 What's good, George Boyd Ross back again with another video. So we're going to check out 11 times. WWE wasted white hot stars. Well, it's one of those things where WWE they'll have someone that's super over mega over actually over in a way organically and they don't capitalize when the iron is hot. You know, they have this particular situation, this particular wrestler that's gotten over organically. The people want them see is the people want to see him as the champion and they don't pull the trigger for whatever reason. And maybe sometimes they wait a little bit long to pull the trigger or maybe they just don't pull the trigger at all with that individual. If you guys remember, in my opinion, Samoa Joe around the time when Brock Lesnar was the Universal Champion, I thought Samoa Joe would have been a perfect person to put to become the Universal Champion at that moment. Granted, we knew what they were all doing. Rockers being all these top guys. So that way Roman can be the one to ultimately slay him. But I think he was just super white hot, super over at the time and they didn't do it. People wanted to see Joe as the champ and it never happened. He was super over and they didn't pull the trigger. So they never pulled the trigger with him actually. So we're going to check out some of these moments. Appreciate all the love and support you guys have shown on the channel. Boy, I wonder what prompted this topic to land on my desk. WWE really had a hard time making new top stars after that John Cena fellow took off and a lot of that comes from the company's inability to capitalize on a ready made star falling in their lap. A problem the company seems to still be suffering from. We may be all of nine days removed from WrestleMania 39 and the shocking non-coronation of Cody Rhodes, but it is safe to say that the decision and the subsequent sale of WWE paired with the confirmation of Vince McMahon's return haven't filled fans with much hope for Cody's future. But Cody isn't the only one who has felt the moderate heat of WWE's back burner. PfK fans raise your arms and give me your strength. I'm going to try and get through this one without losing my will to live as a wrestling fan. Peaceful thoughts. I'm Tempest Hailing from Parts Fundone and these are 11 times WWE wasted white hot stars. But before we get on with this list, make sure of course that you like this video, subscribe and enable notifications to always on. So you never miss a fun list just like it and make sure you check out the two new episodes of survival series that have hit the airwaves this month here on PfK. Number 11 Damien Mizdow in 2015. He was super over two. I was recently asked on our Patreon mailbag show subscribe at patreon.com forward slash Russell talk. What small wrestling decision still bothers me and I would still be hard pressed to find a different answer than Damien Mizdow not defeating the Miz for the fight to become the Miz. No one can possibly tell me that Damien Mizdow wouldn't have taken that gimmick further than the Miz has the last eight years. Maybe Mizdow would have actually brought prestige back to the Intercontinental Championship after becoming the at the time biggest loser in money in the bank history Damien Sandow took on a second career as the Miz's stunt double which got over more than anyone could have hoped including WWE themselves. No, he he he made that role his own bro. He it was it was one of those funny things that was hilarious because he legitimately was his stunt double and he made it work. Damien Mizdow became the best comedy act WWE had had in many a year and WWE just couldn't have that killing off the duo at WrestleMania 31 after months of Teeth's splits Mizdow was the runner up in the Andre Battle Royal and then got beat by the Miz ending the feud and the hottest period of Mizdow's career. Number 10, Rusev in 2017. Huh, would you look at that? It's Rusev Day. What was it that Vince McMahon said about the fans love of Rusev Day? They were chanting it to mock him Christ Almighty peaceful thoughts, peaceful thoughts. This was right in the thick of when it seemed as if WWE would punish stars for getting over on their own. If you weren't told to do it better not do it. No matter how loud the people are cheering for you. Rusev was one of WWE's funniest wrestlers giving us such gems as handsome Rusev TV champion Rusev and of course Rusev Day the holiest of days celebrated each and every day. The act of Rusev and Aiden English worked better than you would expect and caught fire at Clash of Champions 2017 with a lovely lads challenge for the Smackdown tag team titles. WWE don't seem to call Audibles very often, but they would have been more than justified had they pulled the trigger on Aiden and Rusev given this incredible response. It's the Smackdown tag titles. It wouldn't have mattered instead. WWE seemed inclined to remove the stone of shame from Rusev's neck and instead attached the stone of triumph having him get pinned by Jinder Mahal at WrestleMania 34 get betrayed by Aiden in a storyline that went nowhere and then turn heel by WrestleMania 35. Yep. Happy Rusev Day indeed. Yeah, number nine Cesaro in 2014. Oh to travel back to early 2014 when Cesaro had only been on the main roster for two years and he was having excellent matches with Sami Zayn and NXT until it was time to split from Jack Swagger at WrestleMania 30 a time where there was still hope at WrestleMania 30. What a moment he had. Yeah, Cesaro won the inaugural Andre the Giant Royal Memorial Battle Memorial back when there was also hope for that stipulation in one of the biggest highlights of a pretty darn decent WrestleMania and people were excited and then the very next day WWE cut the knees out from under the babyface run of Cesaro precisely 24 hours in the very next night on Raw. WWE took a prospective new top babyface star and put him with Paul Heyman. Now Cesaro and Paul Heyman sounds like a winning pair but the problem then became WWE never actually followed through with Cesaro's ascent to the main event scene. Cesaro never so much as sniffed a pay-per-view main event until 2021 when he was also quite hot, albeit with no crowd. But even in this case Cesaro got beat and slipped back down the card. Yeah. Number eight Oscar in 20. And I know people's I guess gripe about Cesaro. He's not good on the microphone hints. That's why Paul Heyman was there once they grouped him with him. I was like, okay, this is something they got something here. He doesn't have to be the best on the microphone. You can have him go out there and destroy people. They didn't really follow through with it 18 as we continue to get into booking baby faces has never been WWE's Forte. It has been too complicated much of the time with the company too often relying on beating their heroes like a dusty rugged sparing cleaning resulting in those stars losing their shine like Rey Mysterio in 2006. Sami Zayn in 2016 or Bailey in 2017. Yeah. Now how do you fix that problem? Surely a baby face with a huge undefeated streak takes that problem right out of your hands. Oscar arrived on the main roster at TLC 2017 and immediately the vibes were just off compared to her run in NXT. She still won a bunch of matches but no longer was she an unstoppable force instead selling for folks like Emma and Nia Jax when she had been killing them in NXT. But it's just a little less over. It's still good. It's still good. She won the Royal Rumble really the only finish that made sense given the occasion and all signs pointed to Oscar beating Charlotte at WrestleMania 34 until that very much didn't happen. But she's just a little less undefeated. It's still good. It's still good. But then rather than having that distinction elevate Charlotte, she lost to Carmella twice in a row and to really hit the point home. Oscar then lost to Carmella twice in a row as well. But she's just a little it's gone. I know number seven Dolph Ziggler in 2013. I think she should. I think a lot of people even now agree feel like she should have won at WrestleMania, which I think she should have. I love Bianca. I don't know what they have planned for it, but I think her winning would have been something nice. Maybe she gets a rematch. Something happens at back glass, but I do think she should have won at WrestleMania. That's just my opinion. Oh, Dolph, it should have been me Ziggler. At one point it really should have been you at a few points really the biggest of which of course has to be the once greatest money in the bank cash in ever in 2013 where Mr. Ziggles won the World Heavyweight Championship on the Raw after WrestleMania. The moment that had been built up to for nine months and paid off perfectly, seemingly ready to launch Dolph into the main event scene and then Dolph got a concussion now granted that is out of WWE's control. One of the greatest cashings of all time. One of the greatest cashings. I sometimes go watch that Dolph Ziggler cash in just to like reminisce on just how fucking crazy that crowd went, bro. Oh, what wasn't out of their control. However, was WWE playing this off as comedy with Dolph forgetting that he had cashed in and then losing to notable prick Alberto Del Rio in his first title defense at payback. It was Vince's thought that giving Dolph the title was merely the right thing to do for that moment, but he had no intention of giving Dolph the accompanying push. That's dumb to me. But what's dumber is getting another chance to give Dolph the rub a year later with a fantastic performance at the 2014 Survivor Series rather than following that up with any sort of big moment. He won it for the team. They didn't do nothing. He he had lost his steam, lost the heat, got it back for that Survivor Series team and they didn't do nothing with it. They didn't do nothing. I'm like, okay, Dolph is the guy again and they didn't do nothing. Dolph, they brought the authority back and fired Dolph in kayfabe a month after his triumph. It should have been you, Dolph. It should have been you. Number six, Zack Ryder in 2011. Woo, woo, woo. You blew it, bro. A format Cardona was the self-anointed King of the Indies. Zack Ryder was the internet fans champion, quite literally in fact. Look at him with his internet championship. At the start of 2011, Zack Ryder was comfortably the bottom of the WWE roster totem pool. Ryder then took to YouTube and Twitter with his show Z True Long Island Story which got steadily more and more popular until fans campaigned for him to be featured regularly on TV. He actually did the thing. WWE always calls for their stars to do, get themselves over, make their own offer. He legit got, I think in my opinion, I think he goes down as the pioneer and the only person I know in WWE history that got over on YouTube. I remember watching it. I was like, who is this guy? And I started watching it and it was, he would have funny little skits like push me Vince. Like it worked, but Vince didn't like that shit. And I was like, bro, he got over on himself. He took social media because WWE, I believe they were on YouTube, but they weren't really pushing it. He took that and made it his own. He went out that to me, if I'm an owner of a wrestling company and I'm not really too to verse with social media, but you were to able to get yourself over through social media, that's initiative. Oh, shit. Oh, okay. All right. Let me see what you got. Let me see if it's real. And it was. Tunities and grab the brass ring, except they don't actually want that. That is a lie. Ryder managed to win the United States title at TLC 2011, but lost it in short order before being the biggest victim of John Cena's asshole nature, stealing Zack's girlfriend and then striking him while Zack was getting pushed off stages in wheelchairs. They barely know. Not exactly the main event pushed WWE fans were clamoring for. The magic was gone for Ryder after this as he went back to being routinely beaten into powder by the actual stars that WWE were interested in promoting. Number five, the Nexus in 2010. Lord above, John Cena does not come out of this list looking good, does he? No, he doesn't. Yeah, it turns out that when WWE was looking to waste one of their white hot stars, beating them to John Cena was their go-to move. In the case of the Nexus, their debut was the high point of Raw in 2010, giving WWE their big summertime angle. Wade Barrett and his band of married men were due for a major win at Summerslam, but John Cena quite literally said, that doesn't work for me, brother. The Nexus went from being the biggest invading force WWE had had since the invasion to John Cena's verbal punching bags in one night. Cena beat them decisively at Summerslam and then went on Raw the next night, calling them names, comparing them to fast food mascots and he may as well have looked right down the lens of the camera and told WWE fans never to take these men seriously again. And really, they didn't. The Nexus storyline went down as one of the biggest missed opportunities in the company's history and it didn't have to be this way. No, it could have just beaten Cena at Summerslam. Yeah. Why, why was that so hard? Don't know. Number four, the Fiend in 2019. For the first match of a new character, you can't ask for a much better showing than the Fiend's match with Finn Balor at Summerslam 2019. I would know. I was there. The Fiend's invincibility worked perfectly into this one-sided debut match and a strong win and bone-chilling entrance combined for a great introduction for a new and intriguing top star on Raw. That shit was great. His intro was sick. His appearance was sick. One of the moves, it looked like he literally broke Finn Balor's neck. He just, I was like, oh my God, this was great. And then we have him in the cell. Then WWE decided to immediately book him in a Universal title match that they didn't want him to win. Why did they do this? So I can't tell you because I don't know. This was WWE in 2019 after all, not the time in which they were making their smartest decisions. Hell in a Cell 2019 was the site of maybe the worst main event in WWE history. That's effectively killing off the runs of Seth Rollins, the Fiend, the Hell in a Cell stipulation and pretty much all interest in the main event scene of Raw. A terrible feud with the Miz and a speedy loss to Goldberg did not help matters for all Fiendy Pops, but it further proved that WWE really didn't have a plan for their new top star after the first night. Number three, Daniel Bryan in 2018. How is it possible that WWE took a returning Daniel Bryan, the biggest potential babyface star they could ever ask for in 2018, fresh off a two year retirement and put him in a months long feud with Big Cass. Daniel Bryan being able to wrestle again was a dream come few for wrestling fans of all walks of life and it would have required great restraint not to simply put him in the main event of WrestleMania 34 and win the universal title immediately but hot dog did they ever go in the opposite direction. Instead, Bryan teamed up with Shane McMahon in the second best McMahon tag match of the night to face Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn on paper, a good pairing. But the match started with an attack from the heels, taking Bryan out of the match until the finish and taking the air out of the building. But again, one match to ease Bryan back in understandable. Why they then chose Big Bill to be Bryan's next feud? I will never know. Bryan's momentum continued to slow throughout the year with an underwhelming feud with the Miz before only reaching the top of the card again by turning heel. And that was crazy because they really had something but they didn't capitalize. Granted, I do say him turning heel really, you know, it was it was something fresh, something new and I enjoyed his heel turn. It was definitely something different. I've been very much enjoyed it and then we ended up getting Kofi Mania in the process of it. But at the time, you would have thought this should have been one of the this the yes movement is back. They didn't really capitalize on it. They were still hung up on Roman Reigns and everything else involving him and stuff. So the biggest possible baby face forced to turn heel and or should be booked well. Yeah, for shame. Wwe number two, CM Punk in 2011. Now, I know there will be people who will be quick to say that CM Punk on a 434 day title reign out of his 2011 and you would be right. However, it is impossible to look at the summer of Punk's circa 2011 as the success that it should have been. Yeah, after the all time classic Money in the Bank main event that saw CM Punk high tail it out of Chicago with the WWE Championship in hand. He was the biggest deal Wwe had had in a very long and then Wwe followed that up by closing up their next four straight pay reviews with CM Punk having been pinned and beaten by the time he won the Wwe Championship back at Survivor Series. The uptick in interest caused by CM Punk's pipe bomb and subsequent title win had all but depleted. It was supposed to be the summer of Punk. Instead, it was about the three weeks of Punk before WWE's terrible booking tendencies reared their ugly heads. Seriously, what part of that Money in the Bank program screamed this needs more Kevin Nash to y'all baffling stuff, but not as baffling as number one Cody Rhodes in 2023. Oh, this is going to be a good one. Now, I will preface this one by saying that there is still time for Cody Rhodes to be saved following his WrestleMania 39 master Roman Reigns. However, boy, was that ever the right time to pull the trigger. I watched the closing sequence of Owens hitting the stunner, Sammy hitting the Huluva kick, Cody hitting the Bionic elbow and Crossroads. And you can argue about adversity all you want, but I don't know that you will ever find a more perfect ending to the Roman Reigns run of dominance than that moment. Cody Rhodes was white hot, peaking at the perfect moment and WWE elected not to pull the trigger out. There is still every chance that it could pay off in the long run, but given that Roman isn't scheduled to work backlash. It really does sort of feel like stat patting at this point. Yes. And attempt to get him to a thousand days as champion. Yes. A stat that didn't need to be padded at the sacrifice of the story being told. Facts. Cody may stay as over as he had been. Hell, Sammy got a big moment for himself at WrestleMania after everything was said and done. But the main event of WrestleMania 39 as of this moment does unfortunately feel like one of the biggest waste of a white hot star in WWE history. And that's our list. I most agree. I am in total agreeance. It makes sense. I'm sorry. I know some people think Roman should know. I am still going to be one of those people. They they are only doing it to stat pad. They're stat patting so he can get to a thousand days. Yes, it will be something we'll never see ever again. But granted 900 and whatever days it is now is still something we'll never see probably in our lifetime. And you had someone that was white hot and you didn't capitalize for whatever reason you didn't capitalize. It may happen that SummerSlam I'm going to be honest with you unless this story ramps up even more. I just don't see it being the same as if you were the one at WrestleMania this year. That's just my personal opinion on it. But comment down below. Let me know which what's another wrestler you felt like had a they were, you know, white hot at one point and WWE should have pulled the trigger but they didn't. Let me know down below if they weren't on this list. But I appreciate all level support Road to 150K and I'm still young speedy YouTube rest of the world. Appreciate talking to me. See you on the next one. Peace.