak comedy gimmick and he deserves much, much more. The fans wanted to see him get at the least a decent feud from it or at even a bit of character progression, but no. We are given instead a poor Mega Powers comedy duo which hasn’t got much mileage in it. Sandow is capable of being a great performer, proved by his short Mr MITB run and feud with Cody Rhodes, yet he is left to rot in lower card obscurity.
