Right now, the WWE Universe is on the Road to WrestleMania, preparing for the biggest show of the year. Normally, this also means the biggest names in the industry are gearing up to face off in matches that could make their careers and will be remembered for all ages.
This year, however, there are tons of injuries getting in the way. One would think the other stars would be making up the difference, getting pushes that they wouldn’t normally receive and taking huge strides to better their careers, but it’s become painfully obvious that some people still just don’t matter all that much to the powers that be.
Since Fastlane is upon us and the theme of the month is setting your sights on the roads ahead, I figured it would be appropriate to break down some noteworthy names that are on the path to failure as well as success for the year. This will be a 4 part series split between the main roster and NXT, and since it’s always good to get the bad news out of the way first and today seems to be full of releases from the minor leagues, we’re going to start off with failure on the NXT roster.
Since it’s developmental, there are different expectations for the performers, but with that also comes its own set of qualifiers. Sometimes, we see people like Baron Corbin make huge strides in improvement like in 2015, but when someone fails to live up to what’s necessary, things are even worse in this territory. A bad year on the main roster means no special perks, but a bad year in NXT more than likely means being released.
*NOTE: In the rough draft of this list written up several days ago, Marcus Louis and Sylvester Lefort were two of the big candidates. Obviously, with the events that have transpired today, that’s confirmation that they were in a bad spot. Hopefully for the sake of the others on this list below, they don’t receive the same bad luck, but if they do, this list will be updated to reflect those changes.
Angelo Dawkins & Sawyer Fulton
There is no doubt that the lowest tag team on the totem pole in NXT, nay WWE in its entirety, is the two men who formerly went under the banner of Shoot Nation. It seems as though they aren’t even the go-to jobbers to choose to put people over, which says a lot about their future potential.
Although Fulton’s hair has changed numerous times, neither has been repackaged in any way to indicate that they are on an upswing of any kind, nor have they ever really been given any time to showcase any personality they may have (if they have any at all).
We haven’t heard much of a peep from them lately, and that’s almost never an indicator of good things to come.
Mojo Rawley
Some may be shocked to see his name on this list, and I’ll admit that he’s not anywhere near as bad off as some others here, but I still think Mojo isn’t in a good spot right now. Clearly, he doesn’t factor into the plans for WrestleMania season as nearly all of those episodes have been taped and he’s not exactly a big player on those shows.
The Hype Bros are in a position where they’re the jobber babyface tag team well underneath Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady, who are also underneath Chad Gable and Jason Jordan in the pecking order. Mojo looked to be having a nice run ahead of him when he was a singles star, but his injury sidelined him and forced him to go back to square one.
In the end, this could be a good thing, as Mojo might be the type of guy who had too much emphasis put on him before he was ready. Less of the spotlight in 2016 might allow him the opportunity to improve without being under the microscope so in 2017, he starts making some splashes. Alternatively, though, this could just be a sign that WWE’s lost faith in him. They could be wanting to squeeze as much out of him to put other people over as possible before tossing him away as a failed experiment.
Zamariah “ZZ” Loupe
ZZ didn’t make the cut to be in Tough Enough, but sneaked his way onto the competition through taking someone else’s spot. Somehow, the fans responsible for voting decided that he was funny enough to laugh at to keep him from being eliminated week after week, and he finished as the runner-up in the competition.
That should have been the end of things, since everyone knew he was a lost cause and people within the industry were even outspoken about how ridiculous it was for him to be in that environment. And yet, despite all that, here we are with him under contract in WWE.
All that’s happened since Tough Enough was ZZ looking like a failure on Breaking Ground and then getting injured. 2016 starts off with him unable to even get in the ring to attempt to learn what he’s doing wrong. While I can safely say I wouldn’t do any better of a job than he (in fact, I’d likely be 10x worse in the ring than he is, even) I also would never claim to be someone WWE should be paying to wrestle. The same should apply to him and I have to believe that his trajectory for this year isn’t exactly shooting for the moon and reaching Mars.
Aliyah
The only person struggling as much on Breaking Ground as ZZ is Nhooph, aka Aliyah. She’s been part of the NXT brand for a long enough time that we’ve now seen people make laps around her progress. There are only a handful of women on that roster to begin with, but she’s somehow remained in the dark for months and months on end.
Someone like Mandy Rose is instantly more valuable to the company right now than her, as she’s on Total Divas making a name for herself like Eva Marie rather than being portrayed as a student who can’t quite pass all the tests like Aliyah is on Breaking Ground.
Live Morgan isn’t quite in the mix yet, but she wrestles more on television and comes off as more seasoned. Even Deonna Purrazzo—who isn’t under contract with WWE on par with any of them—is carving a better niche for herself.
Those are just a few names that stand out to me as people with a rough road ahead of them this year. Stay tuned for part 2 where we’ll break down some people on the main roster as well as the two optimistic sections talking about which people will probably see much more success in 2016.
Tell us your thoughts on this list and any other people you think might struggle this year in the comments below!
